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

BruegelBurg

BruegelBurg

BruegelBurg

BruegelBurg

BruegelBurg

Blunders on the Danube

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! 

The Historicon 2026 Gnome Wars Mega-Game is Back!

I recently announced that neither I nor my daughter will  be attending Fall-In! 2025 this year.  Our gnome-positive side of HMGS Next Gen will not be running any Gnome Wars games at Fall-In, and I'm unsure how much we're going to do for Cold Wars in February.  

This past week, we had a meeting after our weekly game session, and it's official as a blog post can make.  

Historicon 2026 (July 15-19, 2026) will see the return of the true and proper...

GNOME WARS MEGA-GAME!!!!!!!

It's been awhile since we had one of our multi-table spectacles...  It's will be over 14 years since the last three-table  game involving colonialism, volcanos, and a flotilla of gnome-helmed ships!  

The Island of the Cannibal Gnomes

The concept is pretty simple:  We have three separate tables, three separate events with their own objectives, running simultaneously.   The best part, figures, units, and armies can travel to and from each game...  Of course to get from one end of the other, one needs to commandeer a sailing vessel and traverse the sea, where a no-holds-barred naval brawl is taking place. 

The Sea board, between the Cannibal Island and New Providence

It might take the entire session, but I have seen figures to completely across the ball room before we call the games.

New Providence has their own problems...

I figured the south seas, pirate, cannibal theme game was good to return to, especially with the recent casting of the Hawaiian/Tiki/Pacific Islander Gnomes.    Each table will have 8 normal slots for players, with the Gnome Rule applying to all (Bring a fully painted Gnome Wars unit from Brigade Games, and we will find you a spot.) Obviously bringing your own Island Gnomes (or Pirates... or British Marines) might get you a better command/objective. 

As of this moment, we're definitely looking at a Saturday afternoon timeslot for the Mega-Game.   "But what about all the normal Gnome/Next Gen mayhem you guys in the cool baseball jerseys normally put together?"

Fear not gnome-believers! 

Of course there will be other gnome games, probably with palm trees for the Island Gnomes.  The joust is still Friday night (although we probably won't run overlapping ones like last year. Then again...).  

The newest game in our arsenal isn't new, just not as far a throwback as the Mega-Game.

Enter Palaeo Diet: Seafood Edition.

Palaeo Diet: Eat or Be Eaten is a fun rules set for playing prehistoric animal hunts. In one of his fever dreams, friend of the blog, and fellow Stout Gnome Mike Lung created an underwater version of the game, which did make an appearance at the rogue Historicon 2021 (In November in King of Prussia of that year).   Details are loose, but I certainly foresee gnomes games, and smaller games of Palaeo Diet entertaining attendees. 

Of course, all of this is subject to change... but it's an exciting start... and maybe I'll get the Island Gnomes finished by then. 

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 23 - Peerless Player

Day 23 of #RPGaDay2024 is a version of a prompt/question that comes up every other year: "Peerless Player."  If you peruse the last ten years of the my #RPGaDay posts, you'll see a number of accolades from some of the great players I've had the pleasure of running games for. 

This year, I'm shifting gears a bit, to talk about one of my least experienced players.  

Let me tell a story about a man named Jim....

Jim is an educator in Connecticut, and a historical and sci-fi wargamer for many years before I met met him circa 2009.  

Oh yeah, he also wrote a fun set of miniatures rules called Gnome Wars.  You know the main reason my blog is called Gaming with the Gnomies.  

The dude has his own game, his own line of miniatures, and his own mini:

The Gnome King, from Gnome Wars,

So for ten years, I was (and still am) a stalwart member of the Stout Gnomes, part of team that helps Jim plan, set-up, and run Gnome games, primarily at HMGS conventions like Historicon.  Then fate hit a fair wind...

Saturdays might be for the boys and Sundays might be Girls' brunch, but since 2015, Monday nights have been ViscountEric's gaming night.  I originally bullied myself onto an online 5e game with my college buddies, Steve and Nate.  I acclimated well to the crew and over little more than two years, we got over 60 sessions it.  

Our GM, unfortunately, married with twins, and saddled with job woes, cancelled a number of times until he admitted he couldn't go on.   The put the game on hiatus, and a few of the players, who were actually relatives of his, disappeared as well.  

Enter ViscountEric.  

I took over GMing duties, set up the Star Wars games I keep mentioning this month, and invited Jim and fellow Stout Gnome (and friend of the blog) "Award Winning GM" Mike to the game.  Jim  grabbed bonus points by recruiting his nephew to the chaos later. 

One thing I didn't realize when I recruited him: for a man with so many years of gaming experience, and witty and seat-of-your pants decision making running a 30-player wargame, he had never played a role-playing game.  

I'm used to teaching D&D to a younger 20-something and younger demographic and watching their reactions and development through multiple sessions.  Having a guy a decade of so older than me, with a full-time job, other hobbies, and... a wife, has made me appreciate the disposable time and money we have in our youth, and and love his somewhat conniving nature that he had as a mega-game wargame GM translate to roleplaying on Roll20.  

The fun thing is that, 100 sessions of Star Wars, and the over 70 sessions of Gamma World in, he still doesn't want to step on any toes with a group he's a now a rock holding them together.  It might be that he's always going to be the most junior player in our group, he also may recognize where I got my narrative GMing style for wargames.  

He is a consensus builder, even in situation where speed needs to be the order of the day.  In the Star Wars game, he was the pilot, Tarrie Prolek.  He would make some rash character decisions, but many times his excuse for action/inaction was that he was "Under Contract" with another PC to justify things.  

Gamma World's been a bit tougher.  He's let the phrase, "Under Contract" come out as a joke, but some of his calls for consensus have resulted in other players and the game in general passing him by in time-sensitive situations.  

A young, spry Jim, running games at Historicon, circa 2012.

That being said, he's a great, loyal player who properly communicates absences, tries to do research, and helps add to the storyline, in multiple directions.   Peacocks?  Check.  Selling Mead produced by mutant plants?  Check?  Doing his best James T Kirk Original Series with the ladies?  Allll-riiiiight!!!! 

I'll gladly have him in any game I run, God help me.

#RPGaDay2021 - Day 31 - Thanks All Around

The final day of #RPGaDay2021 is upon us, and it's not a stretch to believe that the last word would be "THANK."

So let's thank my current gaming group.  

To Steve, my old college roommate. He's the guy in the group who intentionally plays "fun" disruptive characters.  Echellon, the priest of the "Oriental" god of the sea (and pigeon fancier) and Fonzie Schlepprock (a chronic liar Gnome Titan in Hackmaster that successfully kept the ruse that he was a famous general... at least to the human communities) were my favorites.  With online gaming, his characters started serious (a dragonborn priest or paladin whose only schtick was throat singing for his prayers), but as much as I think his initial concept of his Star Wars character was frivolous, things have gotten dark over the weeks of #RPGaDay2021.   Not Dark Side Point worthy, just cutthroat business dark that I don't usually see from him.  His one legendary character away from my table was  Benverho, an "asshole wizard" in a different college group.  Thanks for making  Ne'vets Aharo in Star Wars  the "bad" version of Benverho, and making my scheduled turns in the campaign direction even more delectable. 

To Jim, the "Gnome King" himself.  Thanks for heeding the call when I reached out for new players for Monday night, even though you had never actually role-played before!  Tarrie Prolek is the perfect starter character, always referring to the boss cause he's "under contract", even if he isn't.   Your musical numbers are far superior to anything else in Star Wars since Max Reebo in 1983. 

To Sean, the brother of Steve's best friend.  You got lured into playing by your brother, and even with most of the original group gone, thankfully you've stuck it out.  We give both you and your Wookie, Frokazza, a hard time because you're part of the group, and thankfully, you know that.  Congrats on the new job!

To Hoyce, another college buddy. Prior to online gaming we've rarely had the chance to game together over the 15 years.  Thanks for actually missing the online Day of Sloth IOU game, but expressing enough interest and availability to join the Star Wars game full-time.  I don't know how the partied survived before your character arrived.  Seriously, statistically-speaking they should have all been dead weeks before.  I'm far too lenient as a GM.

To Maja, my daughter.  Thanks for bailing us out when we needed an extra player to push through the "Bo'Non'as and Oopsa" side campaign.  With such crazy schedules that we barely get time to game at home, it was nice to play something, even if you were still in your bedroom down the hall. 

To Chris, one of the original guys well before me in the Monday night session.  I barely knew you dude, but thanks for the memories.

To Jeff, the Godfather of the Monday night game, and original DM of the 5e game.  Thanks for getting this thing going, and thanks for all the hours you poured into the game.  Andaras was quirky enough to keep us permanently on our toes, and we left so many storylines wide open.  We're going to have to return, whenever you get your stuff screwing up Monday nights squared away.   It's your group.  I'll keep them coming until your ready, even if you have a few new players by that point. 

 

To Balls, another college buddy that, like Steve, I've been able to play with pretty consistently over the years.   Thanks for letting it slide that this little online shin-ding was occurring, thus securing that I"m never productive at home on a Monday night.   Like Jeff, your spot at the table, real and virtual, is always guaranteed.

#RPGaDay2021 - Day 28 - Tarrie Prolak, Pilot Under Contract.

Day 28 of #RPGaDay2021.  We're almost to the end, and the weekend topic pops up "SOLO".

I could talk about Solo scenarios for both role-playing and wargaming, or I can talk about the poor man's Han Solo, the pilot of the Pretio, Tarrie Prolak.  

Tarrie's story seems like a lot of stories in the galaxy.  Born on Corellia, Tarrie enrolled at the Imperial Academy, but couldn't hack to through pilot school.  The story goes that he dropped out and left with the first person who would hire him to fly a ship, but the Imperial Academies rarely let students "drop out," so there must be something beyond that.

On his journeys, he met and befriended the Wookie,  Frokazza. This skinny, nervous Wookie, was nevertheless a brute in a fight, and a crack shot with his bowcaster, so the two became a piloting duo, Tarrie doing all the flying, and the Frokazza learning Astrogation and Gunnery along the way.  

Four, almost five, years ago, the pair made an open agreement with Exotic Animal Broker Ne'vets Aharo.  Since then, Tarrie has claimed he is "under contract" with the animal dealer, although he satisficed his obligation a long time ago, and either party could cancel the arrangement at a moment's notice.  

Being "Under Contract," Tarrie looks for validation from Aharo or the other crew before taking any action.  This attitude could be considered pragmatic, but it has resulted in enough hesitation over the years that it's put the crew in bigger danger more than once.  

The "Under Contract" Tarrie may also be a response to temper his own horrible impulses while on duty.  Off duty, Tarrie is known for his legendary stays in cantinas, drinking heavily, consuming most available drugs, questionable hook-ups with numerous species, and resulting in blackout scenarios where he's disappeared for days at times, resulting in fires, stolen speeders, and even participating in singing competitions and theatrical showings.  

More concerning than his antics are those of his family.  His older sister, Latorna Savvn (possibly adopted), is a well known pilot, demolitions expert, and within the last few years, a prominent member of the rebel resistance groups trying to overthrow the Empire and reinstall the Republic.  Tarrie's last encounter with his sister was just prior to a terrorist attack she executed on the planet Botajef.