Cold Wars 2011 Part One: Overview

I made my visit to Cold Wars this Saturday in Lancaster. It wasn't until the end of this week when I knew if I could go or not, so I thanked my lucky stars that I got there at all.

I left the house at 530am with my satchel, a Legions of Steel boxed set, the Gnome Wars Swiss Engineers, and a shopping list. I got to the Host at 730am and headed directly to the Hopewell Room, where I met Nichols for the exicitment of the day: The HMGS board meeting. Now, I did sign an NDA as the legal issues revolving around "The Baltimore Fiasco" were discussed, and I plan on honoring the paper. Let me just say that I'm okay, you're okay, and the HMGS is okay. I'm glad I attended, as it put to rest piles of rumors I've heard.

Registration was almost painfully slow. I'm not quite sure if it was volunteer, training, or participant related, but I'm happy I paid in cash.


We then dashed down to the Tennis Barn for the dealers. I couldn't tell you who was specifically missing, but their abscense created more room for some dealers, and sometimes better table displays and overall attitudes. I went through my regular batch of dealers, MBA, ATKM, Brigade, Eureka and the Warstore and lightened my wallet. I only got hit with two surprises in the hall: (1) Splintered Light was there and I could see their anthromorphic animal packs. They are way too tiny! (2) Lon at Brigade proudly released the Gnome Wars Highlander mortar....

Outside of the items I was previously aware of, there was nothing that struck me as "must buy" stuff. Same thing goes with the flea market. There was some heated, but flexible negotiations, but nothing I would want. I had seen LOS packs at the flea market every other con, but this time there was nary an item that had brushed up against a blister pack of Nightmares.

We wandered around a bit more and found Steve at a Civil War game played on Heroscape. Jeff we found extremely excited in a Black Powder game pitting American, Mexican, and French Foreign Legion together.

Besides another disappointing run to the afternoon flea market, the focus of the rest of the day was Gnome Wars (to be seen in part three). Besides following a car-carrying tractor trailer all the way up 72 to get to 81, the drive back home was uneventful, but very very late.

Needless to say, I'll be back to a guy's weekend, as a GM, to avoid the paperwork lines. I may even ponder using the Host for the hotel room. I love the Continental, but I think trying to cross traffic in March has become a bit old.

Next up: Cold Wars part two - The Pictures