Fall In 2008 Photos and Thoughts!

Hey all!

Whelp, Fall In 2008 has come and gone, and despite a cold that is building, it was a grand time! As usual we stayed down at the Eisenhower from Thursday through Sunday, with the typical Thursday night dinner at the Dobbin House, and the cheap drinks at the hotel bar every other night:) The weather was PERFECT, so we got to walk around the battlefield a bunch, including a stop over at Culps Hill, and at the only Whitworth guns on the field.

The convention seemed a bit smaller than usual, but still a good time. There were, unfortunately, no good painted armies for sale, so I managed to not spend too much cash this time at the vendors... I did pick up a few pieces at Battlefield Terrain Concepts for my 15mm ACW (my first pieces by them,) a nice brush, two houses from Miniature Building Authority for my 25mm Napoleonics, and a few assorted other items. I also had the pleasure to meet Scott Mingus, who was a fine chap and was even kind enough to give me a copy of one of his fantastic books of Human Interest Stories... a real great collection of first-hand accounts.

But... what about the games? I'll do this in two posts; I'll start with the general games I took photos of, and then another post of the game I ran on Friday night.
Here is a pretty WWII game that was being put on. The table was VERY long; this is only about half of it. A nice use of simple, ripped tree flock to represent the forests, which didn't look AMAZING up close but really looked fantastic when taken as a whole from wargaming distance.

A massive 15mm Napoleonic game... can a game have TOO many miniatures?

A WWI trench game, with VERY nice in-ground trenches. This was much nicer than the above ground trench games I've seen, and fit the theme for the year!

A pretty 15mm Samurai game, fought over nicely modeled rice paddies.

A 25mm Lord of the Rings game, fought over some nice terrain, which also saw some Rev War action and some SYW action and some Starship Troopers also!

The traditional big WWI bash that seems to happen every year at Fall In; this year, however, it lost its spot in the little side room.

A clean 15mm ACW game. Flock your bases, folks!! You can tell the difference... check out this game, vs some of the other 15mm ACW games with unflocked bases... grrrrr.

Rick "The Flag Dude" O'Brien's Colonial game. I was very happy to finally meet Rick and his lovely wife at Fall In after so many emails and so many flags... this table was impressive as heck, and of course featured many Flag Dude flags. Can't wait to send in my next order... and I hope he can post some more photos of his own collection on his website soon!:)

A F&I War skirmish game.

A neat 15mm WWII game, complete with incoming paratroopers!

A very out-of-focus 25mm Napoleonic skirmish game... it was awful pretty, with nice scenery and troops.

Just a fraction of the troops being used in a massive 25mm Crimean game on Saturday night in IKE1.

The armies being deployed... note, that with such a huge table they played DOWN the table, rather than across, which looked fab.

Some French troops, ready for battle.

A British division, far advanced of the rest of the army, prepares to meet the enemy.

And finally, a very out-of-focus shot of some of the attacking cavalry... notice some more in the background.

So overall... a great Fall In! Can't wait until next year!