Historicon 2021

Or, the “The Two Towers.” Or, alternatively, “Half-Face, Will Game.”

Historicon was back. They took one year off for the plague and moved it to the fall, replacing Fall-In with Hcon. Makes sense if you are going to have a convention, you want to use the name of the biggest convention. Draws more people. And, it worked.

Hcon was very well attended. Lots of people, lots of games, lots of loot.

It was held at the Valley Forge Casino. I had never been there before. It’s a nice place, clearly built in the early ’70s to prepare for the expected influx of tourists for the Bicentennial. The facility was well kept, rooms were clean, and the event spaces were nice. But they were spread out over a large campus.

VFC is really two towers connected by a meandering walkway. Most of the games were in one tower, spread over two floors in a dozen rooms of various size. The vendors and tournaments were in the other tower, all in the basement. Randomly as you walked from one tower to the other you would find another room with lectures, or Hobby University, or more games.

The layout was able to hold a lot of people and a lot of games. But it looked sparse. At the Fredericksburg Expo center there was one large room with 90% of the games. You could look across that room and see how much was happening. There was no hidden area, no games in a closet that could get missed. At the VFC and the other hotel in Lancaster (not the Host), Hcon has been so spread out that it makes it difficult to see the scope of it. I’m still worried that I missed seeing cool things. And, i wonder if the greater distance between the games and the vendors hurt business.

HMGS sent out the email saying that masks were mandatory for attendees and most everyone complied. Very few instances of maskless faces, and most of those were at brief. It was interesting to see so many people masked with no signage or clear enforcement. There were no mask-police going around demanding to see less of your face. There were no heavy handed signs telling you about some fictitious “mandate” implying the force of law where none existed. The organizers simply stated that you had to wear a mask to be at their event and people complied.

Games? Lots. And good looking ones, too. I took almost no pictures, though. The games that were offered appeared to be well attended with the ticket board looking sad and empty early on. This is good news. I remembering earlier Hcons were well meaning game runners had only one or two players. This convention seemed to fill the games quickly and people appeared to be having fun. I played two games: one was a Crusader siege in a very large scale and the other was a modified version of Test of Honor. Both were chaotic and fun.

The real reason I attended, however, is to spend my hard earned money on toys. There are a few vendors who I will always buy from, so I had to raid their booths. Cotton Jim and the Phalanx Consortium always get some of my money, be it at Hcon or the Williamsburg area conventions. The rest of the vendor hall was packed and looked to be busy. Some of the regulars were not there, and there seemed to be a lack of… something… that I couldn’t place.

There were less people selling what I have come to expect at Hcon and other similar events. It’s tough to describe. As an example, you generally find many tables selling those bagged historical 28mm forces from a variety of manufacturers. In the past, they were everywhere and I had no interest. Now that I want some, they were all gone.

There were few “bargain” bins at the vendors, much fewer than in the past. That’s fine, I rummaged through what I found and came away with some great finds.

For me, one of the highlights of Hcon is always Wally’s Basement. The flea market is a great way to pick up new stuff at prices low enough that I may not feel bad if I never get around to using those figures. Most of my loot came from other gamers at the flea market.

What did I get? Not much.

The first table I walked up to had great stuff at great prices. I wish I had bought more. If you were the guy who sold me these figures and you have more to off load, get in touch.

I could not pass up the Scooby Gang. Hasslefree miniatures, only missing Velma. I’ll sub in Tintin until I can find or print Velma.

The same seller had many other great miniatures. A few cowboys from Knuckleduster at a bargain price. Some mad scientist types from Pulp Miniatures. Some other Copplestone ones that I can’t ID right off, but look great. I think one is supposed to be Glorious Leader, so that will be fun to paint.

Sadly the ramp on my new UFO broke in transit. A little work will make that right. This will work nicely in many 7TV games. What board is not made at least 5 times more interesting with the inclusion of a UFO?

More random figures for 7TV and other gaming. The dragon will work well in fantasy, but as a Ral Partha model it’s likely to be difficult to assemble. Those larger pewter figures are just tricky. The one in the bag is Tarzan. No clue who made it, but it looks good and may feature in a Lost World game. The rest were inexpensive and may get used either in play or as vignettes on the game table.

I mentioned that some of the vendors had great deals that I took advantage of. No one local to me was selling the Saga Order Militant figures. But Cotton Jim had them. I have no plans to use these in Saga, but they will be the basis for my planned Frostgrave warband. If they make their way into 7TV Pulp as cultists or 7TV Fantasy as… cultists… then I can hardly be blamed.

I’ve had trouble getting Wargames Illustrated locally over the past year. So I took advantage of the opportunity to pick up the recent copies. I also searched every pile of old back issues I could find, looking for issue #193. If anyone had it, I missed it. Need to get that one for research purposes. Any help?

Son2 has wanted hoplites for years now. Again, Jim was a great source.

Free rules were available for Revenfeast. I’ve read a few things about this skirmish level rule set and will have to give it a try. What was annoying was that these were offered for free at Registration, but one seller int he flea market has a small stack of them with price tags. Hope he feels good about his life choices, because that’s a dick move.

The next bit of loot was not planned. Most of the pulpy stuff above was, if not planned, at least intended. Those Saga figures were on the “must buy” list for a while now. But I was searching through a random blister box that the Miniature Building Authority had stashed at their tables. In there I found miniatures for “Vampire Wars” at a great price. And, Cotton Jim, again, had great prices with his Bad Squiddo figures at 50% off.

There is a new project in my future. Obviously a Dracula themed game or series is required. Nicely, I know of one already in the works.

While finding all of this, I failed to find a cheap dollar bin “Not a Santa” figure for this year. I try to get my NaS models dirt cheap, but there was nothing good. Well, correction. There was nothing I wanted to ruin. Instead of rummaging more, I went and spent actually money on decent figures.

I don’t like Reaper Bones white material. I will see if the Black material is any better. But, that will be a Santa for a different year. I think this year will use the bearded Sinister Spy. Unless something better comes up.

That was my Historicon. Yes, more page space devoted to shopping than playing. That’s what Hcon was this year. I played two good games, but the one that I was excited to play got canceled. At earlier Hcons I would register for two games a day and play as much as possible Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That didn’t work out this time.

It was nice to see half of some familiar faces. If nothing else, it was great to see so many people show up and participate in all of the aspects of the hobby. Think back to all of those posts on certain pages saying that the convention model or the whole hobby was dead due to COVID. Historicon showed that if the hobby is dead, someone forgot to tell a lot of people.

2021 Count to Date:
91 figures painted
133 purchased (yikes, that jumped)
6 printed