At last! I’m so busy these days that I couldn’t write about this great convention. Here we go.

San Marino is a small republic inside Italy. It dominates a fortified mountain so with natural and artificial defences they obtained a form of independence along centuries. Moreover it is only a mountain, a not so important land to conquer. It was ever used as free port, so its existence was a safeguard to balance of power and economical interests in the area.

Today San Marino is a tourist trap inside real medieval walls and houses. Very beautiful indeed. You can find tourists shops, stamps and money minted only for collectors, an amazing view, some fake museums (wax museum, curiosity museum, torture museum, vampires museum,…), weapons sold almost freely, castles, money recycling in local banks, Russian female shopping assistants. However it is worth a visit.

Under the main city there is a luxury hotel where our games convention was held. Huge spaces and great treatment. I never stayed in a place so beautiful. It is too much for our wargamers habits!!! Because we were out of season, we pay for this hotel an extreme bargain price. A paradise…

The convention was held in a two storey hall. In the photo you can see less than a half storey, so think about the rest! There is a cinema inside too. At the first floor we had the boardgame convention, at the second floor the wargame section. Dadi.Com is a convention funded by Lorenzo Sartori in Crema, his city at the north of Italy, but since 2011 it is held inside another convention in San Marino, because of higher money necessity to run it in the original place. More images on Dadi & Piombo website. And these are the pages on the convention Dadi.Com, while these ones are for the San Marino Game Convention.

The location was great but the public was scarce. San Marino is out of main routes, moreover the economical crisis cut trips of wargaming people. We had the place, we had Italian vendors, we had 2 UK and 1 German vendors, we had great wargame tables. But we had only some local visitors and too few grognards too. So we had fun but there weren’t the numbers to foster this convention. This was my first time in San Marino, I like it very much, but other people said me about the loss in participation.

I’m in a hurry so I can’t describe everything that I saw in this trip in San Marino inside this two day convention. I can only briefly speak about what I loved of it.

Manorhouse is an Italian maker of buildings. Here a rather passable scene made by their products…

The big game was this Peach Orchard wargame. I’m not into ACW but the spectacle was great.

Instead here we are in Castelfidardo 1860, an Italian affair…

What I like most was this game by Bizio, an house rules version of Starfight by Beer & Pretzel Games. I found this game very easy to understand and with interesting play mechanisms. No sheet necessity, all is done with dices! Brilliant rules, a smooth mastering by Bizio, a lot of fun. A space (naval) game with the right ideas to play it speedily. A must have! Look at the miniatures: they were made by a friend of Bizio with every kind of materials.

My battle against Diego. I lead a Klingon vessel against a Federation ship. My vessel was weaker than that feeble human scum warship but my heroic aptitude win the day!

Follow the next week…