-From: "David L. Ferris" Subject: Historicon Report Had a wonderful time at Historicon, although I only spent Saturday there. The con seemed to be a bit better organized than usual, although I wasn't running any games so I wasn't dealing with The Organizers first-hand. I was struck by how much more pleasant it was to drive and park in Lancaster than it had been in Philadelphia for Origins the weekend before. Seemed to be a very good crowd there, despite all the complaints that had been going around about Origins being too close on the calendar. Naval wargaming seemed to be the latest big thing, with lots of games going on in several different periods, with as many different rulesets being used as there were games. I really enjoyed watching Nathan Forney (editor of the Naval Wargaming Review) run a Shipbase III game set off Kiska Island in the Pacific in 1942, a real nail-biter that ended in a draw with the US and Japanese both limping away with a few surviving destroyers. Several excellent torpedo attacks in that one, with many critical hits and at least one magazine explosion that I saw. Afterwards Nathan and Scott Fisher ran the new "Close for Action" computer-assist naval rules covering the Napoleonic period, an interesting design. I was in absolute heaven in the vendor room and flea market, as usual. I paid tribute to Avalon Hill by picking up used-but-in-great-condition Luftwaffe and Third Reich for $5 each, as well as SPI #38 (CA) for $10 and DragonQuest for $2 (couldn't pass it up, I sold my original copy 7 years ago). I was amazed at the quality of the buildings for wargaming terrain (available in many scales and for many periods), practically every other vendor stand had some tiny but gorgeous masterpieces representing farm buildings, town dwellings, even factories and warehouses. I picked up another set of the rubber-like roads from Emperor's Headquarters, and while there found something I'd heard about but hadn't seen yet: the amazing little 1/6000th scale WWII naval miniatures from Figurehead in England. The fellow who creates the ships was there as well, and we had a wonderful chat. I bought the entire British, German, French, Italian, and Dutch fleets for WWII, plus a bunch of generic merchant ships, saving the "big ones" (US and Japanese) for next time. It's wonderful to be able to buy each nation's ENTIRE FLEET all in one shot, and fit the whole lot into a small shopping bag. Even if all those ships were available in the more common scales (they're not!) it'd be unthinkable to find all of them in one spot like that, let alone be able to buy them all for such a low price. True, they're not as detailed as the 1/2400 ships, but for the price they're fantastic and I don't have to worry about the gun barrels bending or the turrets falling off! Looking at them, I'm starting to think that perhaps the 1/6000th scale ships are more appropriate for wargaming anyway. Ran into lots of familiar faces (doing 1d12 points of damage) and met some new friends, and all in all it was a great day. Really looking forward to Cold Wars next year. Now, if I can only figure out which Tankbase scenario to run in March... ferns1@aol.com David "Ferns" Ferris ArmourSoft Inc., PO Box 323, Bloomsburg PA 17815 From: Sean Barnett Subject: Re: Historicon Report Reply to: RE>Historicon Report David Ferris wrote: Had a wonderful time at Historicon, although I only spent Saturday there. The con seemed to be a bit better organized than usual, although I wasn't running any games so I wasn't dealing with The Organizers first-hand. I was struck by how much more pleasant it was to drive and park in Lancaster than it had been in Philadelphia for Origins the weekend before. Seemed to be a very good crowd there, despite all the complaints that had been going around about Origins being too close on the calendar. Naval wargaming seemed to be the latest big thing, with lots of games going on in several different periods, with as many different rulesets being used as there were games. I ran one of the other naval games at the con--a 1930s scenario from Hector Bywater's "Great Pacific War" pitting the Japanese battlecruiser squadron, led by the 40,000-ton Amagi (sister ship to Akagi), against the end of the American battleline. The Japanese scored first, sinking the USS Florida under a hail of gunfire about 12 minutes into the battle. The Americans ultimately triumphed, however, when the Amagi moved inside her own immune zone against the 14" guns of the USS Pennsylvania and USS Arizona and was battered into submission by the two superdreadnoughts. The players seemed to enjoy the game, which is the most important thing. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the scheduling/locating of the game caused ultimately by the hotel's mistake in setting up game tables. As a result, the game was moved with little notice to a location different from that shown in the convention program. Games should really not be moved because many players, upon arriving at an empty space, will assume that the referee has merely failed to show up and will thus miss playing a game for which they had registered. This is particularly problematic at Historicon because player registration is limited to one game per day. Other than that, I believe the con *was* well organized and I plan to run games there and at Cold Wars in the future. I also played in and observed a few of the aforementioned naval games. The Command at Sea folks ran a surface engagement between the US and Japanese featuring two Yamato-class and Iowa-class BBs each, and later ran a Japanese air strike against a US carrier battle group at the battle of the Coral Sea. Mark Campbell ran a couple of well attended Close Action age of sail games in addition. Finally, I, too, visited the dealer's room and bought about $75 worth of books and talked to Jim Moffet of GHQ about their upcoming products in their line of 1/2400 scale warships. All in all an enjoyable long weekend. Sean Barnett From: "David L. Ferris" Subject: Re: Historicon Report Sean Barnett writes: >Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the scheduling/locating of the game >caused ultimately by the hotel's mistake in setting up game tables. As a >result, the game was moved with little notice to a location different from >that shown in the convention program. A typical Historicon/Cold Wars referee's horror story. After my first time running games there, I learned that I had to arrive early, scope out the room first thing in the morning to find out if the tables I was supposed to get indeed existed, checked for power outlets if I was going to run computer-assist games, scanned the convention program book carefully to see if they had scheduled anyone else to use the same tables at the same time (or right before or right after), and showed up at the game site with all my gear at least an hour before the game was supposed to start. If anything was amiss, I had to go harass the folks at the scheduling desk as soon as they opened up for business in the morning. They're usually pretty good about fixing problems once the problems are brought to their attention, but they're *never* notice the problems on their own. It's entirely up to the refs to see that their own games run smoothly. > Games should really not be moved because many players, upon arriving at an empty >space, will assume that the referee has merely failed to show up and will thus miss >playing a game for which they had registered. Agreed, but when They Who Assign the Schedule put two games in the same place at the same time in their infinite wisdom, *somebody* has to move. True, it's the schedulers' fault, but the ref and the gamers are the ones who have to put up with the hassles. Another ref's trick is to carry a bunch of blank paper, magic markers, and scotch tape in the Ref's Bag o' Tricks, so impromptu signs can be put up in strategic places to guide bewildered gamers to their newly-moved game sites. ferns1@aol.com David "Ferns" Ferris ArmourSoft Inc., PO Box 323, Bloomsburg PA 17815