Again, I had a few hours to attend this year's Fall In at the Wyndham in Lancaster, PA. I took Numbers 2 and 3 with me this time. They went straight to Hobby University to paint some minis. Funny enough, they are more than welcome to paint up stuff at home, but by Jove, they have other interests! Anyway, I appreciate their company in the drive. Beautiful fall weather between DC and Amish country, so there was much admiring of the countryside along the way, marred only by at least a score of mangled deer along the route. Bambi wept! Circle of life, memento mori, etc.
With the younglings occupied, I made the circuit. More than usual, I'll let the pics speak for themselves. Generally, I think Fall In is surpassing Historicon in my assessment. By that I mean it; it's not full of weird games intended to delight the less discerning youth of today. I wanted to join more games than ever. The big, spellbinding and jaw-dropping games seem to be no longer a feature, but there was quite a lot of fantastic modeling on display. I've seen too much over the years, and the internet delivers spectacle and awe to me on a daily basis. Reality at any given time and place is going to struggle.
If you attended, you'll likely be able to trace my wanderings. All of this was bookended by a visit to Wally's to launch, concluding with the dealer hall a pair of hours later in the ol' tennis barn. I didn't find anything in the former, though the lighting was much improved over previous years. Even at the dealer hall, my finances largely escaped significant rapine and pillaging. I got a handful of 3-D printed items for medieval setups, some more walls, stumps, and pumpkins. All the boxes of Wargames Atlantic's Militant Monks were gone by Saturday, of course. I would have likely bought a pair of those - 24 for medieval work and the other box for cultists and bits. As usual, everything I need can only be procured from or in Europe these days.
I probably kept too many shots of tables that were sloppy and uninspiring. I'll refrain from pointing them out this time. As usual, folks seemed to be enjoying themselves. I'd be shocked if anyone reports a diminishment in overall quality. At least from what I saw during my few hours there, the overall impression was quite positive.
On with the pics!
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| There're those oddball Seussian buildings - you'll see more examples of those again below. |
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| I'm sure I've seen this Alamo before - it's as beautiful as ever! |
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| Fall In had a crazy amount of snow-covered tables ... will Cold Wars swap and have autumnal splendor dominate? |
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| Hmm .. I've got a lot of individual graves and smaller diorama graveyard bases of a grave or three. I wonder if I should build up more set-piece things like this one. I still have loose materials, yet I can combine them to make some pieces like this. I'll let the imagination work at this a spell ... |
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| This one was one of the showcase games that did elicit a fair amount of admiration from me. i especially like that the buildings have realistically outsized footprints. I didn't notice these rules in the dealer hall, but I wasn't really looking for them. |
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| Great table! My favorite is still below, but this one was very close. |
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| I believe I've expressed my love for planters on a few occasions already - a lovely and rare little detail making an already great table even better. |
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| I love little enclosed gardens and yards ... |
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| ... and dead trees too. |
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| I believe they are frying the chicken in lard as God intended. Otherwise, this is a landmark I'd happily surrender to the enemy. |
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| This and the shots above are part of the auction offerings, not actual games per se. |
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| I'm torn between this and yet another one below for my personal favorite of the show. Gorgeous down to the last detail! Just superb! Carnage and Glory II, if i recall. |
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| The best tables should give evidence that the one who set it up has been outside and has taken a note or two on what he has seen. |
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| Wasn't this a Wargames Illustrated cover from the 90s? |
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| Enclosed yards and gardens! |
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| Pew pew! |
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| Maybe this one is the Carnage and Glory II one? In any event, this one is also superb! |
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| Love these buildings! |
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| The fight for Paris! |
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| This was being set up and was on the way to being spectacular - alas, I did not see the finish! |
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| I love this teddy bear fur mat! I photograph it every time I see it. It's WW2 Eastern Front at the moment, but I've seen it in other centuries too. Right? |
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| Excellent! |
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| These buildings are those pre-colored MDF kits - really nice! |
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| I love these hedges - looks great with this Cigar Box battle map |
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| Those buildings again! Silver Bayonet Peninsula? |
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| Mark from Mark's Game Room was busy running this ACW encounter with a young gal (not pictured) who was literally baying for blood! |
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| This looked fun. My own collection of this kind of thing will have to go at some point. I've not painted a single thing for it. |
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| These SAS desert raid games are always so well put together. This is another collection I have for Flames of War that I've not even touched once. It's not in my way, because I don't know where it is exactly. |
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| Most games' appearance can be improved by the addition of a good mat underneath them. |
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| Nice Frostgrave table! |
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| This is another nudge from Fate to get those !@#$%^&* French Voltiguers done. I've been derailed already by Pumpkinhead cavalry while it's still Fall. |
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| These really turned out so well. I have all the Hovels buildings for this, all primed and unpainted, just like my voltiguers and the vast majority of my Cossacks. |
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| This particular 1812 Retreat from Moscow game was in clean-up mode |
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| This. This was my favorite of the show - a Sharpe Practice Penisnsula/South of France? game set in the early evening. Lamps are lit as the populace goes about its evening activities when war descends upon them! |
One could reasonably guess that the presence of Crescent Root buildings will make the offering an automatic first place in my book. AND these have interior lighting! I'm enchanted! First place it is.
In any event, these were much more impactful than the videos let on.
How'd the girls do? They struggled to find female miniatures but finally settled on these:
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| Here's what Number 3 (Age 10) came up with |
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| Number 2 (Age 14) did this one |
As I said at the start, they have no interest in painting at home but are happy to do so at an HMGS event! Both are proud as punch with their respective works. Consider: this is only the third figure each has ever painted. They’ve done fewer than one a year over the last four or five years, I’d say, with many months in between, which is to say they have no muscle memory to draw on. Come to think of it, they don’t have much muscle of any kind.
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