My 2026 Little Wars Convention Loot!

 During Little Wars, I was finally on Sunday able to get out to the vendors and do some "Here! Take my money!" deals with some of the vendors.

Unfortunately by the time I showed up, some were closed, some were packing up and a couple didn't even make it out there.

Darn.

But I did make some deals.

Oddly enough I didn't buy any real figures or such this time, but more scenic items and things.

LOOT:

The first part of my loot haul was my freebies/SWAG and gift stuff.

This included dice, a 3d printed duck, and some other things, including a t-shirt from HMGS-MW.

(Click on photos to get the larger version.)

Of special and particular interest was the gift of "Personalized dice". One of our "crew", had the photo of the three of us from our 2024 LW Sojourn in our Picklehaubs for the "natural 1".

Now whenever I roll the dice and fail with a 1, I get to see our "Pretty faces"....

Each year for Little Wars, I go forth and purchase a "thank you gift", for my "crew"; my friends who honor me by being friends with me. I have a brotherhood in gaming and the game hobby, so each year I honor that by ordering a special commemorative glass from Ben Shot. This company makes amazing products. 

In the past we've gotten glasses with .308/7.62 rounds, and .50 cal rounds in them.

This year because of America's 250th, I did the Betsy Ross flag, and personalized them, and had the musket ball embedded.

Each member got their names and the convention placed on them also; a reminder of a good time.

On Sunday as we were wrapping up, HMGS-MW gave me one of their extra Historicon 2026 t-shirts.

It's a nice "School bus yellow" color for high visibility with a cool logo on it.

Not that I was a member of the staff or anything but still, it's the thought that counts.

(A fashion maven I am not....Please ignore the skulls.)

During the convention, I was awarded a Valor Award Medal.  This is given to GM's who run continuous games over 12 hours in total time. 

Not only did I get stuff, but my wife also scored a gift in the form of Yak meat sausage.

This is from the Star Yak Ranch in Wyoming.

We were gifted this last year and my wife fell in love with the stuff.

So with the exception of the 3D printed duck I was given, that was the end of the "free stuff", and such.

This was my total purchase for Little Wars, and it was all on Sunday.

(Not quite as an extensive haul as previous years, but still a good haul...)

Oddly enough, figures were nowhere on my shopping list. 

I'll be honest, I'm chocked pretty full with Reaper fantasy stuff, and I have a lot of historical figs right now, but I am always looking for scenery and such.

I think I am finding myself enjoying painting those more than figures right now.

So I hit Badger games and picked up some packs of stuff from Bad Squiddo.

The first was the Food Market scenics.

(More market items for people to spend their hard earned, or ill gotten coins on....)

(And some table items...)

(Some garden equipment to make those fields more interesting...)

I also picked up a wide variety of 3D printed furniture items. One can never have enough chairs, tables, bookcases, etc. 

These are pretty well done and after a good cleaning to remove any oils, agents, etc; I think the wood will only need a brushing of Agrax to tone the plastic look down some.

I also picked up some more ladders too....

(One can never have enough ladders so it would seem...)

And while perusing the vendors, I happened to come upon a copy of this.

I had seen a copy of these for sale at HMGS-GL ATC and was intrigued. I'm curious to see how they are.

And then, (joy upon joy), HMGS-MW was offering up some of the Secret Weapon line of paints that had been produced.  IIRC, these are no longer being produced.

(I need another paint rack...)

For stuff from the vendors that was pretty much it.

At the flea market, for me at the time there wasn't that much to buy on Sunday, but I did pick up this book on Irish battles for $1.00.

It's a nice add on to my collection.

And that was it for my "Loot collection" this year....gaming wise that is.

I did get some more stuff at Cheese castle....

(Meat and cheeses...mmmm....)

And of course my two cases of Spotted Cow.

Upon which my cat Gemma decided that "She needed to guard Daddy's beer while he was unloading the vehicle."

She's good that way.

So with the ending of this blog, my foray into Little Wars 2026 is pretty much done for the most part.

Summer Update!

Summer update...

Welcome back dear reader!

Making a quick update here (with some pics!), as we now move into Level 8 of Jumanji (aka August) 2020.

House is as house does...

So in our last update, we had put an offer in on a house that had an entire extra outbuilding for my mancave, (manhouse?) on it.

We dodged a bullet on it. As the house didn't really pass any safety inspections.

Between then and now we put an offer on another house, only to be throat chucked with so much drama from the owner that it didn't go through.

Finally we found our Goldilocks "just right house."

We've put in another offer, and the offer was accepted. Home inspection has been done, WDI has been done, and now all we are waiting on now is the appraiser to come and do this thing and then the final paperwork and then the keys and it's MOVE IN TIME.

Oh great...moving in August...sigh.

We're already in the process of packing up, but this puts more of a fire under us. As now we have a reason and a date, (closing date is scheduled to be 1 Sept.), to get things moving. It puts a more realistic perspective on things.

TBH, I am trying to move up the closing date as I am not so sure about that whole "1 Sept Hitler invades Poland anniversary thing"...but we'll see what happens.

The house is beautiful, AND I GET A GAME ROOM!!!!

I'll be posting pics after the papers are finally signed.

Antiquing and Toys! (and food too!)....

To show the world what a great guy and husband I am, I "convinced my wife", (like I really needed to do that), that we should go to Gilley's Antique Mall on Saturday. Gilley's is about 12 miles from our house and has rows and rows and rows of other peoples stuff, (many of them long dead), and you can find a lot of good deals there. 

While I was waiting on my wife and drinking a Pepsi, I noticed this plate on a holder above the refrigerator.

Old Texas memories. Back when Country Music was really Country Music and the Lone Star, Pearl and Texas Pride beer flowed free and cheap, and you could learn how to dance The Cotton Eyed Joe there...

Gilley's Bar was a legendary honky tonk back in the 70's and 80's. Located in Pasadena, Texas; the parking lot was crushed oyster shell and always left a white coating of dust on your vehicle. If you didn't put your windshield wipers up when you parked your car, the staff would wander the parking lot at night and put Gilley's bumper stickers on everyone's bumper. It was where Mickey Gilley, and his band, "The Bayou City Beats", played every Saturday and KHTV local channel 39 would broadcast live from the bar.  It was Texas fun at it's boot and hat best...

Then "Urban Cowboy" came along...and every damn Yankee decided to want to do the same damn thing.

The club portion of Gilley's burned down in around 1990. 

Sadly, there is a cheap knock off version of the club now located at "TI" (formerly "Treasure Island"), on the Las Vegas Strip.

Speaking of Beer....

So while my wife was wandering the aisles looking for treasures, I myself found one and then two...

Item #1:

I was lucky enough to find a Tucher Beer Nurnberg Fest Mug. 

Tucher was founded in Nuremberg in 1672 and is a main staple beer with lagers, pilsners, weizens, etc. Despite it's taste, it always seemed to give me a bit of the winds. However in homage to a city that I loved (Nurnberg), I went ahead and got it. It will sit in a nice little place of honor among my steins.

WARP SPEED!!!!!!

So while perusing items in the aisles, I suddenly came across an item that was just begging for me to get it and take it home for a gaming prop/scenic...

Yeps!

I was able to find a Playmobil Playmates 1996 Star Trek "First Contact" model of "The Phoenix". Picked it up for 12 bucks.  Brought it home, cleaned most of the stuff off it, and removed the old batteries, (one of them corroded), and replaced with new ones (after cleaning off the contacts), and voila! It works!!!!

This would be a nice piece for a 15 mm game or perhaps even a 28mm game. It's the first scenic item I have picked up in a while.

And then, food...

This was the first real "excursion" my wonderful wife and I have done in quite a while and as a result, we decided to keep with tradition. We took a side road jaunt, (I actually mistakenly took the wrong road thinking it was the right road), and we ended up going to our favorite little hamburger stand out in the small town of Bainbridge.

A nice big double cheeseburger with fries, (and my wife got the fried mushrooms), washed down with Indiana's own Triple X Root Beer, made in good old Lafayette, Indiana. No high fructose corn syrup, no gluten, no caffeine; just pure can sugar and goodness.

GEN CON REMEMBRANCE...

So this past weekend would've been Gen Con 2020. 

But it was cancelled due to this crazy Covid pandemic hysteria silliness.

Back in 2015 at Gen Con, I purchased some dice and the D&D 5th Edition Starter Set.

While at Wally World the other day, I decided to "Remember Gen Con" by doing the same thing.

So once again I purchased a 5th Edition Starter Set and a 3 set box of "Campaign Dice".

Godspeed GC 2020, and let's plan for GC 2021...

So that's about it for now. 

Here's hoping that the next update will be on a moving report to our new house with pics!

August and Gen Con!

Well, it's mid August already???

Hmmm...

Okay catching up.

Life (as usual), and that four letter word called "Work" has kept me in a constant flux of travelling and dealing with one nuclear priority after another.
Due to issues with my job, I was unable this year to take PTO to do the full four days of Gen Con, and instead had to deal with just going on Sunday, (which in itself worked out very well.)
So it was with adventure (and buying) in mind that I headed off to Gen Con....

A beautiful Sunday morning as I find parking very easily. A whopping two block walk away. Long term convention attendees take note.... 

Once I wandered into the Convention Center and got my badge, I went ahead and headed for what I had to do, (The dealers room)....

And there was stuff to be had....

The badge lanyard was well done and extremely popular this year.

Oh yeah! The old PCE, and you know what Jack Burton always says.....

So while wandering around, I got a couple of pics of the Dwarven Forge set up.

Front of the DF Castle...

And the back side of it... (the flames are illuminated by LED's)....

Some of the village detail from the DF set....

And then as I was walking through the place, I found the LFG area, and "The game"....

The banner beckoned to me like a harbor light in the fog....

And soon it was in my hands. For some odd and strange reason, this game REALLY appeals to me. And yet, none of my friends seem surprised....

Plus I got a free game, "Dicks and Krakens".  Hmmm....

Legendary Realms is based out of NY, and they sell dungeon style items that are compatible with DF. It's not as high quality but can do for those in an economic pinch. Plus they have some cool things, and I will be getting some items from them soon.

It always seems to happen...whenever I take a selfie, there's always a photobomb....Oh...my...GAWD!!!!

And the latest Chessex catalog, (Which stole my saying...harrumph!)...

And of course I got dice for my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!):

While making my way around, I ran into the combined Pulp Miniatures/Crocodile Games booth, and of course met up (again) with that suave fellow, Mr. Bob Murch...

Two dashing fellows with their hats....

Bob had brought along his setups for his "Cthulhu 28's" and his "Flint N' Feather" line. The small boxed dioramas looked amazing, and I decided to get some pics.

Set #1 is a 10 piece set of Arkham Investigators. I love how he uses the word "Investigators" instead of what they truly will be...victims....

The second one, "Masters of The Deep" shows off his "Deep Ones"...

A close up of one of the "Deep Ones". A nice sculpt and paint job brings the nastiness out in this thing...

So being the naturally supportive person that I am of all things good, I went ahead and picked up both sets to show my support.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

Then I wandered over to the shared side of the booth with Crocodile Games, and grabbed this...

Maybe I can use this priest for Yul Brynner...hmmmm

And of course I HAD to have "The Evil Emperor"....I'm thinking of a name for him along the lines of something like "Veryus Nastyus" or something like that. 

And Crocodile even threw in a FREE Amazon Archer figure!

My wife had also wanted some of the Cactus minis that Bob and Pulp Figures put out, so I picked her up a pack. (Note for those of you out there: The "correct" plural of cactus IS "Cactuses", and NOT "Cacti", however Cacti can be used and is accepted. - Yes we had a discussion about this.)

And as for myself, I picked up a pack of the "American Cowboys" from the Mexican Revolution Range.

An observation about Gen Con this year.

Each year Gen Con grows in size. The convention keeps getting bigger and bigger and the staff have done an amazing job. It's now spread to beneath the the Lucas Stadium into the Exhibition area there. This year Gen Con made the aisles in the Dealers Room a lot wider and thus there was less traffic stoppage and backpack incidents.
What I also happily noticed was that there were A LOT MORE miniatures dealers and vendors than I remember seeing in a long time. For us mini guys this is a good thing as with minis, also comes all the scenery and terrain, and fun stuff that goes with it. Let's hope that they continue to come to Gen Con and show us all of their goodness!

And finally....

One of the highlights for me of this convention was the Thursday night get together at "The Greek Islands" with Alex Bates, Bob Murch, and Dave McKay. Being the welcoming soul that I am, I decided to give Alex and Bob, a "Welcome to Indy" gift, consisting of a copy of Gutshot and a blister clam shell pack of our "La -Vaquera"-Tequila Girl figure.
It was well appreciated.

And of course the excellent photo of us as the entire restaurant emptied itself out as we wandered in...

Good food, good times, good people.

And a great pic of myself and the legendary Mr. Alex Bates...  We are such devilishly handsome guys, aren't we?

This was my sixth Gencon, and I am glad that I made it. I plan on going next year to the 50th.

And more is on  the way, including some photos of my July-August mini stash that I purchased.