Hubs and I originally planned to make a weekend of it, but plans rather dissolved after we discovered our "guests". We've been officially cleared of visitors (yay!), so I almost skipped it to put my house back together and because I knew I couldn't go for the full day. I ended up deciding (with a little cajoling from Hubs) that a half day would be worth the trip.
Despite losing one hour to traffic, I am so very glad I went! Right off the bat, the event is just huge. And no more than five minutes after we got there, we ran into our good friend Richard. We ended up spending most of our time exploring the event together.
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| A pirate game, played across 3 giant tables. |
The longer I was there, though, the more it became apparent that I have little-to-no interest in any games at 15mm or less. While they might be enjoyable systems to play, I'm simply not interested in painting anything that small. That's probably for the best, the last thing I need is to get sucked into another game (but I did anyway).
As generally happens at these sorts of things, the vendor booths tend to get you in trouble. I managed to walk away with just 4 minis (all for under $20), a personal best I think. Richard and Hubs got in a bit deeper. At the Warlord vendor booth, they were running demos of Bolt Action, which they've talked about getting into more than once. They joined in on of the demo games. I really do love when companies run demos for you.
While Hubs and Richard were demoing, I wandered around through the rest of the vendors and came across Crocodile Games. I hadn't heard of them before, but I was instantly captivated by the gorgeous minis they had on display. And when I say gorgeous, I mean both that the sculpts were fantastic and that they were painted to a standard that hits a 10 on my jealousy meter. They were also clearly based in ancient mythology.
When I realized they make Wargods of Aegyptus, I probably should have run away immediately. Hubs has raved about these minis and this game since we met, but has always been sad that no one around here plays it. Well... now I do. I couldn't help myself, I really love ancient mythologies. And they had a bargain bin. I was powerless to stop myself from picking up some Heru models.
Then I found out they recently funded a Kickstarter for Wargods of Olympus, which, dammit, is the coolest thing ever. I got home, checked out their website, and found out they were letting people still pledge for the Kickstarter through Paypal until July 20th, that very day. So... I went in on that. I had seen some of the Demigod sculpts at Historicon, I just didn't know it at the time. They were a-mazing. So I got sucked into two games instead of just one, and at the same booth. Good grief.
I didn't do anything other than walk through the gaming area, the vendors, and Wally's basement (flea market area for non-vendors). There were so many game demos and painting seminars that I missed simply because I wanted to take in as much of everything as possible in my short time there. There were painting seminars on just horses and how to paint faces. These are highly relevant to my interests, but alas, I missed them.
I also missed a demo of Wargods of Aegyptus which really burns me. That would have been great to be a part of, especially now that I am addicted to their models.
Next year, we're definitely going to make it a weekend trip. There's too much going on to do it all in a day, and lots of things only ran once on Thursday or Friday. Making a weekend out of it will also, hopefully, mitigate some of the traffic nonsense involved with traveling from NOVA to Fredericksburg. I recommend you save the date, Historicon 2014 will take place July 17-20th.