Weekend o' BrianCon

Well this last Saturday, July the 17th was our inaugural "Briancon". It was a bittersweet affair, and no, the photo above is not the con itself. Anybody who has been around has seen me mention my buddy Brian and his blog, Repple Depple. Well it was that Brian who was the focus, and the reason being is every gamer's lament...he's moving! Losing a regular member of any gaming group is always a bummer, especially now that we're all getting, ahem, older. It's one of those things that happens though, and although we're very happy for him and his family in their new venture, we're also incredibly bummed they're leaving.


We kicked off the festivities at ten in the morning with a rousing game of Field of Battle set in France, early World War II. I'll do up a separate post for each game we played of course, but let me just say I loved, loved, loved Field of Battle. As is the norm for the historical group, the table was huge, the minis were beautiful, the terrain was lavish...the works.


The game was broken up by an awesome lunch of grilled sausages, dips, and other great foods. Brian's wife was super cool and was in full-on "cook for gamers" mode allowing us to roll dice without a food care in the world. The one and only bonus of a family moving away is they don't want to take all the food with them, so they were cleaning out the cabinets, and what a better food-wreckin' crew than a gaggle of gamers?


Check Your 6! was next in the line up, and finally I got to play the "jet age". Having flown, err, played with just 1930's and 40's era planes, these jets were crazy. They were super fast, maneuverable, and had missiles (that never seemed to hit anything). The scenario took place in the 1970's between Egyptian and Libyan air forces.


To round out the day we played a large game of Pig Wars, with each of the six players fielding their own warband of Vikings or Irish, and havign their very own agendas. Even though everyone thought they knew what side they were on, special circumstances might have said otherwise. This was a very inspirational game and although I said I was "done" with project viking, I could see myself painting up "just a few" more guys to fill in some gaps in the collection. Also, Brian had some great terrain set up with a central palisade on a hill complete with stone cottages and a couple of fire pits.


Speaking of fire pits (ha, nice segue!) we had another scrumptious meal for dinner. Again Brian's wife was a dervish of the dish in the kitchen, taking care of all our gastrointestinal needs. Some leftover sausages from lunch made it into the fray along with grilled chicken, these great little shrimp/bacon/pepper thingies, beans, cole slaw, and kinds of other fixings. To round it all off, homemade key lime pie and peach cobbler with whipped cream provided the perfect, final send off.

All in all, it was a great day full of everything that makes this hobby great; gaming, food, and friends. Like I said, I took lots of pics of each of the games, so there will be more to come. If you live in or around the Winchester, VA area and looking for a game or know of any solid historical groups nearby let me know and I'll pass it along to Señor Repple Depple.