Historicon Mailer Received

Mail this week had been dreadfully unexciting until I got my CoC Keeper's Screen yesterday. Today, they imporved a bit more, as the offical Historicon 2011 mailer hit my mail box. Twelve pages of info about the convention, to entice more people to make the trek down to Valley Forge.

Years ago in the local con scene, the two things that would make or break a con were (a) store advertising and (b) a great pre-reg book, with a good bulk of them mailed out. A prospective attendee wanted to know what was being run, what was being run, and, oh yeah, the events. The right mix, and you could get people from all over to descend upon a Legion hall, a rundown motel, heck even a Farm Show building.

Somewhere with the advancements with email and the internet, that physical touch disappeared, and while websites and online registration makes national cons like Origins and GenCon bearable, the local cons relying on Facebook get about 60% of the numbers they should be getting.

Historicon is somewhere in the middle between the big cons and the local shows. Pre-registration, GM event registration, even HMGS membership can be done online, and it looks as if that is the preferred method. The one nice thing they still do is put the old fashioned pre-reg form on page 11 of the mailer, chock full of anything you might want to spend money on, outside of the dealers' area and the flea market.

So, avoiding all the crazy behind the scenes talk one could get from sites like TMP, what's going on at the con?

It's still at the Valley Forge Convention Center, and there actually is a mention of the convention being slightly smaller this year. The hotel listings wisely do not include either the Scanticon or the Radisson, as both have been booked solid since just after Cold Wars. For a near holiday weekend, in the middle of a Philadelphia Summer, seem reasonable but not fantastic.

For someone who usually hits a con for two full days only, I was kindly reminded that scheduled gaming runs from 10am Thursday through 5pm Sunday, and that doesn't include impromtu games running Wednesday night!

This year's theme is "Brother Against Brother," covering the whole gamut of the American Civil War. The art for the souvenir t-shirt is a piece from Osprey showing General Armistead leading troops during Pickett's charge. I'm more of a simple t-shirt guy, and the two large Confederate flags limit my use of the t-shirt outside of gaming events. Trust me, dealing with the culturally sensitive and insensitive over the course of one of my days is just not worth it.

Special Non-Gaming Events
There a raffle for the chance to win two separate art prints by Keith Rocco: "Devil's Den" and "140th New York at Little Round Top." There is also a donation drive to support "Project Hougoumont" a project to save the Hougoumont Farm on the site of the Battle of Waterloo.

Of course, there are the standards: HMGS War College, The Hobby University (hoo-ray painting minis!), and the dozens of tournaments for DBA, DBM, HOTT, and a bunch of other abbreviations I must confess ingorance of... And Flames of War gets to be a pain in the ass by taking up a vast expanse of space for their tournament, which I never saw played last year!

The coolest thing is sponsored by the HAWKS. There are two separate games which are for the under-12 crowd. At the conclusion of the game, the young players get to keep their fully painted, plastic AWI armies. This is certainly a great effort and should be worthy of a donation or six to keep it going every year. As much as seeing the kids playing games is great, it is even better to have them play a historical game at a historical wargaming convention (and this is one of the Gnome Wars guys saying it!)

Perhaps the one final piece of noteworthy info is a lack of it. Under future convention themes, both 2012 and 2013 are listed as July TBD. Hopefully, we'll get some clarification at Historicon, or the rumor mill will be rumbling mighty fierce.

It brings me joy to see next year's theme is "Empires at War" - Colonial Warfare Imperialism, and Gunboat Diplomacy 1837-1937. Looks like my Rorke's Drift game idea might come to fruition (click on the Zulu War tag for more info).

The theme of 2013 is "Scots at War." I just picture a big-ass game of Gnome Wars with hordes/clans of marauding Scots. Sounds like fun.