A Day at BarrageCon 2021

By Glenn Van Meter

This weekend I had the fortune of being able to attend BarrageCon in Havre De Grace, Maryland. It was hosted by the H.A.W.K.S. (Harford Area Weekly Krieg Spielers) gaming club on the 24th and 25th of September. I was only able to make it for Saturday the 25th. This was my first in-person convention in about 22 months and I was excited to get back out and see some old friends that I knew would be in attendance.

First, to get the COVID elephant out of the room. The convention followed local and state COVID restrictions, which is to say that they did not require masks for entry. They did explicitly state that if the GM of a game asked participants to mask up, the participants would be expected to do so. This self-determining arrangement seemed to work well as I did not see any of the confrontations occur about masking that I had expected. This gives me better hope for conventions in the future such as HMGS’s Historicon in November.

Barrage, according to the site’s history, started back in 1996 as a single-day convention. In 2012 they started hosting a Flames of War tournament, which is how I first discovered the convention. 2014 saw them adding an ancients tournament, which this year took the form of L’Art De La Guerre. Barrage became a two-day event in 2016, usually covering the Friday and Saturday of a late September or early October weekend.

As you walk in the door to the registration tables, the Ancients tournament was in a smaller gaming room on the left, while the main room was to the right. Immediately upon entering you are in the middle of the many large 10’x6’ tables set out for scenario gaming. Near the front door is a small concessions stand reminiscent of a high-school sporting event. Vendor tables ring the outside edges of three walls of the hall. Vendors included a few locals stores and small convention retailers. At the far end of the hall was the Flames of War tournament, where there were about a dozen tables set up.

I have attended Barrage several times in the past, and every time it has been a quality, family friendly convention. This year was no different. There is always a diverse selection of games running all across the large hall of the Havre De Grace Community Center. Games often use homebrew rules, but also include published rules. Many are a little wacky in nature, or are simple or playful enough for kids to get involved in the game.

Preston Jacka and myself set up demos for Blood & Plunder at our table in one corner of the hall. There is a fast-growing B&P community in Harford county, but the convention always draws people who might not be able to make it out to the FLGS we work with. Even though we were out of the way toward the back, we were busy most of the day. We each took short breaks to walk around and see what other games were on offer at the surrounding tables.

Near us a group was playing “Eat Hilter!”, a game where players’ dinosaurs each tried to eat as many time-traveling nazi’s as possible. Another table featured Rorke’s Drift using the Brother Against Brother rules. Conan the Barbarian made an appearance, with players using the “Enough Talk!” rules.to recreate the Battle of the Mounds. Mobile Suit Gundam made an appearance, featuring the Battle of Odessa which pits Federation forces attempting to blunt a Zeon attack.

I used to play in the Flames of War tournaments a lot, and it was good to see many familiar faces in that crowd. Kudos to Kurt Reese as always for helping to run the tournaments and for providing the beautiful tables. The 16-player Mid-War Tournament for Friday saw Pete Zerphy’s Hungarians take 1st, with James Copeland’s British in second and Tyson Swigert’s Germans very close behind for 3rd. In the 16-player Late War Tournament on Saturday James Copeland’s Romanians got the gold, silver went to James Best Jr.’s Soviets, and John Dziubek’s British were awarded the bronze.

Over in the L’Art De La Guerre tournament they had 12 players. The Kommenian Byzantines took first place under the leadership of Ethan Zorrick. Alan Kaplan’s Alexander the Great army placed second. The Carthaginians filled out the podium thanks to Dan Hazelwood.

I’m definitely looking forward to going back to Barrage next year and participating in both days. It might just be one of the best small conventions around.