Due to some work requirements I wasn’t able to go to the whole convention this year, but I was able to make it up for a day with the boys. We didn’t get in until around noon on Saturday, got a hotel off site and left first thing in the morning. All in all we ended up with about 12 hours of convention time, better than nothing!
The first thing we did was go to the flea market. While I didn’t see anything I had to have this year it wasn’t because of the lighting! HMGS heard our complaints and purchased extra lighting! The extra ceiling lighting belongs to HMGS and will be taken down and brought with us for each show so even if we don’t end up back at the Wyndham it isn’t lost to the hotel. This really is a terrific purchase and I really commend those who made the decision!
We then wandered around and looked at some games. I was glad to see some Sails of Glory action, now that I own a massive collection and a mat I’m even more motivated to play seeing this! I was thrilled to see this Warhammer Fantasy Siege game, I definitely wish I got to play. This castle was incredible!
These are some more games I really liked. If you look at the fourth image you’ll notice the fountain I made last year as a sample piece for a class that sold in the Toys for Tots auction. Nice seeing it get some use! In the third picture you can see a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game based on the Redwall series. My boys got to play in this one and really enjoyed it. It looked terrific, how could they not? Maybe I’ll have them play MESBG with me, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to use those figures!
Hobby University in action. Hobby U was placed in a very small room this year and when it was in full swing it was overly claustrophobic. Of course the team still put on a great show but this location was not conducive to learning. This was the only negative I saw and hopefully it’s rectified at Cold Wars.
This was the Toys for Tots mega piece my group was working on over the last few months. Someone got a steal of a deal as it went for $450! (Yes, this is 28mm for Bolt Action!)
Speaking of Toys of Tots this was the display cabinet for the auction. My brick walls went for $50 and even more surprising for me the shattered tree terrain caused a bidding war and made it up to $130! You never know how these things are going to go, the Waffle House went for $200 and the KFC with Team Yankee minis went for something similar as well!
For dinner we went to Pizzeria Luca, even at 5:00 we needed to sit in the heated outdoor area but it was well worth it!
After dinner we wandered around again. I loved the homebrew game using the Adeptus Titianicus rules, and that homemade Imperator in the middle of the first picture is incredible! My love of old school was rewarded with this massive Man O’War game!
The massive airship game was really cool, it took up almost the whole table. It was clearly a day of huge ships as one of the WNPG crew ran this massive ship combat game. The frigate was stuck aground and needed to have the crew evacuated before it could be lit on fire. I enjoyed the Bolt Action game, the parachutes on the ground were jump off points which is a cool mechanic. I initially though it was a Chain of Command game because of these! The boys got in a game of Stargrave and had a enjoyed playing. I’ve wanted to play this for a while, I’ll have to have them run me through it!
For breakfast we went to the Route 30 Diner. The boys were actually defeated by their pancakes, something I haven’t seen in a long time! It’s a cute little place with solid diner food. It’s a classic prefabricated diner so there wasn’t a ton of room, fortunately, there was room at the counter for us so we got the machines fed quickly before heading home!
While I didn’t find anything I needed to have in the flea market the vendor hall had some things I wanted to pick up. Badger Games had the new Hairfoot Jousting rules and minis so I picked up the rulebook and the Wartnose box set. They didn’t have the Hairfoot box so that’s a future purchase if I like the game! I’ve considered picking up Kill Team for a while, I wanted the Deathguard when they were part of the blind box set and considering I got quite the sale on it I couldn’t pass it up. The Galactic Empire set was on sale for 25% off so that was a must get too. Finally I grabbed the Space Marine Codex because my son wants to play 40k 11th Edition so now I’m ready to rock!
While I only made it for one day of the convention I had a great time meeting with friends and hanging out with my boys. The convention appeared to be well attended and there were a lot of great games. The extra lights in Wally’s Basement were the icing on the cake!
-Wachtmeister
