Historicon 2014 Friday Night Report

Jennifer and I arrived at Historicon Friday afternoon, and after checking into our hotel, we headed over to the Expo center to register for the con, visit the HAWKs club room, and unload our gaming stuff.  Luckily, the table for my evening game, the Battle of Five Armies using "Bear Yourselves Valiantly" rules,  was open; so I was able to enjoy a leisurely set up, and then break for dinner in plenty of time to be all ready for the start time at 7:00 PM.

The Battle of 5 Armies begins.  The ruins of Dale can be seen in the center of the table, and the Lonely Mountain over on the right corner.

  The game got off to a good start, and I was lucky to have a couple of fellows who had played in James 'Tank' Nickle's Rome vs Carthage game on Thursday using the same rules, so they were familiar with the game mechanics and were able to help the other players.
   The battle, using 10mm figures, is from the book "The Hobbit", and features armies of Men, Elves and Dwarves, facing off against forces of Goblins and Wargs for control of the Lonely Mountain and the wealth it contains.

Goblin hordes advancing.

   Though the allied armies initially found themselves hard pressed, the Goblins found the dice were not their friend and they had trouble successfully making a number of key dice rolls that eventually led to their defeat.  First one, then three of the Goblin forces retreated, and at that point we called it a night.
    All the players said they had a great time, though as a GM it's always hard to see one side's luck turn south.

The men of Laketown find themselves facing a mass of Goblins.

At the same time, Buck Surdu and Dave Wood were running a 10mm Napoleonic battle, the Battle of Mincio River 8 February 1814, using "Fate of Battle" rules.

Dave Wood (in blue shirt on left) and Buck Surdu (in blue shirt on right) brief the rules to the players.

Players decide their next move as Buck Surdu looks on.

Also being run Friday night was Geoff Graff's 6mm Russian Front WWII game using "Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII" rules.

Geoff Graff, in blue shirt, looks on as one of the player Dave Schlegel prepares to roll the dice.

 On another table, Bill Acheson was also running a WWII  game, set during D-Day,  featuring much larger 54mm figures.  He was using the under-development "G.A.M.E.R." rules written by Buck Surdu, an featuring an innovative card activation and combat system.

Bill Acheson, standing, running his D-Day game, "H -6 Hours"

And in the middle of the figure scale, Don Hogge was doing WWII with 25mm figures and "Battleground WWII" rules in his Panzer Lehr Counterattack game.

Gamemaster Don Hogge, in blue shirt, helps a player during his WWII game.