Historicon 2017 Report

Historicon 2017 Report Historicon 2017 Report
with David Griffin.

What a weekend!  We had four events running throughout the convention, one team tournament, one huge mega-battle and two Nationals tournaments. Despite the convention seeming to have fewer people at it this year we were pleased to see the pace of activity around our games remained high and drew a lot of attention.

Thursday - Flames of War Team Tournament

36 players took part in the annual team tournament, this year’s event centered around the Normandy timeline. 18 teams played in the standard three, two-and-a-half hour rounds. 

Historicon 2017 Report
Historicon 2017 Report

Well done to all that played in the first of a long weekend of games.

Friday - Team Yankee Nationals

Historicon 2017 Report

44 people arrived Friday morning to fight over the future of Western Europe.

There were eight clubs attending the event, although to clubs, NKOTB and 757th Rangers seemed to dominate. Most of the players seemed to enjoy having the second game system to play, with many players using armies that were not what they used in normal Flames of War events.

Player nationality break-down was 13 West German, 9 US, 8 USSR, 7 UK and 7 East German. It was gratifying to see that no nation was left out or impossibly outnumbered.

Luke and the guys at WWPD brought extra armies so there was no excuse for people who came to the convention and wished they had an army. They did a great job of wrangling attendees, keeping the tournament going and activity high, allowing Battlefront staff to make the rules calls and answer questions.

Historicon 2017 Report

Best Painted – Steve Toth’s Americans

His army had several different paint schemes (all wonderful) as though headquarters had thrown together the unit at the last minute to fight the oncoming hordes.

 

Historicon 2017 Report

Ben Gobel took his British all the way to the top grabbing the first Team Yankee Nationals win.

Historicon 2017 Report

Thursday-Friday-Saturday - Team Yankee Mega-Battle

Historicon 2017 Report

Bridging the gap between tournaments one of our group ran a Tam Yankee mega-battle that stretched over three days of gaming.  The table was 6 feet by 20 feet in length and as the Soviets pushed forward, the tables slid down to continue the fight.

The game ran at least 8-10 hours a day all throughout the weekend and had a massive number of players as they rotated through depending on their schedules. You could either bring your own forces or play out of the pre-planned units on the board.

Historicon 2017 Report

Historicon 2017 Report

The soviets initially had a hard go of it since the British were well dug in and used their range advantage mercilessly.

Eventually the superior Soviet firepower ground down the defenders enough that Soviet tanks started getting in close and causing losses.

Halfway though the second day, the British decided to hold a line too long with all their units and an Afgantsy assault landed in an undefended area behind the lines causing chaos.

Historicon 2017 Report

Historicon 2017 Report

By the end the scattered defenders had lost at least 18 feet of table and were screaming for the Americans and German reinforcements that never showed up.

Gameplay was slow to help the new players (many had never played Team Yankee before) get used to the ruleset. The Battlefront booth ran many demo games with customers who came over directly from the mega-battle. Paul and the guys had a great time organizing it and we hope they will run it again next year. 

Saturday - Mid War Nationals

Historicon 2017 Report

This year we had limited list and nation options to work with since 4th Edition is only three months old. These players rose to the challenge and dusted off/built anew their British and German armies for a (hopefully) red on blue swiss-tyle tournament. I pulled as many people to the Axis as possible but we ended up having four more British players than German which neccessitated a certain amount of friendly fire excercises for the allies.

Historicon 2017 Report

Historicon 2017 Report

Encounter was rolled for the first round of combat, and the players ettled in for a long day of fighting.  We ended the round with four 8’s (2 British, 2 German) and four 7’s (3 German and 1 British), the rest of the Germans were scattered down the field almost lost in the British horde. Many of the strong regular Nationals players were sitting at three points, having hurt their oppenents but not able to close the deal in the time limit.

Second round rolled in and some of the players seemed to get caught by the subtle difference in Breakthrough of, if the 6th round is not met, no one wins. There were some amazing grapples and fights going on across the tabletops with only James Best Jr. scoring a decisive win amongst the top players. This opened the field back up and created a strong knot of players around 10-11 points with James standing five points above the closest competitor.

We also had a short visit with Pete Simonovich, the owner of Battlefront, who sat with some of our players and talked while the games wound down and people got thir armies ready for the painting competition.

Pete was joined by John-Paul and John Matthews to view and judge the contestants, congratulations to Tom Burgess, Robert Bomkamp and Dennis Wark for their armies.

Historicon 2017 Report

Historicon 2017 Report

Dust Up come in as the third round, with James Best Jr. being faced against Joe Lewis. Andrew Hopson and James Best Sr. faced off on the second table. Many of the top tables fought each other to a standstill, with Joe taking 3 points while not letting Best Jr. strip any from him while Hopson and Best Sr tied at 3 each. This gridlock allowed those from the middle like Pete Zerphy and Jon Holland to come up to striking range with the points sitting at 17 (3), 15 (2) and 14 (4).

Historicon 2017 Report

The fourth and final round was announced beforehand as the Annihilation game. I find it interesting that those players not in the top played more aggressively and therefore had better chances of finishing the game in the allotted time.  The new edition definitely seems to reward players who push that extra bit and finish a game. Out of the top 14 players only two pushed through to a victory, Joe Lewis and Robert Bomkamp, and they ended up at the first and second spots. For the rest of the playerbase, almost every game was successfully completed.
Historicon 2017 Report

Joe Lewis -  Champion

German Infantry

Able Kompanie

Historicon 2017 Report

Robert Bomkamp - 2nd place

German Infantry

Borderlands (SC)

Historicon 2017 Report

Ed Sales - 3rd place

German Armor

Fredericksburg Area Gamers

Historicon 2017 Report

Jon Holland - Best Sportsman

German Infantry

Battlevault Gamers

Historicon 2017 Report

Tom Burgess - Best Painted

British Infantry

Battlevault Gamers

Historicon 2017 Report

Chris Jackson - Best German General

Germany Infantry

Tough Hombres

Historicon 2017 Report

Chris Jacques - Dunkirk Award

British Armor

Huzzah Hobbies

Historicon 2017 Report

Pete Zerphy - Best British General, Best Rookie

British Armor

Central MD Games

Strongest Team – 757th Rangers

Historicon 2017 Report

The 2017 Winners Circle

Historicon 2017 Report

Keep an eye out for future events like this next year

~ David.


Last Updated On Tuesday, July 25, 2017 by Chris at Battlefront