Historicon 2026 - The Gnome Games

Let's be honest, as much as I like doing the After Action Report for Historicon, and as much as I love the traffic it creates for the blog, I came to the con for one main purpose... 

The "Gnome King" himself, Jim Stanton and us fellow Stout Gnomes ran a total of eight games in the Commonwealth Foyer, a perfect view from the third floor escalator.  

Thursday 8pm - Treasure Island - "Have you ever considered piracy?"

After a relaxing Thursday, we kicked off our itinerary with Jim Stanton, rowboats and a scenically appealing volcano.  

Each of the gnome parties arrived in rowboats on the island and followed a very specific path their treasure map led the down.  

In the first few turns, they certainly knew they weren't alone.  Gnome Hawaiians would jump out the jungle.  In most cases the parties had enough firepower to eliminate them.  

Worse yet, the Blue Swiss quickly learned the Hawaiians were into rowboats as much as prisoners, because their unguarded rowboat was part of an deserted island crime spree.

Our prisoners. 

For most of the parties, it was getting the treasure, getting any prisoners, and getting the heck out of dodge.

Not for the Pirate player.  They navigated the jungle unmolested by natives, got the treasure to the rowboat.  The rowers headed back to the ship, unloaded their treasure, and returned to fight the other parties' rear guards protecting the rowboats.  

Unaware of the sheepish devilry occurring along the beach, the parties engaged natives inside the village.  One single gnome fired a single shot, and the world  descended upon them.   The village wasn't just a target, it was their only defense!  

Ultimately, they fought their way back the beaches, with the backdrop of an erupting volcano.  The Pirate player had absconded with four boats total, trading treasure or loyalty for survivor.  They were certainly the winning faction.

Friday 11am  - Treasure Island

Maja got to run the Friday morning session, same table, same set-up.  

Same basic treasure hunting and natives rule.   A science shack was now at the volcano, as well as rare Gnome Princess figured used to be the point of rescue for the British Marines.  

The native Hawaiians were a LOT more ruthless. sending snatch and grab raids when they in large numbers, focusing on the boat guards when spawning in smaller groups.  

Once shots were fired around the village during the prison break, an unaligned group of Cagnomibles and ZGnombies attacked everyone.  

There was a rally by the treasure hunter, forcing them to scurrying for ship.  Some of the groups that felt pre-destined to fail burned their boats. 

And somebody just had to knock on Dr Moreau's door....

Friday 3pm - Treasure Island - Surf-N-Turf - Raid on New Providence - The Gnome MEGA-GAME

Three tables. Tons of Gnomes.  Travelling across boards.

1) Treasure Island (Jim) - This is the first table expected to break the scenario, as they find the treasure, meet up with their ship and head back to their embassy on New Providence.  

It did speed up the game, but some diabolical rolls on the "Exploding Volcano" checks let the pirates showing up on the sea board first, followed by the others...  some with, some without treasures, choosing simple survival.  

2) Surf n Turf, the seas board.  I believe most players hadn't play a naval game before, much less Age of Sail, but the rules we used check the ship's afloat, although a few old-timers watching nearly had a heart attack when the the British Marine players pulled a Bootlegger Reverse with their frigate. 

As the Pirate Treasure Hunters crossed into the middle table, a horrible fault was uncovered.   We had assigned ships incorrectly!!! 

The Highlander player got a ship but had no objective outside of take damage and win by attrition!  As the Pirate NPC ship (now an active faction) nearly capsized trying to sail to recover their crews. 

And of course, the Hawaiians were in hot pursuit..... 

Fresh Outriggers from Diabolical Terrain.

After a few run-ins with the British ship, the Highlanders turned and fled... right into the chaos of New Providence!

New Providence (Mike) 

Between rival embassies and znombies, New Providence was jumping!

The German maintained and held a great embassy, which gave their players advantage in future games. 

Pure chaos! 

The question of the day was "Where is Mike?  Why is he only running one game?    We could admit that it was scheduling snafu, but he was also assisting with a group of AWI British re-enactors in the Vendor Hall, complete with his sweet uniform. 

Sorry ladies, he's married! 

Friday 8pm  - The Joust 

Run by Maja, roughly 24 players in a situation we haven't been in for many years of HMGS cons. 

We had company. 

After years of putting us in the middle of Distelfink, and pissing off the nearby GMs for being obnoxious, they usually give us an area with space.  

This year a very nice gentleman from New Jersey, running What a Tanker, set up his game, not suspecting that our rowdy gnome fans would be on the most raucous behavior for the first time in year! 

A special appearance by my friend (and old college roommate) Steve! 

We are gluttons for punishment every year, running a double elimination tournament with a weird number of participants with only poster tag and a Sharpie, but Maja performed beyond admirably. 

... even if her Dad kicked her butt in the loser's bracket.... and that's the story I'm sticking to. 

Our Historicon 2026 Joust Champion: Steven!

Saturday  11am   - The Ruins of New Providence

I intentionally left New Providence up for the morning game, and it did not disappoint! 

This was the first game where the full power of the playtest rules for Hawaiians would kick in.    

My only gripe is that there are too many figure types in the basic unit, and color-coding then is harder than it appears.   I definitely need to review the rules for the Pineapple Catapult and the Spirit Monkey critter.

My Favorite pic on the Hawaiians....

The German held their embassy, despite multiple waves of Hawaiians attacking.  

The Swiss player killed off the French guards protecting the telegraph station, causing the wires of reinforcements or cowardly retreat to the embassies for fall silent. 

Let's take a moment to praise our fellow Gnome Wars player Robert (BruegelBurg on the Gnome Wars Facebook group) snapped some awesome Swiss-centric pics of the game). 

BruegelBurg

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Saturday 5pm  - The Raid on Providence - "Burn the Pirates" 

Jim ran the final game of the con with two focuses.  1) The Hawaiians needed to travel halfway across the boardgame to regain control of their lost artifact and 2) The Pirates leave their ship to deliver their gold to their warehouse.  

I turned around for five seconds and the pirate warehouse was already in flames.  Tough crowd indeed! 

We also had the premiere of custom Amphibious Canadian units. Cavalry on beavers and marines on otters.  More of those on a later post!