Sunday, March 25, 2012

Greenburg Train Show

On a dreary Saturday my wife and I decided to go to the Greenburg train show in Wilmington Delaware. I am not a model train enthusiast but the hobby does interest me. I wanted to go to see some terrain building ideas and to see if I could pick up some items not normally carried at a war game convention.

The cost for the day was $7.00 and kids under 12 are admitted free. The shows ran from March 24 through March 25.

I found the trip to be inspirational. I did purchase 2 packs of O scale civilians for my Zombie game. for $10 you can get 6 painted figures. Packs include police, work crews, commuters, shoppers, and other important noncombatant types.  I also picked up a bag of jungle like terrain for $1.00. There were some broken buildings on sale for $1.00 as well in 1/100, 1/72 and 1/48 scale.


Chase center in Wilmington Delaware.....I wish a game convention would find its way here!


Modular boards used for transportation


Residential areas.


Over pass and roads


Foot paths and ballast


Fantastic stretch of terrain


Rock faces created through molds


Layers with shades of brown and green grass.


Odd pieces can be found


Different types of trees


A city block of clustered buildings


Row houses


Note the coloration of the fence

The really attractive part of the show is in the details. Something I seldom work on in our hobby. A very inspiring trip and I highly recommend that gamers attend to find some odd addition to a game. I have no plans to change hobbies but I will attend more of these shows to obtain some unique additions to my games. I think I need to spend some more time on terrain details as well as figure details.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

COLD WARS 2012

Cold Wars was fun as always. My son and I drove up to Lancaster to attend for one day. Kyle ran his Star Wars game while Jim and I ran our Boxer rebellion game. I really didn't have much time to move about and take pictures of many games. I did manage to get off a few shots of the games close by to mine.

The Boxer Game

We had 7 players in the game that started at 9am. There was some problems with getting badges, the registration opened at 10am but our game started at 9. Jack and Kyle waited to get everyones badge since we had to set up get ready for the first game, thanks guys. We did have a problem since we had to start the game and had players who never got tickets. At about 10am a player showed up with a ticket but he was gracious and understood we were an hour into the game and had every slot full plus 1. Most of the players in our first game flew in from California and remembered me from last year's convention. I run a lot of games from 2Hour Wargames, such as NUTS, 5150, and Colonial Adventures.


The Allies advance into the Imperial Chinese


Boxers swarm about and charge into the Japanese. The Imperial rifles are in support.


The Japanese cut down the Boxers but are stalled for 2 turns.
  In both sessions the allies fell short of the goal. In the first game the allies stayed in line formation the whole way across, moving 4" at a time. They were picked off by long range artillery and rifle fire. Open order would have been a better option to move quickly and then changing to line to slug it out. In Game 2 the allies did move in open order and used the artillery well, but the Chinese players rolled better than average in most firing situations. Oh well, everyone liked the rules as none of them played it before. Colonial Adventures plays much faster than TSATF.

Star Wars
Kyle's 5150 game had a full house at his first game time but was light in the second game. He ran 2 great games and really enjoyed the experience.


Kyle explaining the rules


Clones are defending


Droids advance and try to break through.


There were some really spectacular games close by that deserved attention.

The game area being used for Red Dawn and Zombie games is inspirational. I now want to revisit my Plasticville buildings to base and repaint them. Really nicely done.







The sign of distress!


 The Herero Wars are of interest to me as well. Dr. Roy Jones put on a good game every convention. I hope to make one of these games in the near future. He uses Falcon miniatures and plays TSATF. I love Colonial Africa games.


Herero lay out.... nice stuff


German column advancing...an ambush awaits


Here are a few more games in the immediate area.


Jack (facing the camera hands on table) is contemplating his next move


Some games really pack them in


Love the tiles


Holy crap.....now that is a game!


Sand box.....ingenious.