At this moment I would be in Ludica Roma, a wargame, boardgame and videogame convention here in the Rome Fair (it is not precisely Rome, the Fair is in the middle of nowhere outside the city). Indeed, I wanted to demonstrate Zen Garden and Mighty Monsters at the Ganesha Games stand for three days, but Andrea is blocked by snow among mountains with a car not suitable to it. He have to come from Terni and it is a long way to here. So sad. I’m here stuck with my camping backpack ready with a lot of copies of Zen Garden, miniatures for a quick SSS playtest, food and water. At this moment we don’t know what to do. The fair is for 3 days, snow in Rome it is not falling now, maybe we will see something for afternoon or night.

On these pages you will read the report of what we will do. Andrea is thinking to travel by train tomorrow. We will be present without big scenarios because of this. We want to present for the first time in its definitive form my wargame Zen Garden, maybe the smallest wargame in the world. Sergio of Drums and Shakos fame cannot be present with his new game because of a flu.

We will survive snowing? If yes, a large selection of boardgames are offered to public to play with them together a volunteer demonstrator for free. All Roman wargame clubs are in the fair (thanks to me!). It is cold, the fair is in the middle of nowhere, but we are a lot of people who wants to play, so if you are around come and give a try to our games. We will be here, I hope!

As I said before, there are some things that are almost the same year after year, some periodic appointments that you can find on this blog year after year. So we have another Happy Model, the big edition before Christmas. I was there the last year, as you can read on this post. It is a national market for railway modelling and even for other related stuff. Here you can see a scene that recreate the railway near my house.

This year I found a large quantity of soldiers for collectors. I’m amazed from the quality of this delicacies. They are still little soldiers but you can show a lot of details. It would be a great thing to play with these soldiers but they cost a lot and you need bigger tables.

In the following photos you can see materials for thousands of euros…

…and a joy for the eyes!

The madness is always the same: I could buy only a bunch of them for a little skirmish, they are so beautiful,…

…but after rationality come back so you are free of absurd thoughts.

The real danger: play my Ferrum et Gloria with 54mm!

These times are even those ones for +Libri +Liberi, the national market for small publishers. Last year I was there. You can find pile of interesting books but you cannot find enough space at home to store just a couple of them. I found various titles but I restricted myself to only two book. The first one is an edition of Opera Nova by Achille Marozzo, a guide written in the XVI^th century about sword fighting. A great document about techniques that you can find in those years but even for all that regards fight with hand weapons. I hope I find some ideas for Ferrum et Gloria.

The latter is a book about the months from the landing of Anzio and Nettunia to the invasion of Rome. This time watched from an Italian perspective! I’m tired of reports written by winners, history is another thing. The fairy tale told to us is about US soldiers (and the other people didn’t exist at all!) who wanted to give us liberty and only bad Nazis slowed them. So this one is another view, with Italians in it! I reenact every year the landing from the bad guys side, as an Italian paratrooper. You can read it on the last year post.

Perugia is in Umbria, the same region of Terni that is also know as the city of Ganesha Games. So it was easy to them to arrive in the game convention Magna Con Phersu. Me and Diego, with the special guest Nunzio, were from Rome, far 2 hours by car from Perugia. Here you can see the Ganesha Games area in the first morning.

Flashing Steel is presented with a special setting that utilise Ainsty Casting ships and new boarding rules for a Flashing Steel future supplement. No sails because models arrived only few days before the convention so there wasn’t time to make them.

Another setting. Here the wonderful vineyard made by Sergio. He prefers red wine because he made purple grapes. After I saw this beauty I discovered that I need a vineyard for my miniatures too… My surname comes from the name of grapes!

Drums & Shakos Large Battles is in the final translation and layout stages. You will have it for the beginning of the new year for sure. Here another demonstration table without rules to show to people in a definitive book form. And another game with Diego who wanted to try the latest tweaks.

We are waited in Terni for testing other new rules and rulesets, among these a game about space vessels and another one about giant robots… And in the middle of this we have to test Song of Spear and Shield for its release… Instead the game about post-apocalypse for Lead Adventure miniatures is tested locally in ALT club of Terni.

Who is Phersu? He is this nice dancing man from the Etruscan times. But he is even the man who hold the rope in this funeral game where another man is bounded to a ferocious dog. From “phersu” (mask) we have the word “person”, so he is more important than you thought.

These little dioramas are inspired by real painted scenes from graves. Perugia is at the edge between Umbrian and Etruscan cultures, on the side of the latter. And there is a local miniature maker who call himself “Phersu Miniatures” because of this influence.

His production is based on resin pieces about rare subjects, as you can see here, almost entirely in 1:72 scale. But he has got Phersu in 1:72, 28mm and 54mm. In the next months he wants to expand his ranges with metal miniatures because resin casting is a slow process: faster in the casting means more time to sculpt. His work is targeted to modellers and not wargamers but I hope he is changing his mind because he could find a peculiar space in the miniature producer world.
In the following photos some delicacies in 1:72 scale. If you want to know more about it, you can visit:
https://sites.google.com/site/phersuminiatures

More photos about the ruined Universal Carrier on the grass of the entry of “Città della Domenica” in Perugia.

The last Saturday we went to Perugia, or better, in a huge amusement park on a hill facing Perugia. It is called “Città della Domenica” (Sunday City), one of oldest amusement parks in Italy. It seems a piece of the sixties in the 21th century. The name and the style of buildings and attractions are from my childhood times, a long time ago. And in these months this place is closed because now we aren’t in the right season, so it is empty. Have you ever watched “Life on Mars”? It is a similar situation. Well, it is still working on so dusts of time was not total.

We were there for “Magna Con Phersu” (Phersu Great Convention, but in Italian is something like “eat with Phersu”), a small convention about wargames and boardgames with a lot of tournaments. Small but heart felt. There were some lego games on sale, one game about bunga bunga, some demonstration tables. More on a following post.

The sad side of conventions and tournaments is that you see only the place of the event and nothing more. You can travel for hundreds of kilometres but after you can remind only the room where you stayed about that distant place. Here Perugia in the mist on the other side of the valley. A beautiful city, if you can visit it…

We are in the middle of Italy, among mountains. What means this navy war relict here? Fun for families? If you are a collector the space available in your home is never enough, so you have to place something at the workplace…

What they did to this Universal Carrier? Maybe it was used as an attraction for people, a tank to ride, so they customised it in this way. A honest war career throw on this hill. The engine is still inside but I think it is impossible to move it now. However no rust but grass grow on the floor.

Another carrier or artillery tractor, I can’t recognise it. Large tracks, so it is at least from the last years of the war.
At the end a huge reptilarium with a circular form, flags on the top and Maya decorations…

This one is the last post about Lucca Comics & Games 2011. I hope you appreciate my efforts to report this fair. After comics, games, gadgets, mecha, here there is the best of show. Only a selection of the best because we were surrounded by this best and you couldn’t take a photo of everything. Please, continue with this post only if your heart works fine.

The translation of the sign showed in the fair: “Pussycat of the day contest. Under unappealable and corruptible decision of the jury”.

Best pussycat of the day?

No more pranks. As the sign says: “Here pussy is first served”.

From this point on I present some photos I picked on the web. I cannot remind who took them, but if you want to know this and if you want more photos, on fair and cosplay, please go to Flickr.

Flickr: Album di luccacomicsandgames
Flickr: Lucca Comics & Games 2011
Flickr: Cosplay Italia

Once upon a time comic conventions were a sad place for male geeks. Now no more. Here some images that I (almost all) took around the fair. People bring their photocameras and there is a run to take more beautiful photos possible about these wonderful and creative costumes.

The queue for the cosplay stage. A contest and an opportunity to show himself.

Look at the geta! I saw a lot of geta.

There is a man inside.