A view of Historical Island. The Clan Conan space is at the end. Ganesha Games area is very large. Lava erupts from the volcano at the Andrea’s desk.

My Zen Garden in the fair. You can see the new materials at the work.

A playing preview of Swatters, the new game with 15mm aliens vs humans. Almost completed, it will see the light in a few months.

Flashing Steel on the table! Look at the wonderful sea, waves seems real. Some games were setted with this new ruleset. Pity, it was available only in English, so none could buy it, because Italian version is waited in the following weeks.

Sergio was very very tired due to work, but he could show his new Large Battle Drums and Shakos. A real success. His terrain was awesome, there was even a perfect vineyard.

He could explain the basic mechanics of the game with the throw of some dices to put spice in this. Some people wanted to buy it but you have to wait some weeks again. The book is in the editing phase.

Mighty Monsters, here presented in the Italian version and called Mega Mostri, results as a big hit in the heart of audience who reminds the lost sagas of Godzilla and its enemies.

Andrea presented the game with a volcano scenario and a lot of gashapon to show what we are speaking about. Children were attracted by these little figurines, adults were amazed finding their monster hero from younger time at work. And some child know the videogame of Godzilla and could name the monsters.

Scarred for life with Godzilla name!!! He is a hardcore Godzilla collector. However some people buy the ruleset ONLY because it is about kaiju, they don’t play wargames, they wanted Godzilla! I sign even an autograph on a copy, because I participated in the creation of the game!

Some happy customers playing with Mighty Monsters. Have fun with kaiju! And in the future you will have fights with giant robots from Japan too!!! Mazingaaa!!!!! And I have got a Patlabor large gashapon set to play a scenario with robots against a monster, as in Patlabor 3!

Inside Lucca Games we were a little part of the convention called “Historical Island”, a space where you could play wargames with miniatures. A large part was for Clan Conan, where there were participation games. Our part was called “Autori 3D” and I was in the programme under Andrea Sfiligoi section, as a sub-author. Historical Island people were all in the same hotel, so in the morning we did breakfast together and spoke about wargame world. Saturday was held a public debate on wargames organised by Lorenzo Sartori, with Andrea (Ganesha), Sartori (Impetus), Conan (Clan Conan), Torriani (Operation WWII), Cavatore (GW & Mantic). I filmed it almost entirely.

Along with our space there was a showcase with some scenarios and a place where very good painters showed what you can do with miniatures.

There was even 1-48 Combat with some new pieces for this game. I spoke about it before. Search my blog for it!

This is the beautiful terrain for the demonstration game of 1-48 Combat. Under there is the preview of Baroque, Impetus for Renaissance.

The convention is scattered all around the city of Lucca, inside pavilions. It is called Lucca Comics and Games. You saw in the previous post some comics and gadgets, now you can see the game part. This one is the queue at the entry to the games the morning of Saturday. I had the staff pass, so you can well understand what it can means.

Another view of the games pavilion on the other side, that one with the walls and ditch. That part outside the pavilion is where is the illegal market. In another post I will explain it.

This one is the stage for a videogame called Just Dance 3. It is a great opportunity to see young exhibitionists that move themselves along the music. The girl that managed the game was really crazy using dirty and insidious talking to move the people. For five days.

Painters exhibition. At the end they sell the paintings with an auction sale to aid sick children at hospital.

During Lucca Games there are some awards to the best games. This one is Rattus, awarded as table game for families, but it is card driven and with a theme based on pest deaths. A game for a happy evening in the family? Some people added an envelope with money (Monopoly like money, we are in a game fair) for the judges.

This is the iron man after Zerloon blog, in the fair for Gioconomicon as web journalist for the game area. Part of Gioconomicon staff brought me home the last day. Thank you! : )

Torture of Macaluso, a bloody pagan rite of hunt at the end of Lucca Games, to save us from the rain and bad results.

Let’s start with a view on stands around.

Here my friend Narciso frozen among comics. There were a lot of old and new comics. Too many for a life.

I wonder if a human being can have the space to store all this stuff inside his house. And I wonder as mini-skirt change the way we perceive the world.

Manga ARE the comics. They are read by boys and girls, when other type of comics are read only by males. It was a great thing when girls started to read comics. It will be a great day when females start to play historical wargames.

A smart and funny comic about boys, girls and sex. Great drawings too.

A comic about William the Bastard. Well done. Here the author while was signing my book with a sketch.

Personalised prints by Frezzato, a great comic author.

Gay Zombies in Vatican City! This diy comic went sold out.

Ashley Wood paintings for sale!!! I’m a fan, I like his robots very much but I cannot afford a painting for 3000 euros. I have them printed in a book. I will continue to see them on a book and not on a wall.

Ashley Wood, Jamie Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Crumb… where is my bank account?

Linings for long pillows to hug. A sexy help from Japan to lone male geeks. Exists the same thing for females.

Mouse pads with tits. I bought that one down on the right. I have problems with my wrist so this can help.

Tanto Cuore (a lot of heart) is a card game about Japanese maids. Yes, it is weird as it seems.

T-shirts that hailing to bisexuality. However in the fair there were a lot of manga about homosexuality. I don’t know why.

Diabolik is the Fantomas or Arnesio Lupin of Italy, the king of thieves. Only that he is more dark. Since some years they lunched a line of gadgets. The note says:”Steal from Diabolik stand cause misfortune”.

You have waited enough! Here we go! I have got more than 150 photos to show you on this great convention about comics, games and a lot of amazing other stuff for us, so you can aspect more than 15 thematic posts in the following days. This year there was a beautiful sun in the sky and absolutely no rain. 155000 people were in the fair, one of the biggest fair in the world. A printed programme composed of 64 pages. Five days of madness in the medieval city of Lucca.

This time I was part of the staff as demonstrator in the Lucca Games area, so I had got the benefit of a full pass with the red ribbon. I could enter in spaces without doing queues, a great thing if you are with 155000 people around who want to do the same thing… In the photo under here, that I found on the web, you can see all the bracelets for the audience, one by day. And there is love too between a boy and a girl during the fair. Dirty boy and girl indeed, because the bracelets are made of paper so they hadn’t take a shower in 5 days…

Lucca Comics and Games (October 28th to November 1st, Lucca, Italy) is one of the major geek-cons in the world, covering anything from comics, manga, action figures, anime, undressed girls (cosplay), RPGs, miniature wargaming, gothic lolitas, modelling, junk food, medieval arts, videogames, cardgames, aikido, boardgames, and so on.

I will be with the Ganesha Games crew (Andrea Sfiligoi and Sergio Laliscia) in the Historical Island wargaming area. There will be demo tables of Flashing Steel (pirates and privateers fighting over treasure on a beach), Mighty Monsters (monsters fighting on Monster Island as a volcano erupts), and Drums and Shakos – Large Battles (an army-level Napoleonic scenario played in 15mm scale). I will demo Zen Garden, the world’s smallest wargame (a small, handmade, play-right-out-of the box, super-condensed version of Ganesha’s core rules, played with 10mm samurai which I will sell only at conventions).

If I find a wi-fi point there will be some twit. See you here after the show with a full report and ton of photos!!! I hope I survive!!!!!

I’m beginning to repeat myself on this blog… Well, there are a lot of annual appointments, so even this year we have an edition of Romics, the Roman convention of comics and cosplay (with some boardgames, wargames, videogames too). It was spread on 4 days, but usually I’m very busy, so I went only to the last day, Sunday. It is weird, but you live in full mode only far events, local events are always discriminated because they are easy to follow. So I passed one day for Romics while I will be present five days in Lucca for Lucca Comics and Games at the end of this month. However Lucca is maybe the greatest event for comics in Europe, and for sure the more important event of the year in Italy for cosplayers, comic fans and maybe even for gamers, even if there are sectoral events for gamers that are more significant for specific games (historical wargames, boardgames,…). But here we are speaking about Romics! This is Rome not Lucca! So what can I say? Romics this year was bigger and better: three hangars, one for comics and some games, one for videogames and fantasy (and sci-fi) re-enactment , one for cosplay contest.

There were a lot of people, with a huge amount of cosplayers. Romics is the comic convention of Central Italy, for sure. The only weak part is the cultural one, because there aren’t seminars, presentations and these sort of things. And there are only a few publishers, because the structures are very expensive and they can wait 30 days for cheaper and bigger Lucca. However I had fun, I spent an entire day in that bedlam and I wasn’t tired of nothing. When you have fun you don’t feel fatigue, so I stayed inside for 5.5 hours always walking around, absorbed by thousands of visual stimuli.
The photo was took at the end of the day, so you can see the floor. Instead during the day there were more people, you couldn’t easily walk among stands.

I passed even a scary moment. The place of the event is in a nowhere land between Rome and the coastal part of the city hinterland. There is a railway to the airport with a stop to the new fair of Rome. Sunday there are less train available, although a big convention as this one can running. At the station the trains were late. After a long wait passed the train before. Full at doors. After others 15 minutes, our train. When we arrived, 40 minutes late for a trip of 30 minutes, at the Fiera di Roma station we found the people of the previous train still on the little train platform because they couldn’t easily exit. And so you couldn’t exit from the train. The station exit is a metal stair to a metal bridge, very narrow. People, to exit quickly, crossed tracks or climbed over fences between a small swamp, dry in this season. When I reached the stairs a third train arrived on the train platform. So I began to walk on the bridge. All the structure vibrated. Too much. For a bridge it is not the best. I couldn’t go back. So I went straight. No railwayman, no vigilant, no fireman, no policeman. This is the classical situation that you read on newspapers, with dead people in it.
Three hours trip from my house to the inside of the fair. At the return with a car in the middle of traffic only one hour and a bit more.

Let’s go with more easy stuff. I spoke about cosplay. I took some photos but they cannot give you the real aspect and atmosphere of the event. So if you want to see more go on flickr!

A company from ancient D&D roleplay times, but in 2011! With more women than when I played it…

Another transposition from world of games, a real life dimension for Cluedo.

Victorians in the future: streampunk…

Teen X-men, with a wheelchaired friend like Professor Xavier.

Star Wars is a real cult, even a religion in Australia (the Force. Here we have the 501st Legion, the Italian re-enactors. I like the imperial armoured troops and dislike the rebel scum in bathrobe.

An AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport), not in a real 1:1 scale as they said, maybe in 1:2 scale. However a great view.

Some cosplayers are real professionals. There are a lot of contests and some designate participants to finals. The girl in the middle was the Italian representative to a big contest in Nagoya, Japan.

The queue for the final parade only for who survived after various selections. For the tension of the moment a girl cried. And the make-up dripping.

Another view. The last adjustments.

A female centaur. Very sweet.

I admit that, other the appreciation for the work behind the costumes, the fantasy and the dedication to this hobby, I like girls. So here I had no difficulties to admire them.

At the end I was so used to see girls in bikini that I didn’t give attention to some of them, only the pretties…

I took photos that I cannot show here. A hard choice, I have to censure myself because this is not a porno blog with young exhibitionist girls. Instead I have no photos of comics, because I was distracted by costumes. If you want exposed sex, see what are doing Batman and Robin in the green castle.

The mess after the party. On the ground you can see a lot of cups for ramen (Japanese spaghetti). Japan is idolised so every thing from Japan is good, even ramen for two euros.

Appointment to next year for Romics, to next month for more comics, cosplay and games in Lucca. With a presentation of Zen Garden added to them!

At last, my report on GiocaRoma 2011, the boardgame convention of Rome. I repeat myself: I like these events build by gamers for gamers. There were tournaments, boardgames presentations, wargames, vendors, free toy library with people who explain rules and follow you during the first turn. All inside a sporting centre near the underground, with pool and tennis camps. We don’t use the pool, usual clients did. There is a restaurant inside with low prices (water + potatoes + pizza = 6€) and a bar. The sad thing is that there was a misunderstood and the restaurant owners don’t know about the event so ice creams and other food disappeared too soon. And GiocaRoma is always very hot, so ice creams were a necessary resource!!!

This is the free toy library before the assault, early in the morning…

Over 1000 registered visitors, but hardcore gamers were less. Among boardgame players there are even women, a factor unknown by wargamers. And a lot of women are brides of other gamers. So here we aren’t only among bald and fat men as usual.

An interview for tv to Bao (an African game) promoter. He runs an international tournament and the diffusion of the game for beneficence purposes.
The orange dress of the interviewer was very pretty, indeed. Look at the shoes, she is moving like a child…

These are the cups for tournaments played in GiocaRoma.

During the first day I presented Zen Garden. Read the other post to know more about it. When I will find the time I show more on it.

Here you can see a Miles Glorious‘ delegation playing with Zen Garden.

And here other players. On the right Sinclair from Ratio Ludica, on the left Lorenzo from Zerloon Place. Their comments were enthusiasts!

And now some words about games we tried on Sunday. Carson City is an interesting game. Someone say that it is a sort of Caylus without too many mental calculations, with a far west flavour and some dices to add fun. Well, if you don’t know Caylus, I can say that this Carson City is about a placement mechanism of meeples with added a terrain where you can buy land and put buildings to have revenues. And if you want the same resource, placing your meeple (who resemble a cowboy) on it where just where another gamer placed his, then there is a duel! More fun than Pillars of the Earth! So, a great far west game!

It was a long time that I wanted to try Letters from Whitechapel because of the setting in actual Banglatown. The map is gorgeous. The game is a more complicated version of the old Scotland Yard. Fun, but not so intriguing as the box and the map. For a night with friends and a smart guy as the fugitive. I was not so smart so the play ended before than I expected.

Ventura is an Italian game distributed by Fantasy Flight Games. It is a classic game with a map, some armies around and your zone of control where you take your money to built armies. But this time all is packed in the age of mercenary armies in Italy, the age of condottieri. The new thing is that you can built the map adding terrain hexagons with specific values. So, it is a great-grandchildren beautiful variant of Risiko in a great setting. Some material are of the highest quality, others are not. However some rules are weak, so he urges some tweaks, as hidden composition of armies. I think I play again with this game because Paolo bought it.

We give another try to 7 Wonders. I like it, but Paolo tell us it is only a card game with a high price. I hope Francesca buy it.

While I was involved with Zen Garden, Paolo run an exhibition game of MEKA, still in beta form. This time in a desert setting instead of the urban one. Zakus are always the best mechas around…

Our friend Di Bartolo showed his Napoleonic game, almost ready to be published. The best terrain and painted miniatures of the event.

Subbuteo football club. For football fans only. I’m not in this category, but I like stubbornness of Subbuteo fans from ’70s!

There was Miniature Mania, a painting service from Perugia. I take some pictures. I like the weird effect of miniatures at twilight!!!

I didn’t buy anything, but there were gracious games and related stuff. Another time. The hard true is that I buy things but I haven’t the time to play with them! Sad, sad, very sad. At the end I remained only with these tickets. They were for the lottery. 1000 tickets for 10 prizes (a holiday during Modenacon 2012 + 9 boardgames), so I bought 11 tickets for 11€, 1 to 100 to have something. I only had the pleasure to give away little money for 2 days of fun. Thank you GiocaRoma!