Name: Historicon 2012

Where: Fredericksburg Expo & Conference Center, Fredericksburg, VA, USA

When: July 19th – 22nd, 2012

 

Mother of All Wargaming Conventions

The venue is right in the middle of a complex which boasts three hotels, either next door or not more than a four-minute walk away. The hotels are the Hampton Inn, the Hilton Garden Inn (which is already totally booked for next year) and Homewood Suites. All are owned by the Hilton Hotel Corporation and, like the convention center itself, all are relatively new, clean and modern. Competitively priced, the staff was quite cheerful and friendly, while the hot breakfast provided was quite good, with: cheese omelets, ham, bagels, Danish and the like. I really found no reason to grab the morning meal anywhere else.

Food at the center was typical in both price and quality, though perhaps with less variety than the Lancaster Host. Not a problem, because no more than a five-minute walk away was Wegman’s, and you didn’t have to risk your life crossing US 30 to get there. So what is Wegman’s? Wegman’s is a VERY upscale grocery story, kinda like what Nieman-Marcus might be to Walmart. It has all the stuff grocers should sell at very competitive prices, but with very ritzy produce, meat and seafood as well. They also have a sushi bar, a wings bar (their Old Bay spiced wings are to die for), a sub shop, a pizzeria, a coffee shop, a salad bar, an Indian bar, an Asian bar, and $6.00 meals made fresh at all times. Heck, they can even get you a Kosher Knish platter because they’ve even got their own Kosher kitchen. It was also nice to have a place where I could easily restock on sundries, such as batteries for my digital snapper; so having this place on site is a very big reason to keep Historicon right here—wonderful.

The convention facility itself was somewhat of a mixed bag, but I’d give it a solid B+. I’m also betting it will only get better. Yes, the concrete floors were hard, the high ceilings amplified the noise and it would have been nice to have an actual bar inside to serve as an evening gathering place. And yes, it did seem—at times—that the facility staff were a bit overwhelmed as regards personal facilities and the like. But given that this was the biggest event they had ever hosted, with a 95% male audience practically camping out, I’ll give ‘em a buy this time around.

 

Dave Bonk from North Carolina always puts on top notch games. Here, a Polish-Ottoman slugfest complete with facility provided libations to support some serious decision making.

On the other hand, the air conditioning was quite effective, something that always seemed to be a problem at the Lancaster Host. Likewise, I thought the convention center was very well laid out, with logically stationed and easy to find gaming rooms; not like the nooks and crannies that seem to ambush you from nowhere, down in Lancaster. It was also very convenient to have all convention activities under one roof, on one floor, with no need to hustle up and down stairs or to go outside and brave the elements. Plus, the place seems to have lots of room to grow; so that’s an advantage as well. Given that the cost for the society was half that of Valley Forge, a tidy profit is anticipated.

I came down from Pennsylvania with my good friend Iain Stanford, who flew over from England to attend the convention, as well as do a little site seeing (we took in Manassas Battlefield Park on the drive back home). He joined me for the two games I hosted, and even took in one of the two painting seminars I gave for folks who need to deploy lots of troops quickly—but with the troops still looking good. My two games shared a common battlefield near the town of Chiari in Northern Italy, and both games used either my own Age of Honor (an Age of Reason variant for Rich Hasenauer’s popular Fire & Fury American Civil War rules) or its upcoming sister expansion module, Age of Valor.

The first game was purely historical and covered the engagement fought in the vicinity in 1701 between Austria’s Prince Eugene of Savoy and France’s—dumb as a brick—Marshal Villeroi (being the King’s drinking buddy I’m sure had nothing to do with his appointment). The second engagement used the same table but this time put the forces of Austria and France against each other, in 1859 during the Second War of Italian Independence. The latter game was actually a playtest and semi-historical in that: though the forces depicted marched all around this area, they never came to blows. Both games ended the same way, the French being severely spanked, quite in accordance with the 1701 outcome. In both games the cassines (fortified farms and mills) gave the French fits; and since this negated their Minie rifles and rifled artillery advantage in the 1859 game, the casualty counts seemed a bit low to some players. I think we’ll try this latter one again, but without the cassines, before we tweak the charts.

 

Some images from my two games.

 

Shop 'til You Drop

The rest of the convention was spent socializing, taking digital pictures and shopping til I dropped: probably the only time I ever have the stamina of my wife when she goes on a retail therapy rampage. Some vendors didn’t make it this time around. But others, such as Karl Kruger with the Last Square from Wisconsin way, who could not get to King of Prussia, returned to take my money. Once again, I shied away from new figures as I already have enough lead in the basement to protect my family from several nuclear winters. Instead, I picked up Field of Glory Napoleonics direct from Osprey at a $ 10.00 discount, all the better to do an upcoming wargamer.com review with. Unfortunately, there were no games using this system at the con, so I could not get images of a game in progress. I also picked up a plentiful restock of paints, to include the very hard to find Ral-Partha hues that I like to use. Typically, I also buy a boatload of terrain from Doug Kline’s Battlefield Terrain Concepts. I swear, I must keep that guy in business with what I buy from him three times a year.

 Christmas in July at the Dealer Hall.

Then came the worst part of the convention: taking pictures. The reason it’s so much of a downer is that I invariably snap photos of game masters who obviously have WAY too much free time on their hands—which is my own way of justifying why these guys can paint me under the table. Seriously, there are guys who paint all the battle honors of a regiment on a French tricolor in gold and make it look like embroidery, in 6 mm. This is really scary. Of the games I saw, two things stood out in particular. The first was Paul Delaney’s massive “Charge of the Light Brigade” scenario, right next door to a display of the Russian redoubts and siege lines positioned around Sevastopol. I couldn’t take enough pictures of this thing, and I am still trying to figure out how he made the plaster look exactly like real dirt.

The other notable thing came from the tournament side of the house. Yes, Historicon still has tourneys: Ancients, Renaissance and, of course, the ubiquitous World War II series Flames of War (often maligned and dubbed Flames of Warhammer), you have to give these folks credit. They have always done a super job on the miniature models themselves, but now there seems to be a trend by which they turn their carrying cases into actual dioramas. Impressive, and I like it.

 

Paul Delaney’s efforts and Flames of War.

Now let’s get real. The pictures accompanying this article are too few to do justice to the convention. So, for the brave of heart, you can access 400 images via a Windows Live Skydrive slide show by simply clicking HERE. There is no rhyme or reason to what you’ll see, or why I snapped so many of a particular event. But needless to say, a lot of individuals did some sterling work.

 

In fact, here are just a few of the award winners (I’m sure my absence was mere oversight):

The 2012 Duke Siefried Game Master of the Year Award: Paul Delaney

Best of Show: “Not Men but Demons- The Foreign Legion at Camerone, April 30^th 1863” by Michael Montemarano (28mm Colonial).

Best “Empires at War” Theme Event: “Battle of Churubusco” by Chris Hughes (28mm Mexican War).

‘Pour Encourager Les Autres’ (PELA) Awards: Selected from all historical miniatures events throughout the Convention:

·         “Sweep and Clear” by Jon Lundberg (28mm Modern).

·         “Pea Ridge, December 7^th 1862” by Paul Olszanski (15mm ACW).

·         “Dervish Here, Dervish There, Dervish Everywhere” by Gwyn Reeves (15mm Colonial).

·         “The Shortest War in History: The Anglo-Zanzibari War, August 27^th 1896” by Rick Nance and Bob Giglio (28mm Colonial).

·         “Miller’s Cornfield- Battle of Antietam, September 17^th 1862” by John McConnell and John Wilk (28mm ACW).

·         “Invasion of Peleliu” by Tim Broome (15mm WWII).

·         “Fredricksburg- Courage and Futility, December 13^th 1862” by Bill Moreno and Rob Hall (10mm ACW).

·         “Trouble in Bangalla: African Warlord” by Brad Janicki (20mm Modern).

·         “Saving Gordon’s Privates” series by Bob and Cleo Liebl, Renee and Elliot Gloger, and Mike Byrne (28mm Colonial).

Young Guard Awards: Selected from all miniatures events where children were the target gaming group or that were GM’d by children:

·         “The Alamo- Children’s Game” by Bob Burnham (25mm Mexican War).

·         “Lego Pyramid Adventure” by Ken Frost (Legos Pulp).

HMGS Legion of Honor Battle Stars: A “Recognition Award” selected for achievement by members of the HMGS Legion of Honor: Christin Sciulli for her Victorian Hussar costume for Frank Chadwick’s and Tom Harris’ Space 1889 game, “Aerial Flyers, Canals, and Landrovers” (28mm VSF).

Best Osprey Campaign Series Game Competition: “The Alamo- Children’s Game” by Bob Burnham (25mm Mexican War).

 

In Closing

Congratulations to Convention Director John Drye and his entire staff, and my deepest sympathies . . . errr, I mean very best wishes to Paul Delaney, who will take over the reins next year (obviously being Game Master of the Year went to his head).  It looks like Historicon has stepped back from the abyss, and I look forward to next year. Thanks, gents!

 

Article written by: Colonel (Retired) Bill Gray, Staff Writer

 

 

About Bill Gray

Bill Gray is a retired US Army Military Intelligence colonel, with degrees in history and political science from Clemson University, graduate degrees from USC and the DIA Joint Intel College (he can do M's job). A long time historical wargamer with electrons, cardboard and pewter, his main emphasis remains historical miniatures wargaming. In that regard he has been both an officer and member of the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society for 20 years, having yet to miss an Historicon convention where you will often find him sponsoring games using his own commercially published rules. He also reads voraciously, and paints and paints and paints. Colonel Bill serves as the Institutional Research Director for Central Penn College, and lives near Harrisburg, PA with wife Paula and cat Hillary (he has also heard every Bill and Hillary joke around, so don't even try).

Forum username: ColBill