I’m just returned from the first day of GiocaRoma, the convention of boardgames here in Rome. Well, there is even a large section of wargames, very large indeed, but the people who organise all are from boardgames clubs. All the work is voluntary, so it is a great d.i.y. convention made by real gamers for other gamers. I want to do my part in this, so today I presented my game, Zen Garden.

Here you can see my space. A small place on a large row of tables but they hadn’t a 30×30 table…

All went fine, very fine. I was available all the day. Positive feedbacks. The greatest comment was: “a poetic game”!

And now a fast look to the finished game with all his components: dices for activations, dices for combat, measurements sticks (made from “samurai” labelled toothpicks!!!), counters for lack of fire and wounds, cards for stats.

Now is late night, and tomorrow I am going to have another full day in GiocaRoma, this time to play with games made by other people, so I close here. In the future I will spent more time on how my game works. And there will be a report on this edition of GiocaRoma.

Salute is so huge that you must to watch it again in photos because there is always something that you lost! So I surf the web and I find some interesting galleries that now I want to sum in this post full of links. And I discovered some scenarios that I didn’t watch, like the VBCW that I wanted to see so much. Where it was? There was even a great propaganda truck! I only found the Reiver stand with great trucks and tanks, that maybe I will buy in the future.

I spend my time in Salute roaming like a thirsty in desert, so I had no mind to take great pictures. Well, these photos are better than mine, so enjoy!

Semi-official gallery by South London Warlords

Our personal photoreportered day by RoninClan

Raid on Salute by Gioconomicon

Some of the best by 6MilPhil

Good report by The Anarchy of Anton

Complete walkthrough by Joe – part 1
Complete walkthrough by Joe – part 2
Complete walkthrough by Joe – part 3

Londinium is a really great city. I love it! This is my 8th or 9th time that I visit it, and I want to come again and again. This is my report about the other things I did beside Salute together with my old chaps. And there is no Salute without a visit to London…

First thing to do in London: to see the latest miniatures painted by our guest Luca. It is late, but little soldiers are little soldiers!

This is Henry, but it is a female. It lives in the house and used to sleep between me and Narciso. I had only half bed because the other half was for Henry. It has very affectionate ways, a puss machine!

Next year will be the Olympic year. The clock in Trafalgar square.

Renzo Piano has the longest… skyscraper. The skyline has a new presence, you can always see it around London. Ready for 2012. The Belfast vessel and the Tower of London pier watch the development.

The heart of Little Italy, the church of St. Peter.

The memorial on the sink of Arandona Star, the ship with part of the Italians who lived in London, deported toward Canada in 1940.

Another ship, a reconstructed ship, with a freshwater sailor on it.

Even the Doctor visits Forbidden Planet shop.

A local delicatessen: a Dalek cake!

Real British food: gammon with eggs and chips.

British food again: fish and chips with peas.

From left to right: Luca (his left arm), me, Narciso, the right hand of Paolo with a pint of bitter, Paolo, Ornella (the back of his head).

Shop of Westminster Abbey. Maybe there will be a marry the 29th of April…

And in another shop there is a salute from the Queen.

28mm scale to show the construction of the underground. Museum of Transport.

The dock outside Canal Museum.

New London Architecture and a view on the development of the city. It is not a dead city like Rome, here there is a plan for the future realised in the present. London is a great city.

Salute is hell. After one hour you get lost and nothing seems to have a sense. Too many stuff to see. I don’t think to play a thing, I cannot understand what to do, what to buy. I have some investing plans, but I am afraid by aeroport controls and limits to baggages. Sometime I find miniatures that I watched only on the web and I think that would be great to have them. I only buy things that is difficult to have through internet (single pieces or excessive postal recharges). At the end of the day I have got only a little bunch of lead, nothing if you think about the tons available in that hangar full of lead people. I put in my mind the next things to buy by mail, but it is a long list.

To only watch the hall you spent 4/5 hours, so here there is only a little selection.

6mm are the best for large battles…

More than a set for a game this is a set for a museum.

I like trenches and these are the best I have ever saw.

Go aerial! Victorian dog fight with antennas!

Moongose new Judge Dread range.

Cluedo + Chthulu = detective madness!

Dr. Who game with reneactors.

Amusement park for miniatures.

007 from ’60-’70 flicks.

Circus Maximus for all.

I don’t mind the game, I like the buildings: they are from Germany.

Under the Japanese sea.

Mechanic warrior with a touch of Japan. We want always more robots, and I bought the littler to convert to a Britain robot.

Resin miniatures. So beautiful that you forget if there is a game with them, you want them and this is all.

You can hear a lot of Italian voices around. A holiday to London is not so posh in these times. But if you are a Gioconomicon reporter you can travel during the night to do a “to Salute and back” in a single day! These people are crazy!

I met Angelo and other people from Campania, they are of Timewarp miniature store here in Italy. And I found the 1-48 table with the demonstrative game. I met him a lot of times in the last 6 months: Lucca, Modena, Agliana and now London. The game and the miniatures are beautiful so he put a lot of efforts to spread it. I hope for him all the best. And now they have some resin building (a new range from Baueda) to sell too, that you can see on his terrain. A compact game that is almost lost in the hall, but that is very good.

It is inconceivable to set all this for only a 10-17 show. And people after the 15 start to abandon the Salute hangar! Maybe it is time to start to make the piss because it is Saturday, but we from Italy are awesome. We think of Salute like the best of the best as wargame event, we travel to stay here, and people in England leave the show so early…

Time to repackage what I bought. Only this?

I thought we were in winter but I found summer. So my friend wear only a t-shirt while I’m destroyed by too heavy clothes. Almost 7 hours around in the hangar. Heat and fatigue. We are ready for a shower. Luca instead is inside the hangar working for the show. We have offered our support but they had enough people.

The next year… there will be another Salute. Will we are here again? I hope so.

My silence on the blog is due to the fact that I have to do a lot of things before my holiday in London! After two years without a visit I will be at Salute again! Maybe this time I will be in the staff, with the lowest mansions I suppose, but it is a chance to live more this great convention.

Luca, South London Warlord’s member and Legio Palatina’s member, is without wife and boys (they are now in Rome), so we can stay in his house for almost a week: 4 old chaps and 1 girlfriend. So there will be a lot of chatting about little men made of lead, and a woman who wants to kill us all! Luca have just promised to show us his latest painted realizations and alchemy discoveries to how paint them…

In the past days I studied the Salute’s vendors and what I must looking for. And I have re-read books on London to find something new to see, because this will be the 9th time I visit this city. I’m thinking about the Canal Museum and the New London Architecture centre. But the usual places like Imperial War Museum, Hamleys and Forbidden Planet are on my book. There is even a Dr. Who exhibition but maybe I don’t have the time. I will visit Alessio, Emily and Olivia too, they are other friends from Roma that now live in London. I still have to do some last minute researches and must to control the airplane tickets.

I will stay for a week, so you can read a full report of the future days in Easter time I suppose. Albion beware, we are coming!

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!

The fair is ended. Like all finished parties, the mood is a little bad. The other days the hotel was full of people and friends (and late night games were setted in the hall), this morning we are alone in the breakfast room. I see the desk and only 7 keys aren’t in position on 114 rooms. Mondays are always empty of holidays mood.

We want some souvenir of Modena’s food so we find a local supermarket and spent 150 euros in aceto, gnocchi fritti and other cholesterol sources.

On the road to home there is Bologna and the Museo Memoriale della Libertà (Memoir of Liberty Museum). It is a place with a private collection of vehicles like this Sherman (it is still in order) that you maybe watched in “La vita è bella” flick.
There is even a place with sequential rooms where was in action animated scenes about WWII in Bologna. Very suggestive and with real deactivated weapons.
The museum was closed but it opened for us. The guardian is a picturesque ex soldier of fortune of Algeria and Indochina wars. We woke him after a night shift…
More here

Near the museum there is Fabio and his headquarters.

I took some pictures in his office. Instead of the real work about software and pharmacology you can see little soldiers everywhere. And some previews about his TB Line. They are real photos, the office is invaded by these little things.

And here there is my viaduct, blocked. Too many things to do in these days. I told it goodbye, I will see you in the following months.

After this visit, Fabio offered us a heavy dinner on the hills around Bologna. I ate crescentine until my stomach permitted it. Thanks Fabio!

Five hours after I was at home, a little tired… next stop is for Agliana, next Sunday!