Fall-In! 2023 After Action Report

With cold, dark specter of no Cold Wars in 2024, gamers flocked to the the Wyndham Lancaster Resort and Convention Center (formerly the HOST) to enjoy what they did have in Fall-In 2023.

It was going to be complicated weekend for me.  My youngest daughter, Millie, had her AAU basketball tournament at Spooky Nook (aka, "The other side of town") during the weekend.  To appease the event gods, I submitted two events to the PEL for Friday, but they were scheduled for Saturday (when my daughter would be playing, time TBD).  In working with Cliff to correct this, my full events needed to be cancelled, and "my services would be requested" for a Friday morning event. 

My apologies to the folks I didn't get a chance to talk to over the weekend who had registered for my Saturday "Intro to Gnome Wars" non-mega game events.  They're still on our idea board for Historicon.

I also didn't get confirmation that my eldest daughter, Maja, had no important tests, projects, or other assignments due for Friday until Thursday, so I packed up the car, attended my friend Matt's memorial service (see my AAU rant from yesterday for details), grabbed Maja and her suitcase there, and drove Thursday night.  

Mini-rant:  Has GPS gone insane the last few months?  For years I took I-81 to PA-72 to PA-283/US 30 to reach the Host in two hours.  Trips to Spooky Nook followed the same path, save a turn on PA-283 West.  During the spring basketball trips, the GPS started routed through Annville (Fort Indiantown Gap Exit) and even Hershey, before meandering country roads to shave off two minutes.  

Thursday night, the GPS gave me fifteen minutes of interstate exit before dumping me onto back roads I remember driving in the daylight and dreaded.  Ten miles into a horror-movie opening scene, I zigged when the GPS said zag, found civilization, and meandered around Reading to reach Lancaster, and shave six minutes off the estimated arrival.  Maybe it was helping me avoid a jackknifed Amish buggy, but I may need to review the settings again to make sure I didn't select "Avoid civilization at all costs" for my directions.   /rant

We were too late for registration, but we did manage to check into our room and witness the grandeur of the lobby games gaining form.  

At the 55 Days at Peking game, the Boxers were anything but brief

Maja settled down for a bout of teenage hibernation, and I hung out at the bar until close at midnight(!?!)

I swear we bought glasses like this for the girls when they were still in pre-school.  Needless to say, they weren't pint glasses.

Friday Morning:  Attack of the Kids  The "services requested" felt more like a variant opening monologue for the A-Team.  I was one of a team of HMGS Next Gen GMs who were tasked with running games for a group of Lancaster county homeschool children.  We had well over 30 kids, ranging in age from 3 (!) to perhaps 10, plus their parents, and ran multiple jousts, squig hopping, a miniature wargame interpretation of the Castle Panic boardgame, and, of course, a Gnome Wars game with at least 12 children and adults  slogging it out on a WWI trench line.   

John Spiess running a Castle Panic game 

As it should be expected, some kids dropped out of some games and found their preferred ones, and we even had Liz Stanton and John Spiess on the floor playing Spot It with some of the younger siblings.  

The allies move in on the Germans

For the Gnome Wars game, it was a tale of two sides.  One side of the table was well balanced, and a deftly placed Cheese Thrower attacked physically divided the board.  

The other side was mainly Irish cavalry and foot soldiers, who valiantly charged forward, got mangled, and continue movie.  While we kept the special rules to a minimum, the Irish infantry player was allowed to use "The Rainbow Connection" ability and dropped a unit of angry, wounded Irish into the German trench. 

The ensuing melee was one of the more exciting combats we've seen in any Gnome Wars game, as the Germans took heavy losses to eradicate the Irish.  On the far side of the trench, the Highlanders were having much better luck.  

Following the games, pizza was provided while the War College broke for lunch, then families were allowed to go up to Hobby U for some miniature painting and/or stroll through the vendor hall.  Each child was given a sizable number of plastic figures to take home.  

At the end of the exercise, the kids had a blast, we had a blast, and the parents were simply over the moon with this school excursion.   We are going to follow up with this group in an HMGS capacity to offer additional opportunities to introduce game-based learning to develop that next generation of gamers to a perpetually graying hobby.

That being said, don't expect the Historicon 2024 PEL to be full of skirmish rules for Bluey, although I could put on a Jake and the Neverland Pirates horror game, based on when my kids were that little.

Squig Hopping was available for the home-schoolers, and as a regular event.

Thanks again for John Spiess, Jim Stanton, Elizabeth Stanton, and all the HMGS staff that helped coordinate the experience.   I probably helped too, but it's doubtful.  I'll try to do better next time. 

Wars of Ozz

A fantastic use of the Dollar Tree gnome houses, with a little paint to spruce them up.

The evening "Gnome" Joust suffered in a bit from its usual extravaganza by two factors:  (1)  There was a "Medieval Tournament" run at the same time that included a joust, melee, and archery contests. 

Breaking out the big figs for the joust, and that trippy carpet.  

(2) There was this little thing called Wally's Basement.  Statisticians are still calculating, but there may have been more attendees waiting in line than there were Boxers in the 55 Days at Peking game.   It might be close, the line ran from the front of the building all the way to the hotel front desk, almost reaching the Boxer Rebellion mega-game.   

US forces staring down onto a eerily quiet Peking.

After some Wawa and libations, it was time to sleep and wake up early Saturday morning for some important father-daughter bonding time.

SATURDAY MORNING:  Oh yeah, did I mention that Maja was asked to be a PELA Judge Thursday night  and she gleefully accepted?  Considering she's been attending HMGS cons since Historicon 2011 and playing in events a few years later, a little youthful insight seemed to be in order.  Her panel was filled out by an experience judge named Matt and some schlub named Eric.  

But first was a trip to IHOP.  

Magic the Gathering and IHOP?  Waiting for the Pancakes of Doom card.

The IHOP down the Lincoln Highway is an average one, but it gets the food out quickly, everything tastes great, and it's far enough away so we drove, and found a better parking spot on our return. 

An unaware picture snapped, although her Oreo Milkshake for breakfast (plus an omelet) pepped her right up.

I'll say this about judging:  Everyone should volunteer to do it at least once, and we needed a bit more data from the team to help us pick winners.   As we strolled the Wyndham with out incredibly formidable clipboards in hand, we were met with quite a few Gamemasters coming and saying "Hi guys, I don't think I'm eligible for a PELA anymore," and I believe they were right.  GMs for some of the big event games (and some smaller ones) have won certain awards like "Gamemaster of the Year" which take them out of the running, plus a game that was already won a PELA isn't eligible in the future.  All that makes sense, but those GMs and events were still on the master list they gave us.  

A mini-version of the samurai game 

The Japanese Legation

BRAZEN CHARIOTS The Battle of Damortis, Philippines — Theme Game

Upon our return to registration from the whirlwind tour of the all the games, we sat down and immediately had one strong consensus pick for a PELA, followed by us voting 2-1 for the second one we awarded for the morning. 

I'm happy we didn't need to pick a third, because the divisions between a group of fairly amicable judges were beginning to show, and we let Matt make the announcements and presentations in a last minutes of our obligation, while we jumped in the car and flew over to Millie's basketball game on "the other side of town." 

I didn't get to see what was being hidden by the foam, but the ducks lured me in...

We got to see Millie's team with big against two programs from Central Jersey, and by five I was on back.  I figured I'd head over to see our first-choice PELA winner.  It was then that I discovered he indeed had been presented his PELA Award.... Friday night.  

Brilliant minds think alike. Again, my only main gripe is that we should have been told who had won yesterday, and thus not eligible for the remainder of the game (although extra Best of Show/Best Theme nominations can be given)

The Boxers are all riled up

Saturday Night Gnome Game:  

The Gnome Wizard's minions are hauling... beer?

After the Gnome Game was cleaned up, it left us just enough time to grab a beer at the beer, become overjoyed by the announcement that they were staying open until 2am, then an near-instant retraction and last call being made.  Considering some of the bar staff had been there at 5am for other prep, we were not going to push the matter.  

Sunday Morning:  We left the room at 7:30am to drive over for Millie's 8am game, then drove back to the Wyndham to grab out stuff, check out, visit Wally's one last night, then get a primo parking spot directly in front the vendor hall for some last second purchases, before grabbing Wawa for brunch and go back for Millie's championship game.  They gave up a 10-0 run early in the game and simply could not overcome the size, physicality and rock solid play in the paint to lose 50-32.    

Does a miniature Taco Bell violate the Hotel No Outside Food policy?

I transferred Maja and her luggage to her mother's car and we left... only for me to return to the Wyndham to fetch my jacket out of the room's closet. 

So how has the Wyndham held up?    While a lot of the renovations stripped things down the studs, some of the studs weren't right either.  Overall, the Wyndham is far superior to my past twenty years experience.  I notice some decorative damage in some spots, but nothing earth-shattering.  Now, if it's not fixed upon Fall-In! 2024, open comparisons with the past  could stir again. 

The Hotel:  The rooms are still very nice, and had all the amenities I needed.  Sounds sad, but no obvious stains, no obvious mold, and a working toilet is the low bar I'm setting after Host PTSD, but they're well exceeding that .

Parking:   I got a front spot for checking,  nearby parking for going around to "C" and great spots anytime I moved my car.  I did not hear about any of the usual complaints about parking, but completed renovations and no containers like years past make any walk bearable to most.

Vendor Hall:  The parking lots completed, It was a fine walk from three directions, signs pointed the day-trippers directly to those lots, and I guess registration was available in the building?  Wasn't paying attention to that, but the main hall was full.  As for the vendors themselves "Times, they are a-changing."

Monster Fight Club is at it again.  

Wally's Basement:  I didn't see the line for the Vendor Hall, but the Friday flea market was crazy from the word go.   A nice mixture of the usual suspects, some house cleaning, and some nice deals.  Every wargame/boardgame I picked up at Mepacon's auction for charity (so inflated a bit) was selling in worse shape on a table for triple the amount.  

Toys for Tots:  I budgeted some funds for raffle tickets and ended up winning things, one which I really wanted!   As a whole, between the miniatures auction and the Friday and Saturday auctions, they raised $7,000 for Toys for Tots.   Next year's addition: Toys for Tots: The Musical!

The Swag: Probably the largest haul I've had in recent years, and that was just Friday.  

• (RAFFLE) Hail Caser and the Successors Starter Kit (standard plastic sprues only)
• (RAFFLE) GI Joe Miniatures 
• (WALLY) MBA Trees
• (WALLY) MBA  Bridge
• (WALLY) 14 packs of West End Star Wars miniatures
• (WALLY) Judge's Guild War Cry
• Armed Females (Brigade) 
• Southern Gnome Army (More Mormons coming!)
• A set of painted 3-D printed huts (I never painted the 3-D stuff I got from the last two cons!)
• A Chessex figure case (tentatively to store my Reaper "One Piece at a Time" Project)
• Maja simply wanted some fantasy minis and Egyptian stuff from Windsword.

Star Wars

And now we enter the hibernation season for "big" wargaming cons.  With Cold Wars cancelled, we'll be back at it for Historicon 2024, July 17-21, 2024, back at the Lancaster Convention Center, downtown.

Iceberg!

The boardgame library/open gaming area was always hopping.