The Games Tavern, Chronicle of a Visit...and it's POST # 75!!!

Hello all, welcome to another thrilling installment of "500 Miles.." I wanted to get into letting you all know that I recently visited a new game store in the Washington DC area, a store I've mentioned previously in this blog. We here at "500 Miles..." want to support our local FLGS, and we encourage our readers to do so as well! 

So, how is it? Games Tavern has some real promise folks. It's only been open two weeks, and I did like what I saw. The paint selection was well, impressive, to say the least...AK, MiG, Vallejo. The first two you really cannot get anywhere else in the area, and the third, well, how many stores do you know that carry the ENTIRE Vallejo Panzer Aces line?

What I also liked is that they have room for expansion. During discussions with John, the shop owner, he told me they will be carrying a selection of 20mm from Covert Intervention Games, as well as Fantasy Flight Games and a variety of other lines to be named. In short, they have a plan, and they are executing it. 

A Nice View of the Gaming tables

The store in total is 2500 square feet, and has even private gaming rooms of what looked to be ample size to rent (I didn't get details on rates for that). I was rather impressed by the amount of natural light to be had in the place, in addition to the other lights. A well lit hobby shop is a good thing. I've been in too many where "Dark Dungeon" wasn't just a name, it was a description of the lighting conditions. Kudos to the Game Tavern for this alone. It was clean, the employees were engaged and customer oriented. There were Flames of War demos set up for people to try. And the entire FRONT of the store was tables for people to play at or paint at. Yes folks, this store has a good plan, a plan I cannot wait to see where it goes.

They have quite the internet presence on Facebook, and they are advertising events all the time, as well as a website which can be found at: www.thegamestavern.com. 

In short, pay Games Tavern a visit. I give them 4 out of 5 Mushroom clouds, and we'll be back in the near future to see where it goes from here.

I also want to let folks know, the Iran-Iraq war books are being read and digested, and an interview is coming. They're a bit harder of a read than anticipated, and to be honest, for reasons I wish they were not. I also will have that review of PSC's T-55s in 20mm. My capsule statement: They're good, but there are some niggling concerns I have with them, but we'll address that in the near future. I also promise more Twilight:2000 focused content soon, as I intend to do a review soon on the Cold War Battlegroup effort on the Cold War Hot Hot Hot Blog. Short word? I like it enough that I am working on a Twilight: 2000 variant for a variant, eh?

There is one other thing I wanted to mention! This is the 75th blog post here at "500 Miles..." That's right, 75 posts, 40,000+ visits, and 46 of you are following this little blog of mine. I hope you're enjoying what you are reading. I really am happy that you, the reader continue to enjoy what is posted here, and as long as you keep reading, I will keep writing.

Yay, we hit 75!!!

UPDATE: I have been remiss, dear readers, in that I forgot to mention a new Cold War-era wargaming focused blog. The Red Storm Rising blog is fairly new and looking for contributors, so far, I rather like what I see, and I would love for folks to post more.

More News Coming About!

A New Game Store in Chantilly, VA!

There's a new game store in Northern VA! And yes, Virginia, color me excited. Chantilly isn't TOO far from me, right down 66, and I am excited to know people who love 20mm have a storefront for me to hop down and pick up stuff to fill my gaming needs.

 Where in Chantilly is it, you ask?

4124 Walney Road, Suite H
Chantilly, Virginia 20151

(Do us a favor, tell them "500 Miles..." says hi when you visit!)

The store, from photos on their Facebook page, looks well stocked and has pretty much any gaming needs filled you might want. And yes, dear reader, we will be paying a visit soon to do a proper review, but one could not let something like this go without letting folks know. We have quite the readership in VA, and yes, we want this store to do well! And their grand opening is THIS weekend! So, go on down, and say hello!

Images taken from Wargaming and Terrain Website

And there's more. A new book is out, called "Setting the Scene: Winter Wargaming" and we'll be doing a review on it as well, as soon as I can manage it. On first blush, it looks gorgeous, and hey, winters and Twilight: 2000 go together like nuclear explosions and gamma rays! We'll have a review shortly for you, but the book looks very useful indeed.

We also should have a review of the new PSC T-55s that were finally released, and I put some together and I will have my thoughts on the assembly and details.

So, lots to come in the coming days.

My Awesome Historicon Adventure, Part One

Historicon, it's been a convention I have been going to since 1987 when it was still at the Penn Harris hotel in Camp Hill, PA. Boy that has been a long time. I have been going a lot more frequently since the con came to Fredricksburg.

It was a bittersweet convention for me, as I realized this was the 11th Historicon I have attended in some form or fashion, and for me, there was a lot of faces I do miss. We're graying as a hobby, and it was evident this year. I am 43, and I was used to being the "baby" at a lot of tables. Now, I see 3rd and 4th generation wargamers, and it's good to see, but I do hope there are enough of them to keep us a going concern.

Sadly, I did not see Covert Intervention Games there, but there was a lot of positive comments about my Twilight: 2000 related T-Shirts. I also spread the word of "500 Miles.." far and wide.

Anyhow, enough of the wool gathering and shameless plugs..I saw a lot of games, including a few PA games, mostly of a zombie nature, but there was a "Mad Max" game as put on by Stan Johansen of Stan Johansen Miniatures. Vendors were a plenty, but this year, my best finds were in the flea market (it tends that way sometimes, some years, the flea markets rock, some years, not so much).

There was a TON of Roco minitanks stuff for sale, both in the flea markets and the dealers area, 15 year old me would have been in heaven, 43 year old me? *meh*.

I didn't see ANY specific Twilight: 2000 stuff for sale, which was a rare thing in the flea market, we always see something. There was some box games, Air War, Air Cav, even a copy of Next War. I did pick up some items of interest to everyone here though.

I managed to get my hands on an Esci original M48A2G2, these will go well with my Germans for when I do territorials. I presume these would have been brought out of the reserve armories as replacements for the Twilight War.

As for games of interest, I did play in a couple of games of interest..the first was called, "SOCOM and Sorcery", on the Friday I was there (He had a WWII version as well that I did not play in, but the moderns version was a hoot none the less). Think a mashup of Ghostbusters, The Mummy, and stir in a LOT of modern firepower. There were a ton of factions, Chechens, Russians, Taliban, Somali Pirates, US Marines and Rangers, British, Australians...all after a Dr. Bakr who was playing with "things man was not meant to know". Fnord. (You could also win by getting gold, but I think everyone was like "screw that", except for the Chechen player). This game was excellent Twilight Nightmares fodder.

Here are some photos from that!

I played the hapless (and I do mean hapless) Russian commandos. First, we lost our BTR-80..to a rhino with an anger management problem...we did put a satchel charge on it...and that badly wounded it until our Chechen "allies" managed to put it down with fire from a recoiless rifle. This then led to a happy massacre of the centaurs behind it with automatic weapons fire. All the while, the Somalis were RPGing to death a really big red dragon..with many of them being eaten in the process.

We then got into another fight with some pretty tough werewolves armed with some really big swords, and then shot down some temple guardsmen. So far, not too bad, our casualties were light, except for the BTR, and we got into the temple...then we ran into some mummies..who were around a corner..We threw several grenades...which kept bouncing all over the place...and not at the intended target. I then got tired of this...and had a man RPG the undead bastards...then finished them with AK fire. We then moved towards the temple room, where we massacred more mummies. But the Aussies beat us there. How you ask?

The Australians had found a direct way into the sarcophagus chamber, where Dr. Bakr was again, involved in very dark rituals. They grabbed him, only to have all these nasty horrors come out of the walls! Many Australian commandos died getting Bakr out, but got him out they did, and as the young lad said who played them "Objectives take casualties." He managed to get out of the temple and was rightfully awarded the win.

The next was the "Blackhawk Way Down" on Saturday. It was a game run by Pete Panzeri himself. He was quite the showman...as always, complete with funny hats. I was nominated by Pete to play Aidid himself after I volunteered to play the Somalis. (A lot of kids were there, and I remember being that age, not wanting to play the Somalis, so what the heck?). It was a hoot, we were doing a lot of fun, crazy things, my Somali gunmen inflicted some casualties on the Rangers, we damaged a Little Bird with RPG fire, shot down a Blackhawk, and at the end, ambushed the convoy just short of the gate and took out a truck full of Rangers and Delta. Yes, I was awarded the "Golden Assault Rifle" for my actions that day! (It's a neat little pen).

Here are some photos from that insanity!

Another game that deserves mention is a game called "That's my USAID" on Friday, set in the the Congo in the 1960s. It was a damn hoot, even though I got slaughtered as the Belgian-trained Congolese Paratroopers (having three out of 14 figures left by the end), we had done a number on the militia that had overwhelmed us. We ran off one of their squads, captured one jeep, and sent the other running and killed a lot of his RPGs and MGs. The militia player had decided from the start that he wanted to massacre me...didn't go all his way, and when the Bandits were stalemated with the UN, though the did control the ship with a good portion of the supplies, he cut a deal with us and the ANC (National Army of the Congo) to split the supplies three ways and cut the militia out. So, I call that a moral victory, if nothing else.

The last game was part of a new set of rules coming out called "Wars of Revolution" and it was a very good, fast play set of rules that did what it needed to. It's meant for wars in Africa, but with a few tweaks, you could use it for a variety of modern settings IMO, it should be hitting sometime around August, according to the designer.

And here are some photos from that:

I also got some photos of some Team Yankee stuff that well, looked incredible, including a really neat display someone put out of 3-505th Airborne ca. 1985 as organized for Team Yankee. It was a really great display.

There will be a lot more about Historicon on my other blogs, with part 2 being found on Festungplatz, as those items will be of more interest to readers of those blogs there, but I really did have a good time. On to 2018 everyone!