"Historicon 2025" Topic

If you are on io Groups you can view my photos here:

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What a great convention, the nice folks at HMGS put on. I really enjoyed myself. Kudos to everyone.

I have one minor quibble, there wasn't not enough lighting anywhere. I checked and it appeared every light socket had a bulb in it, but it wasn't enough. Hard to fully appreciate the figures or the terrain. Some were lucky enough to get their table directly under a bright bulb.

The excellent 55 days at Peking game was so dark after the sun set that they brought in spot lights. Unless the lights are on a dimmer, I don't know what could be done. But this venue is very good.

None of that takes away from a well orchestrated convention. Thanks to all the volunteers and GMs. What a great celebration of our hobby.

I wasn't there but I saw a video of the 2 large event halls. It looked like their dividing walls had been partially removed. When I had been there previously I remember 1 room as being well lit, while the other being very dark.

From the video it looked like they were both pretty well lit.

I tried to look up the names of the 2 rooms, but the LCCC's site graphic is an appallingly confusing anti-intuitive overwrought mess.

Any link to pictures of the 55 Days game?

Here is the link but it is on my clubs iO group page. It is free to register with iO groups.

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I only took a couple of photos of the 55 Days at Peking game. It was spectacular, however I was playing the British Legation and the overall Allied Commander and I had the largest legation to defend so I was busy. It got dark in the room fairly early. I am sure someone will post more photos.

@Bobgnar

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A walk-around video pre 55day start.

The Commonwealth Room is the dungeon, very dim at all times. The well-lit room is the Heritage.

Shades of the old days at the Lancaster Host! I remember Duke Seifreid bring in extra lights for his Lobby games.

Did something change from last year? I attended last years and did not see any lighting problems.

They had to expand and hold more games in the hallway and what used to be the lobby bar where the 55 days and a large tank battle were held. Those areas are not well lit in the evening once the sunlight goes away.

This was probably the only negative I saw during the entire event. They lost a large area (wally's basement normally) to construction. Scott Landis and the crew managed the chaos and still pulled off an excellent event.

The registration system was running better and faster than I have ever seen it. The scanners worked perfectly and were very fast.

One battle I saw was so dark that I thought they were fighting a night battle! They were using their phones to light the table. It was not in one of the main rooms, but out in the lower lobby area. They looked like they were having fun!

That was my Salamanca game on Saturday (Blog post to come), by 8:30 (game started at 6 PM) it was so dark we had to use cell phone lights to see the dice or the troops – absolutely NO overhead lighting whatsoever. That table (FF-05) is fine when there is natural light, but is effectively unusable after 8:30 PM. Fortunately, I had an outstanding group of players, who just soldiered on and we had a great game despite it. As I commented to the players after the games, "That's as the most fun I have had in the dark since I was a young man!" :-)

Still I call dibs on ALL my games in Heritage ballroom next year. All of the Commonwealth Ballroom is relatively dim, but there are swaths where there are no direct overhead lights at all; another of my games was on one of those tables. Like I said, dibs on Heritage in 2026!

I am well aware that this year was an extra challenge due to the loss of the space that contained Wally's Basement in past years; the job of scheduling games is almost impossible, and despite the challenges I had this year I applaud Cliff and all the convention staff for their service to us all.

The light in the Heritage room was uneven. A few games had plenty of light. Other games had just adequate light. Just enough to play by but not enough to appreciate the figures or terrain. The Commonwealth Ballroom was worse.

The Heritage ballroom is divided up into several areas. The large room closest to the elevator and stairs was well lit. My game and 3 games I played in were all in that area. No complaints.

I did have a game in the Commonwealth ballroom which reminded me of the worst of Distlefink!

I had a great time at Historicon 2025. I love the venue and stay in a hotel a few miles out. Plenty of food options nearby and the free parking provided is great.

I think the volunteer staff was amazing and made it a point to thank several of them on the way out. One of the ladies was very appreciative that I did that.

I played in 6 games, 5 of which weee a lot of fun. The Alamo with David Good was a real fun time. Simple rules, great terrain, nice figs a fun bunch of guys, and an excellent GM. This game has been featured on Little Wars TV and playing it I can see why they featured it. I also played in a very interesting and fun Force on Force modern game, Noot Ambush, which was a lot of fun, very well GMd and another fun bunch to play with. I played in a Ravenfeast game where the Vikings attacked a town defended by peasants and a few Jarls and a priest. It went very smoothly, the players were fun to play with. The terrain was good and the GM did a great job. I played in the big Blood and Plunder Attack on El Morro and San Juan. I had the Spanish Light Frigate that got a few spots off before having to run from the big Dutch Galleon. The terrain was beautiful. The guys who I played with, the ship captains were great, and Tyler from Fire Lock Games who was helping the GM was excellent at explaining what we were doing and supposed to do. It was my first time playing all 4 of theses games and I was very pleased with the experience. I also enjoyed playing Joe Schwartz' Attack on Hadrian's Wall. I have played a couple of times years ago with Joe's game and enjoyed it. This time I actually understood how things worked and really enjoyed it. The guys I played with were all gentlemen and a joy to play with. I point this out because too many times I come across one guy who is so intent on winning that they whine, make cheat moves and in general ruin everyone else's experience. I had none of that in the games I played this year and it was awesome. I did see someone trying to finagle the system in a Johnny Reb 3 Gettysburg game my friends from our club were running and I thought "you poor guy.. Winning this game is so important to you that you will do anything to make it so." It kind of takes the luster of a win if you had to cheat or bend the rules to get there. After all it is only a game.
The 6th game I played wasn't enjoyable and without giving away whose game it was I'll just say if you are GMing a game at a convention, no matter how good looking and how many figs you are using, the game has to be playable. Players need to be able to play several turns, hopefully to an outcome. With reasonable uncomplicated rules. As a rule of thumb I would recommend make it simple, fast, and bloody if possible. The GM of the last game had good intentions, really a lot of nice figs was a nice guy, but his rules were not convention friendly.

My one regret was not being able to play in Golzalvo's Field of Battle Salamanca game on Saturday evening as I had to go home. Peter puts on great games and is an excellent gentleman who I look forward to playing in his games every year.

I went to Wally's once, didn't see anything I was interested in. I only look for bargains there and left mildly disappointed in the offerings during my one session there.
I spent too much money in the dealer hall, a lot with Badger Games as I dove headfirst into Test of Honor Samurai rules and figs. I played in David Hill's excellent Test of Honor extravaganzas several times and fell in love with the system. I thought I could get two factions a couple of buildings and do some solo or two player games with TOH. I am very excited to get started with it and can see some minor expansion in the future. I also got a good deal on some palm trees and jungle bits for my pirate stuff. It was great to see the fine people of On Military Matters there and missed Doug Kline of BTC and Russ and the Old Glory crew which seems to have sadly stopped supporting the con.
I originally was going to get a couple of Diabolical Terrain's WWII buildings but was able to land two Feudal Japanese buildings for the price of one of those WWII buildings. Maybe I'll get some at Fall In instead. I also was set to get some of those Perry Napoleonic Spanish from Brigade and maybe some Warlord stuff but TOH was too hard to ignore. So much great stuff, so little spending money.

Anyway , I thought it was a great Con and thank Scott, the volunteers, the dealers and the GMs for there efforts and hard work.