"Pacificon Game Expo Report" Topic

Just posted up a long post that is picture heavy covering many games from the Pacificon Game Expo that just wrapped up today. Games range from WW2, Renaissance naval, colonial French Foreign Legion, ACW, modern and so on … I've included a few pictures below as a preview, but if you want the full set of eye candy, check the blog post here: link

Some preview pictures:

As mentioned above, TONS more pictures in the blog post … lots of eye candy. I hope you enjoy!

Jay

Great pictures. Thanks

marvellous, some fine work has gone into presenting those game. thanks for posting.

Excellent gaming year in and year out for Northern California….Lots of excellent one of a kind home grown efforts and strong GM support.

Will Strategicon ever get the message in Southern California for GM led miniature gaming? North California won the miniature gaming scene once again.

Strategicon doesn't do this kind of event? What are they doing then?

Thanks all, it was a great con for miniatures. I am also curious about Strategicon, I've never gone myself … just light on miniatures in general or are there more "demo/show"games like the UK cons?

Outstanding pictures! If whoever did the Bridge at Remagen game could get in touch with me would greatly appreciate it. Can message me here if a contributing member and if not if they can post an email would love to find out more about the scenario.

I'm so jealous!

Just wish gamers in my area were motivated to create and host presentations such as these.

At our local con (which will remain unnamed) there's featured tons of "flat-board" miniatures games. Nothing wrong with air, naval, and space games of course, but it seems they're the common fare now in our area.

Ok my jealous rant is off! Back to swooning over what Jay's photographs here of terrific terrain and troops at Pacificon……well done Gentlemen!

Good to see some old friends.

@Marc – drop me a line at sotek486@yahoo.com, I can get u the scenario info.

@FlyXwire – many thanks, we are certainly lucky here when it comes to miniature games :-)

I was at Strategicon this Saturday. A few of us San Diego guys went up to help support the memorial Hail Caesar tourney for Harold Hildebrand. We haven't been up for a few years because the miniatures haven't always been the greatest plus the minis were always put in the darkest corner of the hotel. GMs had to bring their own lamps.

This year was very good though. New hotel, lots of games going on. The Hail Caesar tournament had 16 people which is great for us with old WAB armies. Lots of Lion Rampant games. HMGS-PSW put on a few games. The miniatures definately aren't as big as up north but it seemed to have grown from the last time I was there. It won't take much convicing for us to go back up.

Here are a couple Stratigicon pictures from my clubs picture feed.

link

General club pictures

link

Staying on subject till a new theme thread on TMP.

…Hats off to Kublacon, Pacificon and other conventions in the SF Bay area. They have a winning historical miniature events every year and the positive business proof is the increasing high quality scenario games put on by the veteran GM's, the increasing cash carrying attendance of historical miniature gamers, and the clear evident support given by the volunteer convention staff, giving out a hearty "Thank You" for the GM's logistical efforts.

Thank you Sotek486 for posting your lovely photographs!! Excellent work must be mentioned again.

For GypsyComet, FlyXwire and Sotek486.

Strategicon during the 90's and early 21st Century ran "dozens" of historical miniature games. Some large and others smaller in scale. Filled the better part of a ballroom when the Strategicon staff and local GM's saw the convention as a "must" attend historical miniatures event back then. Recent convention history has seen a decline in miniature (historical I speak of) gaming to basically the hard core HMGS-PSW few. There are So Cal gaming clubs or hobby store linked events with larger attendance / membership then the number of games at the recent YR2015 Strategicon event PEL. Strategicon reaching out to the major club GM's of the Southern California region is clearly lacking. Easily they have the room and space for 40+ miniature table events…but the GM's see no advantages to lug a grand miniature setup/scenario to the convention floor, cover the costs of attendance, parking, lack of event location transportation support, event announcement etc…unlike the Northern California conventions which draws them in from greater distances. Should note that convention costs are about the same or slightly higher in No Cal compared to So Cal events.

For example; GM's and No Cal event staff regularly publish and promote the recent convention with photos and AAR posted on the TMP board and local blogs plus the actual convention web site. Rarely is anything heard about Strategicon miniature convention events from the Staff at Strategicon except for a basic photo log without commentary. Totally left to the local veteran GM who attended the convention and maybe ran one of the few historical miniature games. I write with certain knowledge and have the photographs in photo albums (pre blogging days). I ran large 20+ players and smaller 5-8 player events at the old Strategicon's triple annual conventions for several years.

Should note the same effect is occurring with HMGS-PSW here in Southern California. The old HMGS-PSW used to pack the ballroom or Scout Hall with dozens of convention historical miniature games over three days, not just one day. Unfortunate that the old HMGS-PSW seems to have fractured into large and small independent gaming clubs and squabbles between current, new, old, whatever…HMGS-PSW board members and their own internal linked local gaming clubs. The lack of will to reorganize again, come together in the sprit of the historical miniature convention and fun gaming for all, and back into the regional powerhouse of historical gaming we all had back in the 1990's hopefully will change over the near term.

Michael aka WR

Edit: Paul72. Thanks for posting your Flickr linked photos on Strategicon. I knew Harold personally for many many many years. Glad to see your efforts. The pictured historical gaming looked about the same from my viewpoint for recent years. Steve's napoleonic game, the "Harold" ancients, the Friday FOW mash up scenario, the new Lion Rampart game, Adam and Ilan running their scenario…. Just need for Strategicon to promote….. the GM's are out there in So Cal.

Micheal, this struck me as a similar experience for us here in my area (the Midwest US) – "seems to have fractured into large and small independent gaming clubs and squabbles between current, new, old, whatever…"

I am glad we still host public game events and a few cons in our area that brings us out together every now and then, but nothing like "the good ole days" were……

<blabber-tastic-rantings>
Interesting, thanks for the background. Seems like all hobby things are a bit cyclic … hopefully those who are not currently participating get tired of playing at home and get the desire rebuilt to have another go at it. I know there was a few years up here in NorCal when minis got light … or rather, lots of low quality/nothing special games. What's funny is that Matt H. (the ACW game & FFL game in the pics), Dan Kerrick (modern game), Thomas Foss (Lepanto) and little ol me (WW2 game) all game together (no formal group, just friends who game with each other). Thomas does the south bay club periodically, and that club runs lots of games, but what is great is that Matt, Thomas and myself are all starting to coordinate on games, models and terrain. Several other friends of mine are also now involved and building their own "period/game" to bring to the table -- next year one of them will be presenting what will be a stunning Agincourt game – and he already has some lovely WW2 eastern front stuff. I'm adding a beach landing convention game over the next 4-6 months … lots going on so hopefully we'll see even more miniature games landing locally in NorCal.

Anywho, long story short is I have nothing but love for the many volunteers who spend their time providing the venue for me to play convention games in (CelestiCon, KublaCon, PacifiCon and DundraCon) – and I plan to continue to play my part in bringing (hopefully good looking and interesting) games to the local NorCal convention scene.
</blabber-tastic-rantings>

Certainly sounds like a great network of quality GMs!

We'll be looking forward to those pics from that Agincourt game next year too.

Very Nice
Thanks
clif

Some of the NorCal venues give GMs free admission if they put on "X" number of hours worth of games at the conventions.

That seems like a nice policy, and no doubt helps foster interest in people putting on miniatures games.

A lot of prep work, effort, and expense goes into creating many of them (for the GMs and their assistants), so that seems like the least they can do, and it does appear to work in bringing nice, interesting games to the public at these conventions.

Yes, I get free admission at all the local cons as a GM :-)

At all of the conventions in northern California we basically lobby the people putting on the convention in advance to get things we want. They'll go along with our "demands" as the pictures that show the games are productions that entertain the people attending even if they are not playing. The convention is a failure without them. People attend for the visual effects and almost any simple rule set will make it a success. Detailed and super-realistic rule sets with crappy terrain is generally a failure at a convention.

We normally coordinate scheduling with the convention management so that we don't bump heads with other games of the same type (WWII, Ancients, etc) and make sure in advance we get the tables, outlets, etc that we need. This can also include comped hotel rooms.

Most conventions will give free admission to GM's that put on 6-8 hours of games.

The rules need to be simple because you'll mostly have people attending with no knowledge of them. When we GM the games we attempt to make it a fun experience and keep it balanced throughout the game. Realism is not always enjoyable.

Rick Schuldt and I ran the Remagan Bridge and Kelly's Heroes games pictured in the link in the first posting. I'll be putting up a report on them this weekend. We used the Treadheads tank and infantry rules.

Wolfhag

"Some of the NorCal venues give GMs free admission if they put on "X" number of hours worth of games at the conventions."

All of the older NorCal conventions do this.