This past weekend I travelled to the 29th Annual Seven Years War Convention in South Bend Indiana. It's the first "miniatures oriented" covention that I had been to in quite a long time. I came away with good, and bad experiences.
So here is my thoughts and pics on it...
The Annual SYW convention is held at "some hotel" in Downtown South Bend....The ad said that it was the "Ramada Plaza", but the sign on the Building said "Holiday Inn Center", and YET the sign above the door reads "Magnusson Hotel".
Parking was okay.
Admission was 15 dollars for one day or 25 for both; a little pricey but I didn't know what to expect....Now I know...
The convention was held on the fourth floor in the ballroom. No real program of events, just a general listing of the games to be played based on "Morning, Afternoon, Evening".
There were approximately a dozen dealers there, with their tables surrounding the main center play area.which was about eight groups of tables in the center, along with a large "India SYW" game out front as an attraction getter.
In the center of the room was a large FIW setup with some beautiful terrain. Unfortunately my camera didn't seem to take too kindly to photographing this and most of the pics of the entire setup came out blurry...
But I did get a chance to get some pics of specific areas...
This is the large FIW setup. The pic is blurry and it's almost impossible to see all of the details, but it was very nice, and eye-catching. Lots of areas for different styles of play. While watching this game, I realized that the British players were going to have a tough time at it...Indians liking ambushes and all that...plus that whole "Bright red uniform in dark green forest" thing going on...
One of my more favorite pics of the large setup is this simple garden piece of terrain. There' s enough here to catch your eye and maybe want a salad for dinner... I'm thinking of doing the same, (making a piece like this AND having a salad)...
At the end of the board was a nice ship model...perhaps unloading soldiers and supplies?
Nearby was a line of British troops with a well painted officer ready to lead them into battle...I guess one of the reasons that I am starting to get attracted to this period of time and gaming it is simply the beauty of the uniforms and all. There is so much variety during this period, and some of the minis are just beautiful pieces themselves.
Case in point is that Eureka USA was there, and I went in and bought my first "Civilian Set", being the 18th Century Chamber orchestra, along with an audience to watch. I took a couple of pics of them here for painting reference. All in all a nice set to do some jamming with the tunes of that wonderful musican PDQ Bach...
A new release by Eureka and being shown at the SALUTE 2012 show in England this year, is the "Bakery Vignette". Here we can see the set, which includes oven, cooks, and the man with the cleanest feet working the dough...mmmmm...who ever knew that "Bunyons and Corns Bread" could be so tasty? A nice set, but I'm not sure I would ever get it...
Perhaps one of my greatest enjoyments from Eureka is their "Teddy Bear" range. Here Eureka had a painted set of Teddy Bear "Redcoats", and "Tartan - Jacobites". All in all another cute range, which makes me think of mass battles along the gum-drop forest, licorice road, and the sugar-plum mountain...
Another dealers sign and wares that he had for sale...
A nicely painted mounted drummer...
And of course...figures....including Prussians...
Austrians...
And some nice cavalry too...
Perhaps the best part of the convention was that I was able to share it with a good friend of mine, Bill Rosser, and while up there, I met TMP'ers "Der Alte Fritz". His blog-site is an amazing source of fun and information on wargaming, and it has provided me much inspiration. He was the nicest fellow I met there...While there were some professional dealers there, most of the them, seemed to be "second hand" dealers. One was selling some poorly painted figures at TOO MUCH a price, (4.50 for a painted figure that I would have to take home and RE-PAINT), is a bit much, especially when the nice Austrians and Prussians above were only 3 bucks a figure...
I also noticed that strangely enough...there weren't that many rule-sets out for sale. One set of BAR that I would've liked to have had was FULL price and had seen a bit of use...
I was able to get a nice hill for 2 bucks and some Foundry figs for a dollar a figure...
Bill found himself engaged in the India SYW game out front and was facing "one of those" opponents...plus the rules were heavily skewed into a British Victory.
Meanwhile, I myself encountered the one thing that I TRULY hate about game conventions...(other than uber high prices, fanboys, bad food, not enough bathrooms, a dead cell phone, etc..), and that is simply put...BAD MANNERS....
There were two games there that I was looking at and showed expressive interest to play...Both times I was ignored.
The first was an AWI game using the "Warfare In The Age of Reason" rules. It was a nice standard setup, and the figures were quite nice.
It took me forever to find the guy running the game.
"This is a nice setup." I told him.
"Uh huh." was his answer.
"How many players are you set for?" I asked.
He looked at me and at the table. "Five."
Okay that's an odd number but I could see it on the table. So I stood there and patiently waited, and was ignored.
Suddenly, four guys show up in the room and it's "HI GUYS! Glad you could make it! I've got the table setup and your commands!"
And I was altogether ignored.
Essentially speaking this guy was putting on a game at a convention for him and his regular friends and buddies. If you were a new person wanting to play or something...guess what? Screw you...
And it was a five player game. His four friends played one side, (British, each with a seperate command), and he played the entired colonial side...(the right one in this picture)...
To be honest..they were some very nice figs and I would've loved to have played the scenario, but his rudeness...and I guess the chance that I was the "new guy" threw him off.I had the same issue with a naval game. The guy running it had it open from 2-5 playes. And every time I asked about it, he just looked at me and went back to what he was doing.
Meanwhile Bill was getting his clock cleaned by a cheating player and a bad set of rules, so we called it an early day...
I guess one of the things that got to me was the fact that if you are going to go to a convention and run a game, UNLESS you want a "special closed game", (which you should mark as such), then you need to expect new people to show up and want to try. If you don't want them to, then at least be courteous, considerate, and nice enough to just say "Sorry but all slots are reserved.", just don't ignore the person and treat them as a non-person.
But when I went away, I left with the feeling that this small convention was one of these things where "everybody there was an old hand and knew each other.", and any new guys weren't part of the "clique".
After meeting some of them and seeing their attitudes, I'm kind of glad I'm not.
So we left and headed home.
And coming down the road, we saw the ultimate lawn ornament...
This little baby painted up nicely will keep DHS and any pesky yard gnomes on their toes.All in all it was a decent con ruined by rude gamemasters. Meeting DAF, and getting some figs and hanging with Bill was the best part of it. It's a convention that I will probably NOT be attending any time again in the near future, unless some of the folks there get a class in "Civility and Manners"...
