MAYHEM CONVENTION: PART THE FIRST

Friday at the registration desk: things just getting under way.

Having gotten back and recouped from Mayhem 2024, it's time to do some posting on the convention. The short version is that I had a grand time, visited with fellow club mates, met and mingled with other gamers, and ran three games, the high point of which was interacting with the splendid gamers involved.  Unfortunately, I did not shoot lots and lots of pictures given my heavy involvement in my own games. Running one on Friday night and then setting up late into the evening to get the second one running at 8 a.m. the next day left me a bit strung out--so before my Saturday evening game, I did take a break. However, I did, indeed, capture some images, and I have things to report (fear not).  In this post, I'll recap the general convention and report on the activities of my fellow club mates. Collectively, I believe our club ran something like 10 games during the convention: not a bad showing, I think. For lots and lots of pictures, I would recommend that you follow this link to fellow club mate AJ's posting on our public facebook page. 

Things just getting going during the Friday afternoon game session. 

The much busier scene on Saturday afternoon.

Fellow club members at Mayhem.

Phil ran a Brother v Brother French and Indian War game, Battle on Snowshoes.

Richard (aka, Dr Dick) ran Bavaria Ablaze with a game system of his own design using 6mm figs to represent large scale Napoleonic actions. He's been running these games at both regional and major conventions for some time, and they've been well received. 
 

Michael B (bearded fellow holding up fingers), ran his large scale age of sail pirate game, another home grown system--very popular within the club and also with convention goers: the game was full. 

AJ ran another of his innovative American War of Independence Electronic Brigadier games, the Battle of Mill Creek. This game filled up in advance and had a waiting list. He is moving ahead with making his system public, so watch for more information on that as it develops. 

Robert (seated at the end of the table facing the camera) ran three linked games of Marengo using a home brew Napoleonic system that has (once again) been  convention tested and run for our club. 

Mark D ran a Pikeman's Lament game set in the English Civil War, Ambush at Black Rock Cross. This game was also full with a waiting list (I was able to benefit from that fact since I had a no-show at my jousting game on the other side of the room and one of Mark's stand-byes filled the seat). 

I ran three games, which will be the subject of another post...

The Battle of Lutzen (Pike and Shot) using my Baroque Battles system (Friday night); Clash of Eagles using Bloody Big Battles with Kriegspiel Blocks (Saturday morning); and wrapping up with Joust for the Fun of It Saturday evening. 

Part of our crew taking a break at lunch on Saturday: AJ (taking picture), and right to left, your humble correspondent, Mark D (waving), and Byron (who had come up for the day); Dr D and Robert had just departed for the afternoon's gaming session.

It was, in short, a splendid (tiring) time.  Before I depart this post, however, I would like to make a connection to an earlier post. For those who may have been following along here for an extended time, you may recall my philosophical post of November 15, 2017, Of Playing With Toy Soldiers...

...which arrived at its point by concluding with the above image.  Well, it's been several years since then, and with time, there are a few less friends with us than there were then, and our crew at these conventions isn't what it used to be, but nevertheless, I saw a picture taken by the inimitable Mike Paine (below) that reminded me of the point of the previous post. Mike is a fixture at conventions here in the Northeast... 

...who runs these incredible "Hanghai" Pulp Chinese games...

...that are kid friendly. The more you look, the more you see,... 

...and his tables fire the imaginations of both adults and children. The enraptured expression of this little girl captures, I think, who we still all are, deep down, when we step up to play at toy soldiers--even after all these years.  

Exceslior!
 

PFENNIG FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

1874 German Empire 1 Pfennig Piece. This particular style ran from 1874 to 1911 or thereabouts (I'm not an expert, so don't take my word for it).

 

Busy times here at Meanderer Central. Preparations continue apace for the three games I'll be running at the Mayhem Convention this weekend (yikes!). In the background, I have also resurrected and been writing (and writing, and writing) the Chocolate Box Wars rules, which are now complete and ready for playtest (after the Mayhem convention).  I'll not post those here until they've been proofed, so it will be awhile, but I mention them because it was in preparation for playtesting that the topic of this post came about. I needed activation markers. As I was casting about for what to use, I went through the usual suspects and the usual parameters. I wanted them to be small, but not too small; I wanted them to have a bit of heft so they would not tumble about, and also so that they would be easy to count out and  handle, and I also wanted them to add something to the look of the game (why pretend that they aren't there?).  Given that CBW is all about post-Napoleonic, 19thC armies, I stumbled on the idea of old coins...and that brought me to searching on ebay for old coins, which brought me to the venerable 1 Pfennig from the era, with its imperial eagle. And so I pulled the trigger and ordered some...

...almost all have a lovely dark patina, but a very brief application of fine steel wool brings out the imperial eagle very nicely--better looking than any graphic that I could find or stick on a marker of this size...

...and speaking of size, they are exactly what I was looking for: about 16mm (for our metric friends) or just under 3/4" (for US and readers who use imperial units). And they also fit the hand-feel/heft requirement nicely. 

The markers need to have a front and a back (heads and tails?). So my answer is to leave the dark patina on the "1" side and shine up the side with the eagle. This will deliver a dull-front and shiny-back that will be easily recognizable even given the "mature" vision levels prevalent in our group. And the eagle is just darn cool, too!

Although not as cheap as buying a set of markers, they were not all that pricey. I picked up a lot of 100 on ebay for $70 USD. Given the added character that they will add to the game, and the fact this will give me  all that I need, I think it money well spent--and not out of whack with the cost of other things I've purchased for the hobby (see Jonathan's analysis of the survey of hobby spending habits...).  I'm looking forward to playtesting and seeing these on the table. 

Excelsior!

PLAYTEST AND PACK

 

Before the playtest: all tidy and ready to go.

Last Friday, I had six lusty lads over for a final run through of my upcoming Mayhem Convention Bloody Big Battle Game: Clash of Eagles, 1879.   

In preparation, I had reworked my unit identification schemes, with new color coding, enlarged on-table markers, and an updated the OOB for six players. 

I also tested out the bright idea of putting my references under the plexiglass at the end of the table at my "referee station." 

And then everyone arrived, and we got stuck in...and I got no pictures, so involved was I in facilitating and making notes to help prep for the convention game--even though I had run this game two times already (this being the third), there were still takeaways that will make the convention event better.  For one, I found that having the references under plexiglass was a loser (I just kept on using the ones on my clip board). The new markers, however, were validated as an improvement. Probably the most important thing to come from the playtest was refreshing my own practice in teaching and facilitating the game, something I knew I needed and now have under my belt.  

Well, I did get one picture: here is the aftermath, no longer so neat and tidy as the setup.  

This was the last playtest of the three games that I'll be running at Mayhem. Next step: taking inventory and packing them up for the convention (wouldn't want to get there and find out that I left the dice at home!)

Excelsior!

MAP MAYHEM

 

The Bloody Big Battles Battle of Koniggratz game played on my (old) Kriegspiel Map.

Greetings, dear reader(s?).  Much has been going on in these parts, but little has made it into the blog, something I aim to fix with this update.  Specifically, preparation for the Mayhem Convention, which is coming up fast!  Boldly (or foolishly), I have registered to run three games there. I've playtested and packaged two of them, the Battle of Lutzen and Joust for the Fun of It games, and am now proofing the last one, the convention version of my Bloody Big Battles Clash of Eagles, 1879, game. Providing that the looming spring Noreaster' coming this week doesn't leave too big a mess behind, I will be hosting that playtest on Friday.  However, in the last few months, I have been putting together a more portable map along with the means for taking the game on the road more easily.  Here is what that entailed...

Above left, the old map (sitting atop the new). The old map was so big that I kept it in two pieces. Each time I used it, I had to tape them together and then take it apart for storage--and the tape lines on the rest of it were coming undone and wrinkly. There were also some stains developing, but I was still thinking I might just salvage the old fella by reinforcing the seams with sturdy packing tape along all the map joints, making it into one solid, durable item. This I dutifully set out to to (above right).  Unfortunately, this caused the map to be wrinkly--not awful, but certainly "unflat" enough to be problematic, particularly where the sheets met: despite all the effort that had gone in to reinforcing them. There were also some issues with stains that trying to fix only made worse (ain't that always the way?). 

    So, I says to m'self, "Self, this won't do. Just bite the damn bullet and make a new fangled, one piece, loverly map that will be more durable and store more easily."  

    To which my other self replied, "Why, how you talk! Makin' this last 'un jest about kilt me. Make another? How in tarnation would you even do that? Not hardly, no sirree Bob! "  

    To which m'self replied, "Bob yerself! If ye've no stomach fer it, jest you stand aside, and watch and learn!"

I started out by creating a unified, stable backing for the map.  I used a  22" x 30" sheet of sketch pad paper, with pieces along the side that would expand it to the size of the map. I had as few seams as possible, but joined them very cleanly (and strongly) with glue and packing tape. I now had a clean, unified, surface ready to go.

I then printed out the map on full page-sized peel and stick mailing labels. 

I then cut out each of the individual pages (21 of them), seen to the right of the red arrow in the above picture. Then the fun really began. I peeled and stuck (oh, so carefully) all the sheets together onto the backing paper.  I now had a single, durable, map, resized for transport and quite big enough for gaming at 36" x 40" (which, at the half scale, translates to 72" x 80").  

Previously, I had taken an extra step before each game of going over the terrain with a water soluble pen on the plexiglass to bring it out to make key features more visible. I decided that rather than having to do this step each time I used the map, to just do it once and be done with it...

...So, I got myself some micron pens and traced over the contour lines and water features (not all of the contour lines, but enough of them to bring the features out). If you click to enlarge, you can see the result (not too bad, I think: we'll find out during this Friday's playtest if the map is now too busy!).  Needless to say, this was a bit laborious and took a few days. But, as I've said before, it was an investment in time and effort not unlike painting a batch of figures. In the long run, this will be a great time saver, particularly when setting up "on the road" at a convention or a club game night. Speaking of which, the other, equally important part of this project was portability. 

I was originally thinking that I would transport the map in a tube, but found that rolling it up was not a good idea. So instead, I decided to keep it flat, sandwiched between two sheets of foamcore that were fabricated by putting together two 36" x 44" presentation boards (above left). The plexiglass sheets that go over the map are sandwiched between two large pieces of cardboard clamped together (above right, with the map board standing behind).  

The whole shootin' match fits nicely into this 37" x  48" portfolio, which I can sling over my shoulder. It also accommodates the corrugated plastic sheets that I lay down as a base underneath the map, and also has pockets that will hold my reference sheets, play aids, & other game stuff.  

So, I've got a dandy new map and now can take my BBB kriegspiel block game on the road. First outing will be at the Mayhem convention. Being an 0800 a.m. start on Saturday, I definitely want the setup to be as quick and smooth as possible. 

Excelsior!