Lucca Comics & Games has a wrong name, a better statement would be Lucca Cosplay, Comics & Games. This is the Italian biggest event for cosplayers. This year I was more involved with the Ganesha Games table so I dedicated only few time to take cosplayers photos. Sorry.

These two girls remained all the time on the wall posing for photos. Every day (4) they changed the dresses. They have got a video blog where they speak about their daily experiences in Lucca.

The walk on the bastions are the traditional place for show your cosplay and your legs to people and photographers hordes.

A huge sword and a slight corpse. Yes, the sword isn’t made of steel.

A girl in bikini. A common view in Lucca those days. Look at the girl on the right: a little more heavy as dresses. On the left another girl with an open umbrella. Maybe it wasn’t summer time.

Monsters from famous flicks. It was fun to walk with a bed or a well!

Steampunk, a new subculture that I like. The next year Osprey will publish a book with steampunk wargame rules.

This paunchy chap was just come from a human female abattoir. Or had he devastate a mannikin deposit?

Anime heroes gone bad. This chap impersonate a pop singer from Love Me Knight (“Kiss me Licia” in Italy) anime. Time goes by for us all. And a big belly can be the result. These film producers are specialised in parodies.

A miracle in the parking! A pirate patch was discovered by us on the ground. We suppose that a cosplay recovered sight! Lucca works miracles.

A warm androgynous nude look. And a blast from a fist. Common sights in Lucca.

Another cosplay from anime world. And an easy way to keep close a girlfriend. She is almost a cat, he can remind an Arabian knight. I’m too old, I don’t know all these Japanese series. I don’t know which characters are impersonated by 80% of cosplayers…

This guy is the “reenactment part” of this post. Some people as cosplay costume wear their softair dresses. So they can walk in the streets with (softair) guns. I think that they are prohibited outside specific areas. Even a lot of metal cosplay swords are illegal, I suppose. However, lots of people in Lucca wear costumes so these weapons are saw as part of the fair colour. But there is someone who overdo! This is a Humvee, indeed! This vehicle is labelled as German but the overall aspect is American, with a forest camouflage, I believe. In Italy we don’t have Humvee. The guy wears an Italian desert “vegetata” uniform. A patchwork and another not so legal presence.

What is an action figure? Only some resin parts, glued and painted…

Well, the result is not so simple, these are works of art.

In this post I collected the best of sexy action figures that I saw at the fair. I am a male, so I fell in love with weapons and girls…

The next action figures are less sexy. Because this is porn, sold as an item for anoraks. I don’t think that something like this can easily find a place on all desks or bookshelves. And inside a comic fair? Well, if some manga series support male homosexuality, if Fifty Shades of Grey has sold 60 million copies worldwide and females think about it as literature, maybe these statuettes are not so strange here. So these sculptures are not things for perverts, are only a matter of healthy sex urge. Only some resin parts, glued and painted, do you remember?

Heroic samurai robots are made in Go Nagai. The sad thing is that he revise in perpetuity his fictional world cast and sometimes he don’t end the series, so you cannot understand the full story. Maybe because there isn’t a real story but only an accumulation of stories based on stock characters.

Mazinger (Majingā) family. Sometimes almost the same names for slightly different characters and stories. I don’t care so much about this, because I remember when I was a child watching these cartoons. Amazing!

An UFO Robot Grendizer diorama. Very dynamic. The tag is not an abstract number, it is the cost in euros.

UFO Robot Grendizer with some its flight modules. This was chronologically the first giant robot on television in Italy. At that times it was a revolution in children entertainment. Grendizer gadgets were a must have. I increased my social status among other children because I owned a Grendizer official t-shirt.

A version of the Mazinger robot. Those bat or hellish wings gives a great touch to the character.

A photo of our Samurai Robots Battle Royale scenario. Andrea is selling some t-shirts with the cover of the rules. Ask him for sizes and price.

A drink with Go Nagai’s robots customised cans: giant robots for some sort of exotic beverage… Don’t drink them for your safety, just collect them…

Gundam anime started a new kind of Japan giant robots genre. I am a Gundam addict and I like a lot these mechas. I think that in Japan the Gundam modelling is not a hobby, it is a cult. As every year, an Italian vendor of the Gunplay circuit set out some displays with his Gundam models. It is like a army museum…

Zaku design is the perfect mecha design. These old style mobile suit are just classics.

MS-09R Rick Dom, the original concept of bulk Zeon mobile suits. The others born from here.

A winged model. Under all these things there is a Cyclops mobile suit

Later Zeon mobile suit with the German helmet style head. Great!

Variations. That one on the left is weird but tasty. The other one is a sniper.

Slimmer models are by Earth federation. This one has got huge fuel tanks.

Less fictional and more military mobile suits by Earth Federation.

A samurai Gundam. It come from Japan…

I like mechas, do you remember?

This is a scratch-built starship by the Kallamity chap. He is a mecha designer. I’m waiting his second book out next year.

Every year the NKGC organise a modelling competition. I think these are from the Ma.k.s world. I appreciate them very much.

More miniatures in Lucca Games pavilion.

Here my mate Narciso that is dazed watching some greens by a miniatures sculptors stand. He wish to produce some miniatures too. If you remember, Narciso is the man that last year sculpted my pagodas for Zen Garden.

Same stand, part of the display case. I fell in love with that sort of cyber-spider. Only a green for now.

An absolute preview! The first pieces of a new range by Cosimo Auricchio. They are dwarf gladiators for Blood Bowl. I have instantly reserved a set for me… On the background the new legionaries range.

In the Miniature Island there was a painting competition called Grog. Really stunning pieces, but I’m more a wargamer than a modeller so I utilise less detailed miniatures to play. Their painting is excessive. Yes, envy is a bad thing…

More little things not painted with flat colours and detailed with “wonder wash” technique like mine…

A waste of sci-fi tanks at unreal little distance each other: a huge WH40k scenario.

The Calcio Storico Fiorentino (Florence historical football) is an ancestor of modern football and rugby, and it is still played nowadays. It is a very strong violent kind of football. Some years ago the authorities prohibited the annual match because it was the opportunity to settle a score among criminals and hotheads. Just like the Slapshot flick, the players forget the ball and start a brawl! People from Firenze are very proud of their traditions. This is the miniature game by Castle Arts.

Another queue to enter to Lucca Games pavilion. It is more easy to be on the other side of the fence… You can even see some of the young staff volunteers, in blue sweatshirt, that allowed all this for free.

The Miniature Island is the space that Lucca give for free to the wargame miniature world. It is managed by Lorenzo Sartori, the editor of Dadi & Piombo (dices and lead) magazine. He printed a special and free issue to show to common people what we do. When I saw some interest in people towards our little world, I distributed the magazine.

This year we had some demonstration tables with Deus Vult (the new game by FireForge for medieval warfare), Operation Squad (WWII and modern skirmish combat), À La Guerre (XVII-XVIII warfare), FOW (WH40K with Panzers, ah ah!), Bolt Action (WWII skirmish), Infinity (cyber-skirmish). Obviously there was Ganesha Games too.

This is the modern version for Operation Squad, in an Iraq scenario. Losi (or Lodi, I don’t remember, ah ah) set up this interesting ambush fight. This man is a really martyr because he slept in a hotel room shared with me and Andrea. The last night, due to the usual violent snoring by mister Sfiligoi, he chose to slept in the loo on the floor!

Iraq fighters. Losi is one of the authors of Operation Squad Modern. He is working on a Vietnam version too!

Chip ‘n’ Dale at the Miniature Island! In the background the Mirliton miniature stand. This year there were more miniature vendors as Steel Model (with Warlord staff), Kabuki, Cosimo Auricchio, Greebo, Miniature Mania and Chasseurs. On the right the painters zone. Our Miniature Island, the demonstration area, is the support to these vendors, our space exists because them pay for their stands.

Inside a luxury area you could find some painters at work. The aim was to show that painting is not impossible. So the artists explained how to paint and some special techniques.

Oh, I was forgetting the Impetus demonstration table with these gorgeous Byzantine!

And this is the Clan Conan, the first year with my friend Narciso of Legio Palatina club. He is the chap with the beer. These chaps were running three demonstration tables for common people and children. Simpler or exemplar games to access to this world.

Near us two demonstration tables with WH40K. It is an anniversary for this game. I started to play with miniatures when the second edition was out, but I read White Dwarf at Rogue Trader times. A lot of time ago…

This is our Miniature Island team at dinner time. We had a lot of fun! And we hope to have converted some people to our little world.

This year the Ganesha Games team was composed by me and Andrea. We were in the Miniatures Island managing a demonstration table.

Every day Andrea chose a different game to show to the public. This one is Song of Blades and Heroes II. He was showing to people that you can play with just a bunch of miniatures and it isn’t necessary to buy tons of minis from a multinational game company.

My duty in the fair was to show the Ganesha Games concepts and rules to promote wargames with miniatures. I had my games side by side with Andrea’s games. Other tables were running their demonstrations at only few cm from us. But I was so busy that I barely glance at them!

Another game showed was a preview of the upcoming Samurai Robots Battle Royale. Tomorrow I will meet Andrea at my home for another playtest.

Some people had the opportunity to give a try to Of Gods And Mortals, that will be published by Osprey the next year. Sorry, I didn’t take a photo of it. You can only see a leaflet with its cover. Instead here again Go Nagai’s creations.

I sold all the Zen Garden copies that I brought with me to the fair. Girls are genetically attracted by my little beautiful garden. I demonstrated or explained this game to enthusiastic and curious people. The best selling was to an operator for autistic boys and girls. He told me that autistics have a lack of interest in larger and complex things but they pay special attention to details. My game, with its small and delimited elements, can be useful to create a play moment to communicate with these kind of people.
Now I have got only three copies for Ludica convention. They are the lasts of the 30 made. I’m thinking about a Zen Garden II for the 2013, but only in 15 copies. I prepared a demo version of Ferrum et Gloria too.

Gualtiero Grassucci was in Lucca with his “À la guerre” rules. And he was there even to take a prize for his activity as “wargame promoter” at school. Yes, he is really a promoter: while I was around in the fair, he explained my game to a father and son. He mastered a game without my help!

This is the last photo took to my gladiator arena. In the night between Saturday and Sunday someone stolen it! I leave it on the table after the fair closure of Saturday. They could steal miniatures or other more precious things, but only my arena was missing. I presume that a cleaner saw a box (the arena!) and threw it away… It is sad to be criticized in this way…