Since moving to the Kansas City area in 2018, I had not been to any conventions here. I decided this year was the year I was going to get back to attending cons. This past weekend was Borderwars hosted by Heart of America HMGS. It is a 3 day con, I only attended on Saturday, so my comments will be restricted to that day. I arrived around 9 and got signed in. The con is I'd say on the small side but, there was plenty to do. There were a number of vendors with a variety of wares, books, Ospreys, painted minis, and a ton of board games. I noticed some pretty good deals on some of them. No, I did not buy anything, I really don't need too much at this point, and I have a few Kickstarters that will be fulfilling this year anyway. After looking around I decided on a game of Saratoga 1777. The game was using the Live Free or Die rules from the chaps at Little Wars TV. They seemed easy so we commenced to action. The British were to capture the three road exits or for a minor victory both of the farmhouses on the board. Confident of victory I marched forward with Frasers command. With Lights, Grenadiers and regular foot I felt I had the power behind me to get the job done.
I was advancing to one of the road exits while the troops in the center went to engage the rebels in the center woods my Indians were left to keep the wood on my right clear of the enemy.
Much to my surprise, the brigade on my side of the board suddenly turned into two, and the Indians ran into some riflemen in the woods. The riflemen did attempt a charge at the Indians, and failed. The Indians then poured in a deadly fire, but, the riflemen held on. They stood and exchanged shots the next turn which forced both units back. They were then happy to maintain the status quo.
After a brief halt, due to the second rebel brigade entering, I began my advance again. Meanwhile the rebels in the center had been forced out of the woods and a Hessian brigade entered from the far side of the board, threatening to flank the rebels from the woods.
My lights were forced back by some surprisingly accurate, and devastating rebel fire, again slowing my advance. It was nice that the center and left attracted a lot of attention.
With their attention divided I was able to reform my lights and resume the advance. This last picture is where we ended at dusk the hessians fighting over the far farmhouse, the rebel center under assault and the rebel left preparing to be hit from my troops and some from the center.
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Ends up being a rebel victory since we were unable to achieve either goal. I enjoyed the game and I though the rules quite easy to grasp. I don't think there was enough there to dissuade me from using Regimental Fire & Fury for my AWI. There was a break between games so I walked around and took a handful of pics.
There was a Wings of Glory game, a Sicily game with, it looked like, area movement, it did look interesting, Axis & Allies Global War, and a Vietnam game. There were a few others that I did not get pics of that were going on when I was playing, including a Kursk game with micro armor, and a Tewkesbury game. One of the lunch options was a Taco Bell right in front of the venue. Several of us opted for that though Subway was pretty close as well. Taco Bell had a sign saying they were out of a substantial amount of items, including lettuce, onion, tomato, hot sauce (not the other sauce temps), needless to say they, were a mess. But the bean burritos and my chicken quesadilla were just fine. I did opt for a couple of crunchy tacos, but, without lettuce they were lame.
After lunch I played in a fine Alamo game. The Alamo itself was the Old Glory/Blue Moon model, and the figures were the 18mm figures from Wofun Games. The rules were by Wofun as well I think they were called Texas Rising, something like that anyway. The game master had modified them some for the Alamo specifically. Here are some pics of the action.
It was a really fun game. I was the Texian player on the north side. The kid playing the Mexicans in front of me destroyed two of my guns facing him before I could fire. I pulled my third crew after firing since the wall was free of defenders. The Mexicans did overwhelmed the fort, but, Texians held out long enough to claim some sort of pyrrhic victory. Yea for us! I had a blast, and I know that kid did, since he killed all my guys. We had a few stands live through the 13 turns, down by the main gate.
I really liked the Wofun miniatures in the 18mm. I am not too sure how I would feel about them in 28, I doubt I would like them in that scale. I am tempted to get rid of my unpainted lead for the '45 and replace them with these guys. I will just wait and see when I get to it.
I left shortly after this game ended and did not see what the night activity was. I'll definitely be supporting the con with a game, or games, next year. That is it for this post, I do have three more waiting in the wings so I'll make up for the half a year I haven't posted. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming posts.
Thanks for taking a look.
