Hurricon 2022 Photo Report: A Bit Late...

It has been several months since my last post, which was photos from HMGS-South's Recon 2022 convention. I thought I had deleted the photos in this post, but last night I found them squirreled away. Ironically, my son and I are heading down to Recon 2023, where I’ll be taking many more photos than before. (They should be better because I reset my camera after I took these.) Even though we live in Seminole County, we’ll be staying at the hotel for the first time, so we have games booked in every block from Thursday night through Sunday morning. I think Jeremy and I are only playing one game together, on Sunday morning.

Oh yeah. Recon will also be a special time for us. Friday is my 60th birthday! I cannot believe it. We're tossing a party Sunday afternoon at one of the Disney World resorts.

As always, I love to hear from fellow gamers and enthusiasts. Please post your thoughts and ideas in the Comments below.

Warmaster: A quick update. Today, I downloaded the new version of Warmaster Revolution, which was posted yesterday, and the latest Army lists. Earlier this week, I began reworking the Empire set to bring it back in line with the size of other “figures,” such as the High Elves. This has been bugging me for ages. I also bought several packs of Pendraken 10mm for an Empire army—more on that later. Onto the Hurricon pics!

Warpaint hosted by Jim Riley

Jeremy and I played a large 25mm game of Warpaint hosted by Jim Riley. I played on the Apache side.

Figures were mostly Foundry. Here is the settlement we Apaches are going to raid.

The cavalry players strategize how to head off our Apache attack and reach the settlement before we do. A word of advice: Don't dismount at the first sign of Apaches on the hills. Just charge though toward the ranch. ;-)

I loved the rolling hills.

Rob Hall Memorial Game

Bill Moreno setting up the game. I hope Bill is doing better. He and his son are so nice, and it's a pleasure gaming with them

The Rest of the Photos

Trailer Park Warlords of the Apocalypse.

My gang of 3 mutated critters. These are 3D printed.

I always wanted to paint and build a winter game. This was an amazing table.

A game of ALdG. I have the rules, but Warmaster keeps pulling at me.

I enjoy how HMGS-South has a varied mix of historical, pulp, fantasy, and sci-fi. They even had large Battletech and Battlefleet Gothic games. No 6mm EpicArmageddon, another game I always wanted to do.

Love this Fantasy Trip set-up.

To the Strongest: War of the Roses in 15mm

On Saturday afternoon April 23 at HMGS-South's Recon 2022, I sat down for a "Learn to play To the Strongest" game hosted by Daniel Moreno and Curt. (Sorry, Curt, but I can't your last name!) The scenario was a generic version of Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses, using the army lists in the Medieval Army List supplement and 15mm Peter Pig miniatures.

Before the Battle
Below are a couple photos taken before the game began. I took the first photo while checking out the tables for the 2pm games. I didn't expect to play To the Strongest that day. For a while now, I've owned the base rules and supplements. I looked over them but had never played them.

On the left is the Tudor army led by Henry Tudor. On the right is the York army led by Richard III. This is the pre-game setup.

It looked like I was the only player for the game, so Curt was going to play Henry Tudor. I played York. We used the card deck to decide who would go first. After that, we used the chits Simon sells for the game.

The Miniatures
All the miniatures are from Peter Pig's War of the Roses line. These were Curt's figures. I only have Peter Pig's WWII figures. For years, I have looked at the WoR range online but had never seen them in person. I love them. BTW this Recon had a wide variety of miniature sizes: 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 1/72, 28mm, 40mm, and 54mm. Wow! The mat is from Simon's BigRedBat web store.

The York Army
Below are some photos and stats for the York army. I took close-up photos of the York army lists that Curt made, but forgot to take photos of the Tudor army lists. These armies played nicely against each other and were easy to command. Jeremy and I took shots of Richard's army, but I forgot to take close-up photos of Hastings and Norfolk.

A close-up of Richard III's battle on the right wing. (Taken by Jeremy.)

Here is the entire Richard III army. These PP figs look awesome!

Sorry these are out of order.  Lord Norfolk's army list in the Center.

King Richard III's army list on the Right.

Lord Hastings' army list on the Left.

The Tudor Army
Below are photos of the Tudor army. Another fellow joined the game. Since he had played TtS before, Curt came over to my side. Below are some close-up photos.

Henry's army, which sat directly across from my Richard III. It would be a close run thing between these two armies!

The Game Begins
After some basic rules teaching, we began the game. Daniel Moreno handled the rules, which he loves doing. Curt provided strategy tips to me and controlled Richard's army. Instead of cards, both sides used the Chits of War official chits from the BigRedBat store. At the request of the new player (sorry, can't recall his name!), we used alternating activation instead of I-go-you-go. Being my first game, I'm uncertain if this was good or bad. Curt and Dan felt it worked well.

We're getting stuck in now!

What a Slog!
All the armies got off to a decent start--kind of. All six armies (or whatever they are called) had no problem activating. Sadly, my Hastings army, which held the center, just sat in place for at least three turns, blowing its activation every time. Sigh. Eventually, the game got going. After two hours, we ended it. It was close. I lost by a squeak. Sorry, Richard!

My Thoughts
I like rolling dice and missed doing that. Dice feel dramatic to me. That being said, I liked To the Strongest overall. We did a game in two hours. That was nice. I did have a problem with the chit pulling (or card flipping). I found myself card counting. It drove me nuts. But I'm sure I can overcome that.

I think using alternating army/battle activation messed with the chit pulling odds as a turn progressed. I have to see what others think about this.

In the end, I didn't come away wanting to play To the Strongest again as soon as possible. I was just glad to end the game. It was a slog, with lots of sound and fury from the players but signifying not much happening due to constant bad chit pulls. I need to study the rules. We knew we accidentally played some important rules wrong. It always happens. I have to wrap my head around the grid system more. Would I turn down a game of TtS? No. Would I seek out a game of TtS? Not sure.

Oh yeah, and now I'm hooked on the War of the Roses, which has been a favorite of mine since middle school. Look out!

Rapiercon 2014: Flames of War Tournament

Goodbye 20mm WWII -- We Hardly Knew Ye
Some of you probably noticed that several weeks ago I was posting about leaving 15mm WWII skirmish gaming for 20mm WWII skirmish gaming. I had purchased a platoon of 20mm AB Americans and had begun painting them. Overall, they were nice figures. Surprisingly, I hated painting them! I realized that I would rather be painting 28mm figures, where I can really have fun painting detail on a small number of figures, or painting 15mm or smaller figures, where I don't have to worry about details and can paint with more speed while still feeling good about my work. 20mm just was the worst of all worlds for me.

When we got back to Rapiercon late in the afternoon, we stumbled upon the Flames of War tournament in a corner of the con hotel. I don't play FoW, but was excited to see all the 15mm game tables. They were a great inspiration for my skirmish gaming. Of course, earlier in the day I had taken all my miniatures and games back to our hotel down the road. Now I could have used my Peter Pigs to see how they compared to the various buildings other than my Landmark buildings, which are smaller true 1:100 scale. Oh well. Such is life!

The fellows we spoke with in the FoW room were friendly, happily chatting about the various buildings on the tables and FoW gaming. Jeremy lamented that we didn't play FoW because we probably would have had fun playing (and most likely losing to) most of the fellows there. I knew he was right. It felt like a whole different con in that room.