Council Fires

With a bit of trial and adventure I made it to another small convention yesterday as Council Fires made another attempt at rebirth. This convention used to be a staple in the autumn for many years, then it's organizer stopped doing it. A decent attempt to resurrect it was made two years ago and then there was a year off. This year's effort was pretty modest, another Legion hall and minimal pre-show promotion or advertising.

Unfortunately I had to work the night before, getting home at 0500 to shower and get some sleep before Martin was banging on the door at 0700 to load the van with stock. Then it was back to bed, planning to get up around 1100 and see how I felt about driving to the show, but Wierdy-Beardy called at 0930. Quick breakfast and he picked me up at 1000 to make the 45 minute-hourish drive to Cambridge.

"Do you know where we're going?" I ask in all innocence.
"I have a vague idea" he says.

Now Cambridge is composed of three smaller villages (Hespler, Galt and Preston) that all grew together, so there are in fact THREE Legion halls. Plus my driver was remembering the venue from two years ago, which was in fact the Newfoundland Club.

Turns out we drove within a couple of blocks of the venue when we first arrived in town, but had to circumnavigate all of Cambridge for an hour visiting the other two Legion halls first.

But we did eventually arrive around 1300 hours to find about half a dozen very nice miniatures games in full swing. Some X-Wing, a 28mm WW2 using Chain of Command, a big 28mm Napoleonic battle (Shako II), a couple of 20mm Vietnam games of the Battle of Ia Drang Valley (LZ X-Ray and the Lost Platoon) put on by RAFM using their Charlie Company rules and some 10 or maybe 15mm SF armour. A VSF game using In Her Majesties Name was being set up. I started taking pictures and my battery died. There are more pictures of the IHMN game over on the Lead Adventure Forum here. Unfortunately the penguin in the pith helmet (sounds like a Professor Elemental song doesn't it?) eluded photography.

Council Fires

LZ X-ray

Some big Napoleonic game

Victorian SF

While Wierdy-Beardy played in a second 28mm Napoleonic game, I spent all my afternoon talking with folks and got this sweet deal from the Crossed Swords multi-convention long going out of business sale. A nice, if somewhat shopworn, 28mm resin Norman church for only $10.00!

New addition to my Medieval village

I'm confident the previous attempt to paint it will be easy to cover up.

Being more centrally located Council Fires drew a slightly bigger crowd than KEGSCON. Martin was pleased with the sales.