Enfilade 2019 Recap: Part 1 - Other People's Games

Enfilade 2019 wrapped up on Sunday and it was another well run and attended convention. This year there were 380 attendees. After years of having around 200-250 attendees, the convention has moved up to have 350-400 people. Most gaming periods were full of games and gamers. There were only a few empty tables in a couple periods. Overall, the convention remains healthy and it sounds like there will be more general games days coming up in 2019.

A quick view of the hall on Saturday

As per my normal Enfilade recap, I’m doing two Enfilade posts; one on the general convention and other people's games and a second covering the games I ran or helped with. This post will cover the general convention stuff.

The theme for 2019 was Winter War, so there is a lot of white in the photos (which washed out some of the figures). I getting photos of some games and some photos didn't turn out, but I tried to get as many photos as I could to show all the different games. Note this is a long post with lots of photos.

Friday
A lot more people are showing up early on Friday. The afternoon game period was well attended and the evening seemed as full as any Saturday.

1st Newbury - English Civil War

15mm Bolt Action Battle of the Bulge

The first wave hits the beach on D-Day

Eastern Front tank battle

Guilford's Courthouse (Black Powder rules)

Isola della Scala (Lion Rampant)

Kursk with microarmor

All Quiet on the Martian Front

Stalingrad

Cavalry battle near Toulouse 1814

Weitzel's Mill (AWI using Rebels and Patriots)

Battle of Auerstadt

Searching for tech after an alien invasion (see the crashed saucer in the middle of the photo)

Cruel Seas convoy battle

Chariot racing

Finns holding off the Soviets

Battle of Germantown

Greek galley warfare

Star Wars pod racing

A Ratt and Mauses taking on the Americans

The Battle of Ravenna

The French retreat from Moscow

Hurons, Iroquois, and Dutch fight it out in the New World

A train heist in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Saturday
There was a good turn out on Saturday, although I didn't get as many photos because of the games I running and helping with. 

The Great Yukon Sled Dog race

Ambush at the White River

British armor attacking north of the Bulge

Car Wars

Convoy in the Barents Sea

Foraging at Drake's Farm (AWI battle)

Battle of Dresden

Eastern Front - Winter 42

Bag the Hun - Finns and Soviets

The English try to defend their wagons from the Irish

A Japanese convoy under attack (using Mal Wright's Kaibokan rules)

Mexican-American War battle

Battle of the Trebia River

Attack on Hoth (using an AirWar C21 variant)

Beach landing at Tarawa

Aztecs and Conquistadors (with a Tardis by the palm trees)

Cruel Seas off Norway

Pulp Alley Zeppelin

Beyond the Gates of Antares demo

British retreat from Concord

Battle on the Ice at Lake Peipus

Viking raid

Conn ... Sonar Soviets

Relief of Bastogne

SAM Site for Thuds over Vietnam

Sunday
A lot of people stuck around for the Sunday game period too. I was running a game in this period, so I missed out on a lot of photos.

All Quiet on the Martian Front

Ground assault on Hoth

Gnome Wars

Convoy in the Baltic - World War I

Russo-Japanese War pre-dreadnought battle

Check Your 6 - Americans and Soviets tangle over Yugoslavia

Thanks to the Enfilade staff and all the volunteers for another great convention.

Off to Enfilade

I've been somewhat neglectful of my blog lately. I could list a bunch of reasons why this happened - but that would be a boring read, so I'll just leave the facts to stand as is.

Memorial Day weekend is here, which means time for the annual Enfilade gaming convention.

This year Kevin and I are running a reprise of the Operation Tungsten game (a Fleet Air Arm attack on the German battleship Tirpitz) and an Italian bombing attack on Malta Harbor. Both games will use David Manley's unpublished Air War 1940 rules.

A photo from the first Tirpitz game.

An earlier Italian raid on Malta Harbor

Additionally, I'll be helping out with Retreat from Concord game, which uses the Rebels and Patriots rules (with some special rules). You can see photos and a description of the last playtest here.

I may not get much playing time, but I am looking forward to seeing all the figures and games. I'll be taking lots of photos from the convention, so expect to see my annual Enfilade photo posts coming soon.

Work In Progress Updates

I’ve been slowly working on a few different things over the past month, but my work has been pretty unfocused as I try to figure out which direction to go. In the past month I’ve worked on plans for Enfilade, Cruel Seas 1/300 ships, 1/600 ships, 15mm tanks (for What a Tanker), and 28mm Arabs. I’m getting close to finishing up the ships, but the other items are definitely fall into the “In Progress – Not Ready to Show” category.

In the “Complete and Ready to Show” category, my Cruel Seas bonus diving U-boat. Here a are couple photos.

Dive! Dive!

And from the port side

I tried to weather the model and add lots of whitecaps to the water. I like the model, although I feel bad for the two guys manning the 20mm. I did paint life-jackets on them, but I’m not those will really help. I’m also not sure where the diving sub would get used in a game, but I’m sure someone will come up with a scenario.

Next up, in the Not Complete – Okay to Show” group are five primed and ready to paint 1/600 scale merchants from Heroics & Ros. These ships are from the old Skytrex coastal force line.

The 4,000 ton cargo ship (left), the 5,500 ton cargo ship (center), the the 4,500 ton oil tanker (right)

A 3,000 ton tramp (left) and a 2,800 ton tramp (right)

The whole group

The models are nice and went together easily, with resin hulls and metal details. The resin hulls make sure the ships aren’t too heavy. I expect they will get the standard dark gray/black hulls with light/medium gray superstructures.
These ships will serve double-duty for me as targets for air attacks and targets for coastal forces games. Overall, these were good investments with a lot of potential for use.

Resetting my efforts 
One of the things I wanted to do this year was be more focused on projects. Instead, this year has been a lot of jumping around to a lot of projects.

I’m keeping the 1/300 air and 1/600 ships at the top of my projects list. All the must have items for the planned Enfilade games are done, but it will be nice to have some extra ships and planes that could be thrown in to mix things up a bit. This includes finishing up the H & R merchants and the aircraft that are halfway done.

My other projects will be pushed back for now and I’ll decide what to do after I finish up the ships and planes.

That said, I have a special mention for Cruel Seas. After being distracted by this shiny object and waffling around on what I would do with it, I decided I didn’t want to redo the same ships in the new scale and would concentrate my 1/300 scale efforts on an area where I don’t already have many 1/600 scale ships – the Black Sea (and Baltic Sea). With that in mind, I’m going to set aside the Cruel Seas ships until a few more Russian and German ships come out. I really need to read up on this front a little more before deciding what ships I’ll want to get. But I’ve seen German R-boats and MFPs are coming soon and I hope there will be some Russian MO patrol boats (although there is always the option of getting the H & R Soviet BMO patrol boats).