Enfilade 2017!

Enfilade, the convention of the Northwest Historical Miniature Gamer Society is held every Memorial Day weekend in Olympia, WA.  And every Memorial Day weekend for the last three years has found me there.  There were tons of great and imaginative games on offer in the main room, and I frenziedly snapped away with my camera whenever I got a break from hurling fistfuls of dice at the table.  I took a lot of pictures this weekend, more than in the past, and I'm throwing a bunch of them up here just for fun.  Enjoy.

First up, Doug and Seth ran a splendid Battle of Eckmuhl game, using their own rule set.  They always put on a fast, furious and fun game.

Some naive person put me in charge of Davout's enormous corps at the very heart of the French army.

Like some monster Oliphant, my horde fought its way up the table, annihilating my friend Ron's corps and - briefly- taking some of my objectives.  

The Austrians had done a good job at hollowing my formations out on my way there, however, and I turned out to be pretty easy prey when, in the game's final rounds, they threw their entire reserve at me and wiped me out.  Oh well.  Getting wiped out is always worth it if you can destroy one of your friends first.  Thanks to Doug and Seth for another terrific game.

 While the French and Austrians were kicking the hell out of each other, a pretty little dwarven civil war game was going on a table away.  The name of the game was "It all started with a labor dispute."

Reminds me of The Tragedy of Mcdeath....

 That wasn't the only underground battle being fought.   Here Germans are counterattacking in a large and lovely Vimy Ridge game that attracted a lot of attention.

great stuff.

 On Sunday Ron hosted an absolutely splendid Pulp Alley scenario.  Part Casablanca, Part Raiders of the Lost Ark and part ultra violence...

Evil Doers congregate in the warehouse.  This particular bunch never actually got around to doing any evil, but they certainly looked menacing enough.

To win, you have to successfully run some errands around town and then get your schweethheart to the plane before the Nazis take over.

My league was the Vichy French.I wad trying to get things in town more or less under control so as to keep the Germans off my back.

Rick kept following me around trying to talk me into letting him have the necessary paperwork to get himself and his dame out of Casablanca but, unsentimental swine that I was, I wasn't having any of it.

I had achieved all my objectives and was on my way to the plane when these yokels appeared in my path and started trying to kill all my guys!

The nerve!  After all, I was only trying to win.  Eventually I became irritated enough with them that I lost interest in winning and, out of sheer spite, focused on trying to kill them.

 Meanwhile the Brotherhood of the Crescent absconded with the Ark of the Covenant and flew away to win the game, which just goes to show me.

Whatever.  We headed back to Rick's place for a drink.

More below the fold....



There was enough stuff going on to ensure that I couldn't get photos of every game that caught my eye, but I got pictures of a few pretty ones here and there.

 This Samurai game proved very popular.  It ran several times during the convention and always had a crowded table.

 A lovely little conquistadors game caught my attention...I love conquistador stuff...

As did this cool troop of Oliphants from a 15mm Lord of the Rings game.

I'd have given a lot to have gotten in on this breathtaking 15mm Battle of Cannae game but no dice.  It was booked up.  Wish I'd had time for some batter pictures.  The minis were gorgeous.

 I really wanted to find out more about this crazy looking game.  At first I thought it was just another zombie smash game but it seemed that there was more to it than that...mayhem outside the walls of Holocostco...

 There were random swarms of giant army ants and all kinds of other crazy things going on.  I think the host just called it "Fight"  or "Let's Fight".  It looked hilarious.

I'm keen to get in on it if it shows up again next year.

Russians and Japanese scrapping over a railroad station...

Some pretty impressively ginormous games got rolled out this year...here are a couple of shots of a mammoth game of All Quiet on the Martian Front...

 This big fat Omaha Beach game drew a lot of wistful glances as well...

 Last but far from least comes this quirky and fun Napoleonic Pulp game.  I thought this was a really good idea.

 Each player plays a French courier galloping through the Spanish countryside trying to be the first to get a message through to the Emperor.

 If you can fight, finesse or Philander your way through British patrols, truculent monks and randy milkmaids, and keep your courier sober enough to stay on his horse while he jumps a fence or two, you can be a big hero and win the game.

If you can't do any of those things you finish at the end of the line with me.

Great times.  And now we all start painting and planning for next year.