Historicon 2014, The Big 3-0

I had quite the busy weekend. Historicon 30 took place and I was fortunate enough to be able to go. Although, it didn't work out quite as originally planned. We were going to spend the whole weekend there, starting Friday morning.

Super cool terrain piece. Not exactly historic, though.

It's my busy season at work, so I couldn't actually take off on Friday morning and go down with Casey. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed the Saga tournament, and I'm disappointed by that. I went down Friday night instead, so I didn't miss everything.

There was some kind of madness with registration on Saturday, I spent about an hour in line just to get in for Saturday (and it lasted for a few hours after I got in, too). Because I wasn't sure if I could take off work, I didn't preregister for the weekend. Huge mistake. I ended up missing out on something I wanted to do while waiting in line, and two other events I wanted to do were full by the time I was able to get through the line.

I did get to do a demo for All Quiet on the Martian Front, and wow that was a lot of fun. I was incredibly skeptical at first because it's 15mm. But the game couldn't work any other way. It takes place during the "second Martian war" shortly after the one in HG Wells' War of the Worlds.

What's not to love?

Giant tripod martians? Little tiny, but spunky humans? Yup, this is for me. The starter set is priced at $100, but it comes with a good deal of stuff. It includes a small rulebook, dice, templates, 3 Martian Tripods and an equally pointed set of humans and tanks. I very nearly bought it, but due to money constraints decided to wait a bit (I did just drop $125 on Stormclaw).


There was a really huge game that went on later in the day. There were about 10 people on either side, humans and Martians. It looked like a ton of fun, although I didn't participate.

As last year, there was so much to see and do. This game was especially cool, you played as 15mm humans, and slowly explored this ant hill. The board was slowly revealed as they went along and, of course, there were also giant ants waiting to eat you.



The vendor booth was a little lacking this year compared to last. Just a few less vendors, including one I was very excited to spend some money with. Same problem with the flea market, although they changed the layout and that was a big improvement. The flea market seemed like it was 70% Flames of War stuff and 30% miscellaneous. Amazingly, I went through both incarnations of it on Saturday and found nothing that I wanted to pick up. I didn't think that was possible.

Eureka Miniatures was there, though, and I very nearly bought a couple Nazis riding dinosaurs. But they were out of the raptor-riding Nazis by the time I made it over there. So, I didn't start my Weird War Bolt Action army. Although, some of Casey's Bolt Action buddies assured me they would definitely be happy to play against them if I did. Despite their best efforts, I have not been converted over to their ranks. I already 'play' too many games that I don't play.

Aside from the crazy long line to get registered, I had another lovely time. Richard was there, too, and we shopped around together while Casey was kicking some WWII butt. It's a pain, but I probably won't be able to plan it out ahead of time for next year either, as I won't know what's going on with work.

I will definitely preregister, because waiting in that line is not going to happen again. But which day I can go down and what games I can play will be entirely last minute. I also missed out on some of the painting seminars again, which is a bummer. I'll have to try again to get in one or two next year.