The day started well as I left work at noon to travel to Columbus, Ohio…about 3 1/2 hours away. Plenty of time, as my first game is scheduled at 6pm. Get to Columbus fine, then try to find a ?@#$@@# parking garage. Drive in circles for 30 minutes, avoiding construction that seems to block every way closer to the convention. Run a red light while looking at my map (oops) and will probably get a ticket because they have those damn cameras!
Find a garage and park. Whew! Get my figs and terrain and start walking. It’s 94 degrees out and the convention entrance is clear around the other side. After a hike of what seemed 4 miles, I get my registration and head for the gamers. I check in with all the friends from GLADBAG (great bunch of people!), and go to find some food.
How much?? A hamburger and a bottled water for $11.50!! Wow!! That’s after paying $60.00 for two day’s admission plus $12.00 for entry fees plus $8.00 to park….something for the HMGS honchos to think about if they ever want to move the HMGS-East conventions!
Of course then I realize that I forgot my camera in the car—but I wasn’t going to hike out there again. So sorry, no pics…
Played in the Matched Pairs run by Marty Schmidt, who drove up from Florida to guest-host. The concept is to bring two historical enemy armies. For two games, Side A uses their armies with the opponent picking which army to use. The next two games use side B’s armies with the opponent picking their favorite to use.
It’s a great concept as you don’t want to pick unbalanced opponents cause you will get stuck playing the underdog army. My armies were Milanese Italian Condotta and Medieval Germans.
Short version is that I rolled well enough to save my butt in all 4 battles…even rolling about 8-9 6’s against Allen Sams (sorry, guy!). I won all four games and was Side B champ, for which I was awarded a certificate for any Osprey book from the kind folks at the Osprey booth. Thanks to all my gracious opponents and to Marty for the fun tournament!
Now my luck changed for the worst. I drove to the hotel near the Airport as I was to stay with another Pittsburgh guy. Unfortunately he didn’t add my name to the room as I was a last-minute guest and I didn’t get his cell phone number(DUHHHH!!!). I waited till midnite or so, then decided to try to get a room somewhere. A half hour later and two hotels full, I saw the road sign to Wheeling and decided to drive home….getting in around 3:30 am! The bad thing is that my brother-in-law LIVES in freaking Columbus, but I didn’t have his number either and didn’t want to crash at about 1am…ACKKK! And of course I couldn’t get my prize as the booth wouldn’t reopen till Saturday…
The worst part is I missed the Invitational Tournament the next day, so was really bummed about it all…c’est le guerre!!! Next time, note to Diceman: book the room and get the phone number, stupid!
