FreshMilk: Historicon

Showing posts with label Historicon. Show all posts

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Herohammer at Historicon 2022

It was great to be back at Lancaster Convention Center in downtown Lancaster PA, for Historicon 2022.

This isn't a full convention review, but rather a quick recap of one of the games I played on Friday.

A big highlight was a Friday meetup with some of the Oldhammer in the US guys, where we played some Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition (Herohammer, more appropriately). Since all of my miniatures are temporarily packed away during the basement refinish project, Anthony was kind enough to bring an entire High Elf army for me to use, while he played the Orcs and Goblins. Dustin brought some scenery, and we were able to get a great game in.

Apologies for the poor pictures - the lighting in that particular room was poor. We did our best, including Anthony attempting to use his phone flashlight as an additional light source, to varying success. Anthony generated the army lists ahead of time and his miniatures are beautifully painted. The pictures do not do them justice.

Summary - 1000 points per side. Only one mage (on the High Elf side). Orcs had a unit of boar boyz (awesome 3rd ed metal boars), wolf riders (also 3rd/4th ed metal), Big 'Uns (Knightmare games i think), Rock lobber, bolt thrower, and a boar chariot.

High Elves had two bolt throwers, unit of spearmen with battle standard bearer, two units of archers, a mage on a horse, and a chariot. Mage drew Fiery Convocation from High Magic as his one spell, and it would become very instrumental later in the battle.

Here's the overhead picture of the deployment (High Elves closest, Orcs and Goblins at top of picture).

The Greenskin battle line forms...

Wolf riders!

High Elf Reaver Knights, archers, and the mage (also the general). I kept the chariot back as a reserve (at first...)

High army book and Battle Magic book in all their glorious colors. Also can see the old card-based High Magic spells.

The Reavers move up with the chariot in support

After High Elf turn 1...

The orc Boar chariot charges the Reavers. The battle is joined!

A few turns later, and the spearmen had taken a number of hits from the orc stone thrower and bolt thrower. The wolf riders were approaching on the flank...

...here the come...

fast forward a few turns - the orc boar chariot destroyed the reaver unit - the high elf unit then destroyed the boar chariot (in pursuit), and flank charged the boar boys. At one point we thought the boars fled on a panic check but then we remembered the the orc general had the Crown of Command, and Anthony passed his leadership check. Phew!

Anthony unleashed his rock lobber on my High Elf mage, with a perfect guess of range, then he rolled a hit on the artillery die, and proceeded to roll a one for the wound roll! The mage amazingly survived. Which was unfortunate for the Orcs because the mage just kept frying units with the Fiery Convocation. Easily the MVP of the battle.

The wolf riders swung around the building on the extreme left flank of the high elves - the remaining spearmen reformed and took the charge, but the wolf riders were still getting roasted by the Fiery Convocation spell.

After turn 5 (or 6), we called the game and the High Elves won a close victory. It was a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I actually commanded a High Elf army.

I couldn't stick around for the next game, which was Dustin and his awesome Dwarf army, vs another gent that came by and was watching the first game.

Anyway, great fun. Thanks again to Anthony and Dustin. Hopefully we'll get to do it again at Fall-In 2022.

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Frostgrave at Historicon 2021

We (myself and Le Coq Fou) played some Frostgrave at Historicon 2021 this year. It's been a while since we've played Frostgrave (or anything, for that matter). Almost forgot how much I love this game. We are still playing first edition.

Until now, we've only been playing stand alone games and haven't used the treasure, items, or experience points system. This is the first game in our new campaign where we will try all of that out.

Needless to say, I highly recommend NOT having both your Wizard and Apprentice die in the first game of a campaign...

Le Coq Fou has the Necromancer warband in that creepy yellow with creepy hooded masks, and I have the Thaumaturge warband, painted in the standard "box art" colors as is my habit. At some point we will start building in the narrative background for the warbands and the campaign setting (Wizard names, etc.).

Take Action at Historicon 2021

After many years I finally made my custom WW1 trench boards. I made good use of the pandemic time. I always wanted the ground to have a reddish color to represent the clay earth.

We played Take Action, and this was French 6th Army on Day 1 of the Battle of the Somme, July 1 1916. The attack on the Village of Curlu. It was great to roll some dice with Le Coq Fou.

Historicon 2021 Pictures

Last week I attended my first wargaming convention since the pandemic broke out. It was surreal because we were at Cold Wars 2020 while the initial panic hit the US - I was in the hotel that Thursday night, watching the news on ESPN as the NBA was canceling the games, then the NHL, and then the supermarket panic-buying took hold. Needless to say, the following day (Friday), I got spooked enough that I went to the vendor hall one last time (who knew when I'd be able to buy hobby stuff again), cancelled the rest of my hotel stay, and drove home.

Anyway, enough of that. Gaming with HMGS was back - finally. Overall, the convention was a success. Thank you again to HMGS, the volunteers, the vendors, everyone.

And now, here's a bunch of pictures! I'll have a few more posts of some specific games we played, too.

This is picture heavy, and in no particular order.