"1863 CAMERONE game @Mini-Wars con Buena Park CA Sat Oct 14" Topic

Together with my partners in wargaming crime "Last Stand" Dan Gurule and Shawn "CAPT SHANKS" Hutson, we're bringing our Camerone game to the upcoming Mini-Wars convention at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Buena Park, California on Saturday October 14th, which will be our final commemoration of this year's 160th Anniversary of the most iconic battle in the history of the French Foreign Legion. The convention itself lasts from Saturday morning to Sunday late afternoon/evening. Here's a LINK to its website:

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…here's a LINK directly to the Event Page where you can sign up for our particular game:

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…and here's our description of the game:

On the morning of April 30, 1863, 49 officers and men of the 3rd Co., 1st Batt. Foreign Regt. (AKA: the French Foreign Legion) led by Captain Jean Danjou occupied a decrepit hacienda compound in the abandoned village of Camarón ("Camerone" in English) and fought a 10-hour battle against 2,000 Mexican regulars and guerillas under the command of Colonel Francisco Milan. The compound sat along the "Royal Road" leading from the port of Vera Cruz on the Gulf coast inland to Puebla and Mexico City. When they first encountered the enemy, Danjou and the 3rd Co. were en route to escort a convoy carrying siege guns, ammunition, and 3,000,000 Francs in gold (approx. $57 USD Million in 2023 USD). Ten hours later when the fighting stopped, all but one of the Legionnaires had been captured or killed. But though the 3rd Co. no longer existed, it had accomplished its mission: the gold convoy had heard the sound of the ferocious battle up the road, turned around and headed back to safety. After the battle ended and Colonel Milan learned how enemy soldiers his men had actually faced, he declared: "These are not men, they're demons!"

As Captain Danjou or one of his lieutenants, can you lead your handful of men to hold out long enough to keep the Mexicans from hitting the convoy…?

As Colonel Milan or one of his deputy commanders, can you coordinate your disparate units to overcome the ferocious enemy behind the walls of the Hacienda de la Trinidad fast enough to still manage to ambush the unescorted convoy and score a strategic victory for your cause…?

Join us to commemorate this year's 160th Anniversary of Camerone by honoring the men of Company Danjou fighting for the glory of the Legion, and their Mexican opponents fighting to defeat the French Intervention (1862-67).

This will be a 6-Hour Epic Struggle with a brief lunch-break included, played with well-painted figures on award-winning terrain, using Osprey's popular, "The Men Who Would Be Kings," colonial rules, with throughly play-tested modifications for the scenario and to speed up convention play.

The game has room for up to 3 French & 4 Mexican players (combined maximum of 7 players).

When last I checked 4 out of the 7 player slots were still available and if you're a miniature wargamer in Southern California -- or interested in testing the hobby waters -- we'd love to have you join us. And though it's short notice, if you're located farther afield but interested enough in the Legion or Camerone or Mexico in the Juarez era, why not take a trip to beautiful Orange County?

To further entice you, here's way too many pics from the last time we ran this same game this past May, at the Sand Wars Con in Mesa, AZ, where I have to say it was a pretty rousing success enjoyed by all the players who took part, as well as us GMs:

Very nice. Good looking table and figures.

Wow MG, you ran another amazing looking game! With that line up of GM's and this beautiful visual assault the upcoming game will surely be an EPIC experience for the lucky few who get to be in it!!! Huzzah!

Hey Danno, when are you going to run this game at the Colorado Military Historians?? It looks terrific!!
John

Mad Guru, wish I could make it this fall, but totally loved being a part of your game earlier this year at Sand Wars. Top notch terrain, figs, and GM's. One of the best games I got to participate in this year!! Enjoy my friend. Joe

Old Contemptible: Thanks for taking the time & effort to leave your compliment!

Sarge: Thank you for the kind words my friend & I only wish you could be there with us!

mumbasa: I will discuss with Dan & Shawn. Colorado is not THAT far from SoCal or Texas… but no promises!

Joe!!!!! Seeing your comment here put a big smile on my face (again)! Not sure if I ever sent you this link which didn't become available until some time after Sand Wars. The high quality pics above are all from this same page & were taken by my buddy Matthew, ace photographer. It includes some fun ones of you players and us GMs, though unfortunately there is no group pic with all of us in it, which is my only regret from that great day of gaming:

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Mad Guru, thanks for the link. Brought back a lot of great memories, as well as showing you my typical (bad) die rolls. It was a hoot. That's a lot of work, but I think the end result is well worth it. Good luck at the con!!

That is COOL!

The Mesa game was awesome to look at, lively, and well-run. I encourage those thinking about participating to do so.

Magnificent! One of the finest games I've ever seen! In the top five! Fantastic!

Holy sheet, you don't often see display games of this caliber in Murica! This is worthy of a place at Salute. How long did it take you to put everything together?

Perris, Gray Bear, MakeGriffin & Rocco,

Thanks for all the very positive comments! It would be great if you coukd all join us in person for the game weeks from now.

The hacienda compound and the village buildings were made for me by the super talented Chris The Model Maker in the lead-up to April 30, 2013, when I hosted my first Camerone game to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 1863 battle. I was lucky to have him take the commission about 2 years before that, so he had lots of time to finish everything on his own schedule.

I'm sorry to say that In the decade since then I haven't used it to play Camerone too often, so it's mostly sat on a corner shelf in my hobby storage closet. But this year for the 160th Anniversary I had to get it back on the table. This time my friends and co-GMs "Last Stand" Dan Gurule and Shawn "CAPT SHANKS" Hutson and I decided to change from the bespoke Camerone "Ruleser" used for my original game to the new and pretty popular TMWWBK rules. We ran 2 play tests back in March & April before we took the game to the Sand Wars convention in Mesa Arizona this past May. We incorporated some rules modifications to speed up play at the convention and also to fit the very specific scenario.

The "arid" terrain boards were made by me for gaming the Second Afghan War, but work pretty well for Mexico, especially with the addition of palm trees, cacti, and those roads featuring a dusting of green grass, which replace the purely arid roads I made for my Afghan layouts.

The Company Danjou and the Mexican brigade were first raised by my friend Nick Stern, who is something of a legend in the colonial gaming world up in Northern California, if not the world! 10 years ago for the 150th anniversary we teamed up, using his troops on my terrain for our big 150th anniversary game here at my place in Southern California. Since then he has mostly upsized his gaming to 54mm so this time he offered to sell them to me and I couldn't resist.

Now that the troops and the hacienda are all under one roof, I can play Camerone at least once a year on April 30th every year!

However in full disclosure I don't plan on bringing the game back out to more conventions any time soon, due to the risk of damage during transport. Maybe 5 or 10 years down the line for the 165th and/or 170th anniversaries!