RELEASE: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:50 am

To: HMGS East Members, Convention Attendees and Vendors,

SUBJECT: CONVENTION SITE OPTIONS

1. The HMGS East BoD is still discussing all options for Historicon 2010 with the Baltimore Convention Center.

2. Those discussions are addressing the needs of HMGS and all of the member/vendor concerns expressed so far.

3. We will release more when, or if, any decision is made, and expect to do so within the next month.

Respectfully,

HMGS East Board of Directors

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Brett’s Thoughts: Big jump from Lancaster to the Baltimore Convention Center. Hope they are playing it safe.

Sgt Steel lays into a ratzi.

Just some quick thoughts on Fall In 2008. This year was the first Fall In I have been to in a long time and I was impressed with crowd and the variety of games. It is still the smallest of the three HMGS East shows by a good measure, but it seemed much busier than the last time I went six years ago.

I ran two games and had no problems players, all my guys were great which always makes refereeing much more enjoyable. The dealer hall was busy at points, but I heard some dealers say that as the hall is so far from the main gaming hall they see people come through less often. The flea market was very crowded and active. I was amazed at how many people went into the flea market area when it opened on Saturday, it looked a bit like a clown car with a huge line of people disappearing into the room.

New miniatures stuff that caught my eye were some nice stuff from Eureka including a great set of Sgt. Rock/Sgt. Fury knock offs called Sgt. Steel & the Dog Faces of Easy Company which I think any right thinking WW2 gamer should have in their army. I also saw a lot of Wings of War, the newish WW1 airplane miniatures game around, it looks like fun but I resisted for this show as I am trying to lighten up a bit on my toys. The only other great news I picked up was from Falcon Miniatures who told me they were working on some new figures to flesh out their Herero line, this was great news for me as the Falcon line has a bunch of unique models in it and it is great to see even a small expansion of the line.

The only real downer for me was the food. The food at the snack bar wasn’t very good. I can’t really bitch that a snack bar’s pizza is terrible, you just hope for better and live with it when it lives down to the snack bar reputation. The real sin was our meal at the Hotel restaurant, Richards, which had a tiny menu of overpriced food with terrible service making for a must avoid in the future trifecta. At one point one of us had to go into the kitchen to try to find our food and after waiting forever for a round of drinks to turn up we went to the bar to get a round of drinks. To be fair the drinks did turn up after we returned form the bar, but the restaurant wasn’t that crowded, they just seemed to be actively avoiding the customers perhaps worried if they got a good reputation they would have too much business. They have no worries there. We went to the hotel bar afterwards and the staff there were fine, it seems to be just the restaurant that is crap, but I would rate them an avoid at all costs for the future shows.

All in all a very fun show, eat off site, bring stuff to sell at the flea market and enjoy it next year.

Second up is the DC Gameday III which is on October 18th 2008. This is a roleplaying game day that is organized on the Enworld game site forums. This also looks like fun and I am considering running a session of Dark Heresy there as well as playing a session of something.

Also worth a mention is of course Fall In coming up November 7-9th 2008. This year’s theme is Warfare In The Trenches: Petersburg to Cambrai and Jeff will be running a WWI trench game, Ed will be doing some sort of colonial trench thing and I will be doing a Safari game with my Tanzanica II rules.

ADDED: Just found this little con up in Glen Burnie this weekend as well: Assemby Point Sept. 6-7th 2008

At the dealer hall we had another great day at the Warlord Games table, it was old home week with me being in one place for so long I got to catch up with a ton of people I used to work with or have gamed with over the years. I was embarassed a few times by people I should have recognized and didn’t, but most people who run into me more than once know that I have the memory of a tree slug and forgive me. Otherwise a busy day talking about Warlord’s great figures and , oh yeah, sneaking a shot of the really cool Testudo figure they are coming out with. Ha! I will not be denied!

Warlord Games Testudo, Complete with 'that guy' who just has to peek and see where they are headed. Click for full sized shot.

If you missed the article at the Warlord Site on their new Army Painter products, they really do produce some amazing results. I spent the weekend looking at the armies from the article, and they honestly do look great even in person. Often I am pretty suspicious of things like this on the internet, as on the internet it is pretty easy to put lipstick on a pig and people just won’t know. Once I saw these guys I spent the weekend pushing the figures into people’s hands as it both instantly proves how sharp and detailed these figures are and how well the army painter stuff works. It really does look great. I will be honest and say I haven’t painted with it yet, but I intend to as soon as I can I will post up my results so folks can see what a nobbly painter like myself turns out with the stuff rather than what the pros do.

Edit: Bah, Paul has launched his counter-strike, photos of the painted Testudo here.