As in previous years we are in Agliana for Hellana wargame convention. The same trip to Tuscany from the early hours of the Sunday morning to the night, with a pause for the highway stop dinner. All is done to live another wargaming experience together with our friends from every corner of Italy. Look at the categories tag for other editions.

The classic DBA tournament. I prefer to play with other games during a convention, so even this time I only supported my DBA community with photos and friendship.

A Russian view with snow. And Italian and Soviet soldiers.

A WWI naval battle with an interesting use of cotton to built clouds!

When railway modelling in HO scale meet wargame in 20mm scale: a WWII fight in Germany.

Bigger scale and bigger building. Another WWII delicatessen.

Using Comitatus rules to build a battle at the Roma’s gates.

This playable scenario displayed a view of the Porta Ostiensis near the ARSM club headquarters. This scenario recreate a specific Gothic War event.

A new presence in the convention was the Gundam Italian Club. I’m an orphan of eighties too.

Some models, even if the better one was the Zion vessel!

I did my duty with a couple of Ferrum et Gloria scenarios. This one was an opportunity to test the “duel rules” and to have a fight secutor/scissor versus retiarii. An experience to make some tweaks to something. Then some people wished to buy the rules, but I’m still writing them, pity. Now I’m a little distracted by this convention period because we will have “La storia per gioco” and “Dadi.com” in the following weeks, but I’m very involved with the rules writing.

Again about Agliana, but this time for the Ganesha stand. As you have read before, me and Diego slept in Terni. The morning after we left at the 6 with Andrea, with a stop to say hello to other players from Terni who were leaving in another car with a table for Ganesha. Then to the motorway in Orte where Narciso was waiting for us. That night we returned to Orte for a dinner with him in a Chinese all-you-can-eat restaurant with fake Japanese and Wok credentials. A stop in Terni, and Rome at midnight.

At the convention we brought with us a pirate scenario, a quite compact one because we couldn’t take the galleons. I ran my Zen Garden game. This was the second time that I could sell it in its definitive form. I gave a free copy to some friends of mine that helped me in various things: Pippo, Bizio and Fabio. Instead “the principal playtester” of Drums and Shakos Large Battle was dedicated to a demonstration table of the game, because Sergio, the author, was busy with work in office even in Sunday. We had more attention on this Napoleonic ruleset than other games. People generally had scarce attention to tables, everyone were too much involved in his things to discover other things. Maybe in the first half of May, at Dadi.com convention in San Marino, we will have more opportunities to show our games. At that time I will organise a playtest of Ferrum et Gloria. I want to show the basic rules to my Italian friends, to start a full playtest campaign for the game.

We were here as every year since 2004. Hellana is the wargame annual appointment for Centre and South Italy. It is not so big, it is situated inside a school gym, but it is our convention, and we love it.

We are in the middle of nowhere, a village along the road from Firenze to sea, where you can find Lucca, Pisa and Viareggio: the upper side of Tuscany. It is amazing as from this bunch of houses some people organise their convention that calls people from various parts of Italy.

The main event is a interesting bring & buy space. This year I find an old magazine with crucial articles on Italian paratroopers in WWII, especially for the evolution of cartridge vests called “samurai”. I own one of them, a reproduction that I use in paratrooper reenactment. Among other things, miniatures and books, but I had just spent too much money on Vallejo colours, forex bases and miniatures for a special project for the next year to be published on Ganesha Games’s Free Hack.

Some tables were intriguing but you cannot find realisation out of normal because clubs don’t challenge each other to produce the outstanding table. They only want to show their usual games. Instead TB Line with Fabio Farneti bring home always some convention price because he is a perfectionist and he build perfect tables for 10mm miniatures with his friends.

Another event in Hellana is the DBA tournament and the Wings of War contest. In the last years I didn’t play DBA here because I want to try something new and chatting with people, free from four DBA turns that engage all the day. And the last year, me, Paolo and Andrea, re-invented Song of Spear and Shield during a experimental demonstration game.

In Hellana 2004 we found snow in Agliana. This year the weather was fantastic, so we found only this Russian scenario in snow.

I put the photos not in a strictly order bounded to the report. There were various tables and vendors, people played with their games and someone viewed the work of other people. We had fun and in a next post I will show the Ganesha stand. I close here with the more “vertical” game of the day.

This time Sergio was at home and only Andrea came to Hellana. Hellana is a convention only for players of historical wargames so Ganesha’s fantasy rulesets were not so appreciated here. I asked about a game with Song of Spear and Shield and Andrea satisfied me. It’s time that a skirmish game for ancients see the light because there are around a lot of beautiful 28mm that you cannot use with DBX or other games where you have to simulate an entire battle. Thousands of men reduced to formations of 28mms in tens is not the right look of a battle. Sometimes you want something smaller, a fight with only a part of troops. So you can even buy not an entire army but only the pieces that you want.

We set a game but something didn’t work. I have my ideas of what a fight with ancients is so I wanted to play in another way. All is too much simple for the period but complicated for some mechanics. There is the need of counters and this is bad. The mix of concepts from “Song of Blades and Heroes” with “Song of Drums and Shakos” and “’61-’65″ doesn’t work. We couldn’t think about the scale to give to the game, how you can put in battle array your historical troops. No solution.

I was a hard playtester this time because I like ancient history very much. And I want a great game and not a watered to humans version of “Song of Blades and Heroes” with spear and shields. Andrea was very dubious after my remarks. Another game was set but with other people. They have fun with what I refuse.

Me and Paolo were walking around without a game to play, Andrea was free so we tried another game. And this time we put forward a lot of ideas. We change the mechanics, the overlap modifiers, how a man can die, how fight, how calculate morale status, how to regroup, how command troops. A lot of things! Now it was entirely another game. Andrea must prove it to test it. And we want to play again with this new version but with a lot of troops involved!

Obliviously no release date yet!

Agliana was known as Hellana in Roman times. Since 11 years ago there is in this town a wargames convention. It is the most important in central Italy and now without Dadi.com in Crema maybe it is the biggest convention in Italy. I’m here every year since 2004…

This convention is inside a school gymnasium for children. The sad thing is that you cannot see outside and the day passes from dawn to sunset without seeing the sun. But there are a lot of other things to watch.

There are tables with participation or demonstrative games but they are mostly for long games and so you can pass all the day with only a game. The best looking games have got even a price given by Hellana’s organizers.
There are Italian vendors and something remain always attached to your hands during the day and magically some money disappear from your bucket. This time I bought some special decorative grasses for Flyton and a team of chaps in hunting party to add them at my vbcw troops. There was a great bring and buy this year but I resisted waiting that the best things were sold so I could save money for Salute.

Fabio is here with his Anticamente in demonstrative form. For the tourments there will be another time. Modena and Agliana were two big appointments to show his game and a lot of people seemed interested in it. But he is so busy that he didn’t sell it at conventions. I asked for a luxury copy but he has no time to print it. But his wife found time to cook this chocolate cake to offer to players. Delicious thought.

In the afternoon there was the Wings to War tournament. And like every year there is a DBA tournament. This year was the first time of Gasbarri’s child to enter in the competition while Pippo take with him his child like dice thrower. Younger generations are coming!