Conventions and Events

By Kreighton Long

On Saturday, 12 October 2024, Kalissa Skibicki organized a Bolt Action tournament at the Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Sixteen players brought their armies and positive attitudes for one last Bolt Action Second Edition tournament. Due to the travel involved for me to get down to Williamsburg, this tournament feels like a Bolt Action geek reunion where I have the pleasure of catching up with like minded people on an annual basis. I caught up with familiar faces and made some new friends throughout the weekend. Overall, the tournament appeared to have been a success with plenty of laughs and jokes to compliment the friendly competition of the day.

Kalissa’s highlight from the tournament was the influx of new players.  She commented that around six of the sixteen players had recently started playing Bolt Action and that this was their first tournament.  Moving forward, Kalissa, as well as her players, will need to become familiar with the revised rules of Third Edition which will require a not-too-small investment in revamping the tournament packs for Kalissa’s future tournaments.

After three rounds of games including Double Envelopment, Demolition, and No Man’s Land, the players gathered around Kalissa to hear the final results of their efforts.  Due to all sixteen players tying in the second round, the final push to secure a place on the podium came down to secondary points.  In this tournament, the secondary points resulted from order dice claimed minus order dice lost. After all the scores were tabulated, the winners were announced with one order dice separating first place from second.

By Kreighton Long

On 21 September, twenty-six players gathered at Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, Maryland for another Bolt Action tournament (2nd Edition) organized by Michael Kehs.  Mike was pleased to see his tournament crowd grow since the last tournament back in April to include recurring players from as far away as Ohio and a new player who ventured down from Connecticut.  Mike credits a level of his growing popularity to his success in reaching out to vendors for prize support.  In addition to healthy rewards for the top finishers, Best Painted Army, and FUBAR, players also can look forward to raffle drawings between rounds.  Well-earned credit needs to go to the Assistant TOs, Rob and Chris, for providing invaluable support with setup, break-down, raffles, and pictures.

The three scenarios chosen for this tournament were Meeting Engagement, Key Positions, and Sectors.  This tournament included a new gimmick from the previous one.  While last time players could find their turn ending prematurely if two odd colored Order Dice were pulled from the bag, this time players needed to keep an eye on Secret Objectives distributed prior to each game.  The Secret Objectives forced players to adjust strategies and to think more tactically to score up to an extra ten points, five per objective, each round.  From what I was able to overhear, the feedback from the Secret Objectives was mostly positive, and Mike confirmed that he will look into incorporating them at future events.  One improvement he plans on making is to specifically assign certain objectives to pair with certain scenarios and to balance them with each player receiving one hard and one easy objective.  In my three games, the Secret Objectives did present opportunities for me to play the game differently than I normally would, and added an extra level of intrigue to the game.  For example, in my final game, I had an opportunity to finish off one of my opponents units but instead moved my unit into my opponents half of the table to accomplish my Secret Objective of finishing the game with all my surviving units on my opponents half of the table.  While that choice had no true impact on the outcome of the game, the choice I faced did make it a little more interesting for me and bagged me an additional five points to my overall score.

By Mitch Reed

Another Connections Wargaming Conference is in the books and this last event was yet another benchmark performance. Held in Carlisle PA, the host Army War College Conflict Studies Laboratory exceeded what they did when they last hosted the event in 2019. We have covered this event over the last few years, and it is the premier event where wargamers from defense, industry, academia and the hobby community gather to talk about how to make wargaming better and what the next generation of wargaming looks like.

By Michael Rafferty

Recently, AdeptiCon announced that it was moving to the Baird Center in Milwaukee. While Schaumburg and the Greater Chicago area has been great to us, we’ve epically outgrown the Schaumburg convention center. Three years ago, we expanded to the facilities at the Hyatt Regency, moving historicals and a few other events there. By the last convention, even this extra space was full and then some. This doesn’t even factor in all the hassle of being at two hotels. While I’m a big advocate for the Hyatt and our historical space, it was packed this year. AdeptiCon has been pushing at the limits of Schaumburg, and it was time to look at bigger spaces.

The Baird Center at night

By Kreighton Long

A few weekends back I had the opportunity to compete in a Bolt Action tournament.  Twenty-four players converged on Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, Maryland for a day of competitive play.  Operation Roundup was Tournament Organizer Mike Kehs’ third tournament and largest so far.  Mike began organizing tournaments in Maryland to support events for players in his area.  Learning from other TOs, Mike advertised early and often for his event which helped to pull in players from multiple states around Maryland.

Mike’s tournaments aim to provide enjoyable experiences for competitive players, hobbyists, and new players alike.  Mike was supported by two assistants who doubled as judges for the painting competition.  The assistants helped to ensure a smooth event considering it’s size with one stepping in as a ringer to even out the numbers.

by Mike Rafferty

I feel like I say this every year, but this was the biggest AdeptiCon ever. Early estimates are over 8000 badged attendees with the numbers still being calculated. That means likely 10,000-12,000 through the door since AdeptiCon does not charge for a shopper’s badge and there are a lot of people that come to walk around and check things out. Early reports from the vendor hall is that the majority of vendors had their best year ever and the hall was packed when I walked through. Despite all these record-breaking notes, there is one important question: did I have fun?

Team NDNG was in full force at Adepticon 2024. Mike, Tom, Paolo and Mitch wound up in Schaumberg Illinois to attend what turned out to be an amazing event. We rally back at the studio to talk about the next event in Milwaukee WI in 2025.

By Paolo Paglianti

Imagine an airport hangar packed with tin soldiers: tin soldier shops, tin soldiers demo tables, tin soldiers tournaments. Well, that’s literally what happens at Warfare 2023, one of the biggest and most significant wargaming and modeling shows in the Old World, located south of London. Warfare is a heaven for every wargamer: there are lots of shops selling essentially anything you can imagine: books, miniatures from 6mm to 54mm, and terrain for any wargame from ancient to sci-fi.

It is organized by the Wargames Association of Reading and it’s simply excellent – I know how difficult is to organize an event so huge and complex, and David, Steve, and the Reading Team always do a fantastic job. I really recommend you pay a visit, if you’re in the UK next November.

By Erich Goebel

List building in Blood & Plunder (and any wargame) can be one of the most intimidating facets of learning a new game and delving into competitive and focused, serious play. Blood & Plunder also features over 100 different factions to play under seven umbrella nationalities with fantastic nuance and differences that give each a unique flavor to play and test. These numbers can be overwhelming, as one flips through the one core book and three expansion books available to compare list options.

Luckily, the online force builder tool is utterly amazing and is actually fun and convenient to use.

Editor’s note: This week David takes a look at how the hobby of TT Wargaming helped him through a tough emotional time. In this story, he reminds us that our games are not just about the counters, the figures, the little toy soldiers, but about the people across the table from us. The hobby can be community as well. And that can help us all.

By David Garvin

On the 4th of July this year, my mother died. She lived her last days at a hospice near the shores of the Bay of Quinte in eastern Ontario, Canada. Almost as if on cue after her passing, a pair of CF-188 Hornets of the Royal Canadian Air Force flew overhead as they conducted a series of touch-and-goes at nearby 8 Wing at Astra, Ontario. A fitting tribute, especially how much my mother loved going to the base to watch the air shows.

Personally, I was at my mother’s side in her last days, being able to visit with her while she was still lucid and able to ensure that her spiritual needs were fulfilled and being able to pray in her presence, finishing with an Angelus for her less than an hour before her death.