BARRAGE 2016 Report: The HAWKs' 2-Day Wargame Con

    My wargame club, the HAWK's , took a big step this year, and decided to increase their usual single-day gaming event, BARRAGE, to a 2-day event this year.  With about double the upfront cost, we hoped that, to paraphrase the famous movie line; "if we built it, they would come".  As it turned out, we were not disappointed; because by all indications we had a near record crowd!
     Here's a photo report of the weekend.  We want to thank all he gamers and gamemasters who came out and took part, making it the great success that it was!

A view of the main hall on Friday afternoon.

I ran two sessions of Frostgrave on Friday.  This was the first one, that afternoon.  We had six different wizards battling it out in the frozen city.

A view of the large three way battle that raged around the viaduct during the first game.  In the end we had a tie for winner, with two of the wizards scoring 240 experience points.

This was a view of the second Frostgrave game I ran Friday evening.  Once again I had 6 wizards vying for treasure and glory.

A view of the game-long battle aboard the ship hulk between the Enchanter's forces and the Chronomancer's.  In this game the victor managed to score 300 experience points.

Here is a view of the main hall Saturday morning.

A shot of Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol game on Saturday morning.

One of the initiatives this year was to schedule a bunch of kids games, and encourage kid attendees. Here is a look at Chris Johnson's Kid's ACW game, No Retreat, No Surrender.  

Another one of the Kid's Games being run Saturday was Peter Schweighofer's Valley of the Ape game.

    A perennial favorite of the crowd, a hit with both young and old, is Rich Heffner's Aerodrome 1.1 games.

We also had well attended Flames of War Tournaments running both Friday and Saturday.

A shot of Ed Watts' The Yellow Submarine Caper game

A new addition this year was Gamemaster Emril Genscher who ran short 1 to 2 hour tabletop games for folks who had a little time to kill between their miniatures events. 

We also had a well-attended L'Art De La Guerre tournament on Saturday.

Another annual tradition that has become a big part of BARRAGE is the Saturday night pizza dinner.

Philip Gardocki's Battle of Pelennor Fields game was a beautiful spectacle to see.

A shot of Rebels battling Imperial Stormtroopers in Greg Priebe's Star Wars game using modified Combat Patrol rules.

Then after the con was over it was time for the club's annual late-night Pirate LARP using modified Blood & Swash rules.  

A shot of the LARP in mid-action.  The goal was to get a treasure chest full of gold-foil chocolate coins out of the doors of the convention hall.  Much hilarity and good times were had by all!  In the end, my wife Jennifer won and will be the reigning Pirate Queen for the coming year. 

   
For a whole Flickr album of photos taken by Buck and Candy Surdu, please see: BARRAGE ALBUM

 See you all at BARRAGE 2017!