Fall In 2014 - Friday, Day 1

Things have been pretty quiet (OK, very quiet) on the wargaming and miniatures front over the last few months. Family stuff has been keeping all of us busy, and the time I have had to allocate to hobby stuff has primarily gone to working up the basics of a D&D campaign (for this first time since the late '80's or early '90's).

Knowing that Fall In, the local/big fall convention in Lancaster PA, was coming up soon has gotten the painting juices flowing again, and over the past week or so I have gotten back into something of a painting groove. More on that soon.

For now, today was the first day of Fall In. As usual, I took the day off and made my way out to Lancaster in time to get there and wander the in-progress games before the dealer area opened at noon. On picking up my preregistration badge, I was surprised at how thin the weekend's program book was. In the 15+ years I have been attending these Lancaster conventions, I think this must have been the lightest program yet. Wandering the show over the 6 or so hours I was there would bear this out; not a ton of games being run, and not a ton of gamers. I guess it wasn't too far off what I remember a Fall In Friday as being, but with the good weather today, I still think it was light.

Romans and barbarians in Germania (25mm)

Although the number of games seemed light, the quality was high, and there were a lot of attractive games to check out.

Early WW2, "Brazen Chariots" rules (15mm)

As always, there were friends and acquaintances to run into and chat with, games to watch, the dealer area to cruise, and the flea market (bring and buy to our English friends) to troll for that special "ah-ha" item.

Fish in a barrel...I mean 15mm Napoleonics

As has also been the case at recent conventions, I dove into the dealer area fully expecting/hoping to leave some cash behind, but didn't find all that much that struck a chord. I needed some dice for our foray into D&D (wargamers are swimming in d6, d10 and d20, but have little use for d4, d8 and d12, thus the need to stock up on some of these). I believe I now have at least a modest handful of every type of dice made. Actually, that being said, I think that there is a such thing as a d100, and if so, I don't have one of those.... yet...

WW2 Pegasus Bridge in 25/28mm

Other dealer area purchases were 7 medieval flags and cavalry banners from The Flag Dude and a few packs of 25mm medievals from Old Glory (2 packs of generic 12th century infantry and a pack of early medieval mounted German knights with lances). When in doubt, I buy more medievals. It's a "happy place" thing I suppose...

SAGA "Crescent and the Cross" in the desert (25mm)

I was on the road and headed home by 3:30. Garnet Valley had a home playoff football game at 7pm (we won convincingly, 35-15). I also needed to spend some getting together the things that I will be taking to the show tomorrow to sell at the flea market table I have from 2pm to 5pm. Selling hobby stuff is a bit like selling off members of the family (fill in your own joke here), but in my advancing years the one, perhaps only (probably only), bit of wisdom I have managed to attain is that if I lived to be 200 years old I would still not have the time to delve into every potential hobby interest that I have stumbled upon (and bought figures for). Thus, tomorrow, with any luck, lots of 25mm Vikings and Saxons, some 25mm English Civil War, a few Warhammer Fantasy odds and ends, and an American Revolution 25mm Continental army will all be going to live on a farm up-state. Or wherever it is that the hamsters, goldfish and other ex- members of the family go.

"Fall In" Saturday to follow (after it happens)...