"Back from NavCon 2015" Topic

I just got back from NavCon, the all-naval wargame convention that takes place in Milwaukee every year, at the beginning of October. It's a bit of a trek from Minneapolis (5 or 6 hours, depending on traffic) but it's way worth the drive. Five of the Minnesota contingent made the trip this year, for a Friday-evening-through-Sunday-morning gamefest that included 36 events covering centuries of naval warfare, vendors with tons of tempting wargame goodies, good company, and dozens of great door prizes.

A Flickr album of many of the games:
link

and an album of photos from my "1759, off Lagos" scenario:
link

Nice pictures. Seems to be a graying lot there. I would fit right in as possibly the oldest fart there. Never went to this convention. As you say a bit of a drive from the Twin Cities.

Please post a narrative of your thoughts/observations of the convention.

Thanks,

Al

Thanks so much for posting pics
looks like a great time
clif

What particular aspects of the convention would you like to know about, Al? I could ramble on for some time (though I'm not prone to rambling) about various subjects related to NavCon, and still not satisfy your curiosity.

Your use of the word "narrative" implies that you might want a verbal walk-through of my con experience, but I suspect you (and other wargamers) would find that singularly unedifying. My convention experiences differ from most, since I spend the vast majority of my time running games (my Hobby consists of designing miniatures and games, and running them for others; I do very little playing), and the rest is usually taken up by trying to get a decent set of photos.

Just thought you could say a bit about games you thought were interesting and why. Any new stuff at the vendors?
From your photos it looks like a couple board games were being played. What were they?

I wont be offended it this is too much and/or you have no comment.

Thanks again,

Al

No problem, Al. As I said, I could ramble on and on about venues, administrative issues, the relative advantages of large versus small conventions, staying focused and on-task, etc., and still never address the questions you are interested in.

There were no big New Releases being touted by the vendors, although they seemed to have all the recent releases covered. The things that were completely new were the two boardgames by Mike Nagel, "Navarchoi" and "Blue Cross/White Ensign". Mike brought pre-release demo versions of both for gamers to try out. One of our group tried out the BC/WE game (which is volume 3 of the "Flying Colors" series of games) and was quite impressed. I observed for awhile, and spoke with Mike about some of his design decisions, and I'd give it a Thumbs Up. I didn't spend much time on "Navarchoi", but then I have a hard time getting excited about anything pre-gunpowder, either land or naval. Another of our group spent hours hunched over that one, so it must have some intriguing characteristics.

Yes, there were boardgames. Any event that is naval-themed is welcome at NavCon regardless of type, so you see naval miniatures games, board games, computer games, card games, ship-centric, naval air, amphibious, starships, fantasy naval . . . but the majority are based around miniature ships because, let's face it, the miniatures are awesome.

In addition to Mike Nagel's boardgame demos, there was the massive "Mare Nostrum" game, a couple pickup rounds of "Broadside" (the old Milton Bradley classic) my own "Captains Bold" (except that I replaced the ship counters with miniatures), a game of "Iron and Oak", and multiple rounds of "Victory in the Pacific".

I personally would have liked to get in the "Action at Plum Point Bend" ACW Ironclads game, if I hadn't been running a game in the same time slot. I really like that period of naval warfare, and the table and miniatures were gorgeous.

If you're a die-hard naval gamer and you didn't attend Navcon, you should be ashamed. :-)

One of the nicest things about this convention is that you can find players for all those naval games you've wanted to play but lack sufficient players to pull off. In the past I've run games that appeal mostly to hardcore naval gamers: GWAS map campaigns, AoS fleet battles with flag signals full of maneuvering and mostly spared from boarding actions, pre-dreadnought "what if" mini-campaigns, etc. Having seen exactly those kinds of games in operation at Navcon, I feel guilty for not bringing my own. This year I again attended only as a player, but I had a really good time anyway. I hope this convention keeps going, and I wish we had a repeat of the event out here on the West Coast.

I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were in attendance on Sunday morning. I expected to find crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing by, but instead found a bustling hotel conference room full of games in progress. I am now hatching my own evil plans to take advantage of this in coming years.

- Ix

That bottom photo above shows the turning point (literally) of a game of Admirals I mostly lost.

My flagship (the French SOL second from right, with the long white banner on the main top) is doubling back with the van division to feed into the scrum between the French rear and the British van. My intention was to overwhelm the British van, but coming about took too long, the French gunners are way too likely to fire high, and I suffered more than I gained in the resulting furball. If I had kept on with my fleet, we would have escaped the British rear division, sailed off in a tactical draw and declared a strategic victory. I got greedy, and paid for my impertinence (and for my ignorance of the rules mechanics). Worse, I think I doomed de la Clue to a long period of terrible British food and wine, on parole in the cold, wet British isles…

I had a riot playing this game, not least because I finally got to play a large sailing fleet battle instead of GM-ing it, but also because it's a brilliantly elegant set of mechanics for quickly playing out large fleet battles under sail. I'll be making a few tweaks to the order system of Admirals so I can run it in my area as a head-to-head game, and see if I can ramp up interest. I know a lot of folks around here with dozens of 1/1200 sailing ships languishing in closets (myself included).

- Ix

What scale are those fighting sail ships? They look great.

I managed to make it this year! We played in the Naval Thunder game on Saturday (which I thought I was going to miss but fate smiled on me) and the Full Thrust game on Sunday. I also won "Iron & Oak" on Sunday! A good chunk of cash was dropped at I-94 for more ships. The venues were easy to get to and traffic wasn't a problem. I had my daughter with me for both days but she was sleep deprived Sunday so she was out of it. My nephew made it Sunday and was very excited. I would like to see more kids at the con and I'm planning to put forth an effort in that direction next year.

What scale are those fighting sail ships? They look great.

They're 1/900 scale, but they're War Artisan's paper models, so you can scale them up or down quite a bit. If you want to match an existing collection of 1/1000 or 1/1200 models, I don't see any reason you couldn't use these.

They not only look nice, they're amazingly durable. Since they're so light, they don't suffer damage from being knocked around. You just have to be careful not to set your hand down on them…

- Ix

I'm realizing today that I have one problem with Navcon: it ruins my focus.

Before the convention, I was working on some 1/600 shore terrain for Caribbean naval adventures. Now I'm excited about all my naval projects, bar none. I want to pull out my 1/6000 scale fleets and run a GWAS campaign, work out how to replay Jutland next year, get my 1/1200 sailing fleets ready for some gaming, finish up some old ironclads, start some new ironclads, paint and base a bunch of pre-dreadnoughts, rewrite about 5 sets of rules, make two new naval campaigns, finish an OOB and write scenarios for a war that never happened…

My mind is like a mirror hit by a shotgun blast – sparkly but inchoherent.

- Ix

Yellow Admiral,I am a naval guy (literally, LCDR retired) but never seem to find the time for this convention. Maybe next year?

War Artisan, thanks for the information.

Al

You're welcome, Al.

I need to make a correction, though. While "Navarchoi" is indeed still in pre-order at Legion Games, "Blue Cross/White Ensign" is already available from GMT, and since it's an oblong-counter-on-two-hexes system, it would convert readily to a miniatures game, either by putting very small scale miniature ships over the counters, or by using a larger hex grid with larger models.

Jeff

Man, I'm jealous. That looks like a great time…

I need to do more naval gaming…