"Little Wars was great" Topic

Friday was a little light, as usual, but I got to play in two games I wanted. One was a very enjoyable Napoleonic skirmish game, It's a Dry Cold, where everyone got into the spirit of things and we had a lot of fund starving and freezing to death in order for the Emperor to escape. We played French units of 6 to 10 men and random Cossacks, Russian Infantry, and wolves showed up along the way. I managed to get Ney killed defending the Emperor (ta-da!). The GM commented 'Now Napoleon will win Waterloo!' I also played a Napoleonic naval game with some beautiful ships (people kept coming buy to take their picture) but it suffered from a French commander who didn't understand that it was a game and ran away rather than engaging the British because he could 'win' if he did that. And then he complained when he didn't get the medal! Saturday was well attended, as anyone could tell from the warmth and humidity of the gaming area. I played a great Quatre Bras/Ligny game in 6mm and finished up the evening as El Burrito Grande in Mike Murphy's 'The Lost Treasure of Chile Verde.' It's a Pulp Action game and I highly recommend his games if you like to role play grade B movie scenarios. Although Mike will gladly admit they are more like grade C or D movies. After two days I was done in and went home. I am looking forward to the new venue

Any pic?
C

Ahh, sadly, no. Forgot the camera and I suck at using the phone camera, never get what I think. I know, I know, I'm a tease and an idiot.

I'll try and post some tomorrow. There are a bunch posted on the HMGS-Midwest Facebook page from various attendees. More should be up on the HMGS-Midwest webpage soon as well.

We played in both child games and had a great time. Aliens on Friday and X-wing on Saturday. The kid earned a medal and had a lot of fun. I spent about what I planned in the vendor area, but opposite of what I planned to get. Lots of new goodies. I'm also looking forward to the new venue but now that we did some exploration of St. Charles (some unplanned) we'll miss it a bit. The ice cream at the Colonial Cafe was a a nice treat for the weekend and pizza at Charlie Fox's. My wife commented on the number of kids playing and the fun they were having, kudos to the LW planners for getting those games in and the judges for running them. A good time all around. I was going to try and get in Murphy's game but it was all booked up; so we got in another day of swimming and relaxing.

AS soon as I recover somewhat I plan on posting a bunch of pics on the facebook page as well.

I ran my Game three times "Death of the Red Martian" it went over very well and had some players that played in all three games. While I had it listed as 8 players, had 16 in the first game and another 16 in the second game. Ran a smaller version on sunday and had 6 players. All seemed to enjoy.

This was an off year for me. Due to a change of plans I couldnt make it down Friday. We ended up leaving home early Saturday morning instead. My buddy and I were signed up for the morning flea market and had to hustle to get set up when we arrived. I did ok at the flea market. As we were packing up we were offered a deal on two tables in the evening session that ran from 6 to 9pm. No problem I thought. I had a game scheduled from noon to 4pm. so that would kill some time while we waited for the evening flea market.

We went and got a quick lunch and got back in time for my game. Unfortunately my game was cancelled which left me with little to do for six hours.

This was the first year I didnt come home with four bags full of stuff. I just didnt see much that interested me in the dealer hall. There were things I could have bought but as I didnt bring much spending money and didnt do as well as I liked at the flea market I decided to hold off on some purchases.

We killed a little time getting a nice meal at a Thai restaurant that was just down the road. We got back in time to set up for the afternoon flea market. There were only four groups of people selling. I wasnt sure how it was going to go and was regretting staying for the late market. Boy was I wrong. I ended up making three times as much at the late flea market than the morning. I sold two thirds of what I brought down. I even sold some weird niche items that I thought would never sell. I dont know what to attribute the increase to. Maybe folks didnt find what they wanted in the dealer hall and had money to burn. Maybe it was because it was the last flea market and the urge to impulse buy kicked in. Maybe it was due to marking my items down a little. In any case I was very happy.

So no games played. Little money spent and going home with a pocket full of cash. All in all a weird year for me.

I did see some great looking games. I saw at least three All Quiet On The Martian Front games that looked like a blast. I was tempted to pick up the rules but I decided I need another gaming period like I need another hole in the head.

Im looking forward to the new venue. Im hoping it will draw more people and in turn more vendors.

Thanks to all the staff and volunteers that put the convention together.

I cant wait for next year.

Don't worry Chuck, Clare eyeballed up the All Quiet box deal and yep, I grabbed one. She was really interested in the Sergeants game so I got a nice deal on that also along with A&A 1914 for her.

I played (and ran) Sergeants, D-Day Dice and X-wing.

Hey Striker, my son & I were in that X-Wing game as well (my son was the "scum" who changed sides). What were you flying?

Generally positive but a bit of a mixed bag. As in the past I was only able to go for Saturday during the daytimeWe ran a 28mm scale mech a game for the third year in a row. Got great interest and had enough of a waiting list that we could almost have run the game twice. (maybe next year…) .

On the other hand, the Saturday morning flea market was 2 hours earlier than last year and half as interesting and I just didn't find as much to love in the dealer section. I dropped half-or-less as much $ as I have in the past. Buying and bargain hunting is one of my favorite parts of a convention, so that was something of a let-down.

Still, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and while it had at first seemed a bit low in numbers, by midday it was plenty full of happy gamers.

The morning flea market hours werent great. They were earlier and one hour shorter. The hours were due to concerns from the vendors. They didnt want to have to compete with the flea market which is understandable.

I was in the little brown and purple mercenary ship and my daughter was running the TIE advanced. Sitting on the right side end of the table from you, trying not to go gunning for Maverick for "testing his blasters" in my direction.

LOL! You were the other "scum" my son tried to talk into switching sides! That was a fun game. We have some X-Wing stuff but it never seems to hit the table…

Jeff Billings told me he sold a copy of Sergeants to someone whose daughter instantly appropriated it. Hope you both enjoy it!

The games that I ran were well received. Two All Quiet on the Martian Front games. They were listed for 8 players but I had 16 players in both games. So I ran another game on Sunday and had another 6. All seemed to have a good time. I had a few that played in all three games.

There were a lot of games that looked amazing. One of my favorite parts of a convention are to see what others do, and what ideas I can get to improve my own game.

We ran the preliminary numbers and looks like the convention did very well. Attendance was up, probably the highest in the past 5 years. Game submission was up as well. The Vendors that I talked with seemed happy and did well. There are about 6 new vendors we are looking to bring to Little Wars next year.

In a few weeks we should have a video completed by some students from Wheaton Academy, they did one for us last year. They also did a video interview with Uncle Duke.

One thing that surprised me was so little feedback on the free figure provided to us by Blue Moon.

Chuck,
I completely understand the Vendor's concerns, but neither the vendor are nor the flea market took long to get through.

Had a great game on Saturday night….We were the one's screaming "Viva Meh-hee-co!" in the room….

The "Arriba Arriba!" came from Streitax….

Flea market Saturday morning was a little off but I heard it was better Sat. evening…

I think the cold wet Saturday weather may have had something to do with attendance that day. It was just dang chilly….

I'll be writing up a long review with lots of pictures here in the next day or so….

I'll be there next year….running 1 possibly 2 games…

Ah, now I know what those loud shouts were Saturday night! I was playing in Tom Harris' Mars Needs Steam game with VSF French fighting the British, Dutch-Belgians, and Prussians at Waterloo in 1889 (and yes, the Lion's Mound was included on the ridge by Hugomount).

It's always hard to tell attendance. This is the first year I didn't buy anything at the Flea Market (only ducked in once) and I bought relatively little from the vendors.

Had a good time gaming and played in more games than in any previous Little Wars, including a Sunday game. Had several good chats with George Knapp. He is a long term game host at LW and specializes in simple, quick playing games with minimal frills in terrain. Has done a lot of parent-child games. This year he did "Not Your Grandfather's Waterloo." I suspect a lot of folks walked by it with nary a glance as the playing surface was hexagons meticulously drawn on a canvas type fabric with small cut out trees and some really, really nice 10 mm scale buildings – all scratch built years a go by one of George's friends. What made this game of such interest was it was simple and could play to a conclusion in under two hours, yet no two games came out the same even with identical starting positions. I played it three times over two days, twice on the French side and once on the British. First time I [played, I was the French and simply rushed the center of the Anglo-Allied line with all the French forces I could muster. And got my rear end handed back to me on a platter. Second time I gambled on Blucher being a bit late in entry and hooked to the French right, cracked the ridge line, and occupied one of the three sets of victory hexes on the board. Third time I was British and staved off a nearly successful French assault that was less impetuous than the one I made, but that failed to take full advantage of a simple mistake I made early. Simply put I felt this was one of the finest convention games I'd ever played it. It reminded me strongly of a mix of the original SPI Napoleon at Waterloo introductory board game and Volley & Bayonets.

@Murphy: The Saturday flea market only had four groups selling stuff and they were all selling leftovers from the morning session. I had two tables shared with a friend of mine. We both did a lot better in the evening session than we did in the morning even though we were selling the same stuff form the morning session. I think people during the morning session were waiting to see what was in the vendor hall before they spent money in the flea market.

I couldn't talk my buddies into going this year because of the way the Flea Market was changed. When we got there last year the flea market had been closed already and we were leaving before it would reopen. They also didn't like paying $25 USD dollars to just look around and shop.

I was hoping to see the paint and take area this year. It would have been a nice way to kill some time. I saw lots of young kids milling about with nothing to do who could have spent some time learning how to paint.

My son was disappointed at the missing paint & take as well.

The paint and take has been gone for several years now. If someone was willing to start it up again it will return.

RE: free figure. I love it!!!! It's always nice to receive something unique to a con. And I've been informed that by my daughter that her figure is better than mine.

As a vendor part of my concern was not competing with the flea market, but being able to _go_ to the flea market.

Yes, I'd rather not compete with it, don't get me wrong.

Trying to close up shop at the end of the dealer day as the evening flea market session opens, on the other hand was very cumbersome. I'd like a chance to participate in the deal getting and it's not really viable to just walk away from my booth and all the stuff a quarter of an hour before dealers close to get into line.

However, all that said – if HMGS wants to run the flea market concurrent with the dealer room, I'll live. It is a little bit of a bite in the butt competing with it, however having a more active and popular flea market is probably a better thing for the convention as a whole though.

Rodger Kruse will be taking over as Vendor Manager, I have no doubt that he will be in contact with each vendor and I trust they share with him what they feel we do well and where we can improve.

The flea market is always popular….I know I like to bring stuff and sell it off, gives me more cash to spend in the vendor area.

The vendors are very important to the convention and we strive to have a balance that works best for all concerned.

Friday: Battle of Horsell Commons, Martian Empires, Sci Fi
Thank you Mr. Paul Petri for accepting an inexperience player and my opponent across the table for not being able to activate multiple times due to bad rolls. Beautiful terrains and excellent painting of the Brits.

Saturday: The Original Game of Thrones, DBA, Ancients
parent-child game
Thank you Mr. Bill Hupp and friend for accepting a walk-on. Absolutely beautiful flags and figures. I highly recommend this as an introduction game. I did not know DBA either, but Mr. Hupp did a nice job explaining.

Saturday: The Hill, Sagrajas, October 23, 1086
Lion Rampant, Medieval
Like the other games, the figures and terrains were superb. Mr. Nick Stock was very organized and concise in his explanations. Although I would like to claim a "dispatch decoy then destroy" strategy, I must admit to beginner's luck. My apologies to Mr. Terry Miller -- I mistakenly formed a Schiltron when I had only 4 figures instead of the required 6. Thank you Mr. Stock for a fantastic game and I hope you come back next year. I think you recommend Maurice to me so please consider running a Maurice game next Little Wars.

This was my first miniature convention ever and I had a great time. Everyone was welcoming and accepting of female gamers. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for an enjoyable time.

"RE: free figure. I love it!!!! It's always nice to receive something unique to a con. And I've been informed that by my daughter that her figure is better than mine."

Striker, if your daughter would like to test her Viking Shield Maiden, I would be more than happy to bring a Saga game for her -- just as a pick up game at the next Little Wars. Perhaps Viking raid of a Saxon chapel. Protect her father in the Heorot Great Hall?

I am told that Old Glory is thinking that maybe next year's figure will be another Viking figure. This way you can start to build a unit.

It very well may be another Viking figure, and that you will get both the Viking Shield Maiden figure & the new figure next year.

Is the Old Glory/Blue Moon Viking Shield Maiden – Alaisiagae?

I posted this on my Little Wars scenario in another thread.

TMP link

Bill

who is Alaisiagae

I'm sorry I didn't mean to change the thread. Alaisiagae -- Germanic female deities during Roman Britain known as Fimmilena and Friagabis. Three individuals named the Old Glory/Blue Moon figure upon seeing her, but they all called her by a different name, hence, I was unsure.