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Convention Coverage: Historicon 2006
The theme was Africa’s Independence, 1905 to 2006 as Colonel Bill offers this report on his annual pilgrimage to miniature wargaming’s Mecca, downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Published 18 AUG 2006
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Introduction
Amy Gammerman of the Wall Street Journal called Historicon the “mother of all wargame conventions,” and folks, I gotta tell ya, this time around I’ll agree. Historicon is the flagship convention of the Eastern Chapter, Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, or HMGS East as its commonly known. This year 3,246 of the faithful made the annual trek to miniature wargaming heaven, still located at the Host Resort in Lancaster, PA and running for four days beginning Thursday, July 20th, 2006. Though not as large as the 3,700 participants recorded in 1998, this was a considerable improvement over the 3,078 who attended last year. Given that gas was around $2.00 a gallon a year ago, and runs close to $3.00 a gallon now, Director Bob Giglio and staff deserve some substantial credit for getting folks thru the door.
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Confederate coastal guns ready to fire. |
Napoleon’s finest advance, a la bayonet! |
There was truly something for everyone this convention with 602 events on the books, and this was outside the convention’s rather substantial tournament schedule. The events included 552 games, 20 seminars and 30 painting events, exceeding last year’s total of 558 events of all types. For the curious the precise breakdown of games was as follows:
|
Historical
Era |
Number |
Percentage |
|
WWII
|
151
|
27%
|
|
Napoleonic
|
57
|
10%
|
|
Age
of Reason |
36
|
7%
|
|
Modern
|
35
|
6%
|
|
Inter-War
|
35
|
6%
|
|
SciFi |
34
|
6%
|
|
American
Civil War |
32
|
6%
|
|
Ancients
|
31
|
6%
|
|
19th
Century |
25
|
5%
|
|
WWI
|
24
|
4%
|
|
Colonial
|
23
|
4%
|
|
Medieval
|
20
|
4%
|
|
Fantasy |
17
|
3%
|
|
Renaissance
|
14
|
3%
|
|
Pike
and Shot |
8
|
1%
|
|
Early
20th Century |
4
|
<1%
|
|
Dark
Ages |
3
|
<1%
|
|
Future
|
3
|
<1%
|
Fantasy and Sci Fi gaming were about 9% of the total, thus falling within the Chapter’s long standing policy of scheduling no more than 10% of all games from these genres. The convention theme on Africa’s Independence accounted for 62 games, somewhat surprising given the rather esoteric subject.
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Armored knights from the ancients tournament... |
...and the spoils of war for the ultimate winner. |
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