Sunday, January 14, 2007
SpartaCon 2007
Miniatures Games
On Saturday, I traveled to Lansing, Michgian to attend SpartaCon, one of four big conventions held every year in Michigan. I look forward to the convention every year, and have missed on one in the last decade.
One of the things that strikes me about SpartaCon is the high quality of the terrain and minaitures that Michigan gamers offer. All of the games looked as good as, if not better, than anything I’ve seen at Historicon, and a few were among the best I’ve ever seen—even in pictures. You can see photos of the event in the gallery.).
Attendance seemed to be a bit off from previous years—although I don’t have any idea what the official results were. Part of that could be just my impression, though, since the event was held in a larger room than last I was there.
There were ten to twelve games held in each of three sessions, and all of those games were full. In the first two sessions, there was plenty of World War II, plus two Samurai games, a Viking skirmish, Cog Wars, Plains War (mine), Crimean War, Wayne’s Legion, Medieval naval Cog Wars, Warhammer Ancients (Romans), Bob Beattie’s Back of Beyond Game, Tod Kershner’s (He of Pig Wars and Warfare in the Age of Reason fame) 100 Years War, American Revolution, French and Indian war, modern micro armor, a DBA Tournament and several that I apologize for forgetting. I didn’t stick around for the third session. Visually, the most outstanding games were a Samurai skirmish, an amazing Flames of War Stalingrad game and a French and Indian war game.
The convention had four dealers, and some large table space for flea market activities (that’s a bring-and-buy for our friends over the pond). I was able to unload a couple of boxes of books and magazines.
One of hot topics of conversation was the death of the hobby store in Michigan—at least as far as miniatures gamers are concerned. The recent closure of Hobby Hub in Lansing has left that city without even a general hobby store; since the Alcove in Royal Oak cloased ten years ago, there hasn’t been a good miniatures store in metro Detroit. A lot of reasons were bandied about: bad management (there were a couple of well-known cases of that), bad service that drove customers away (there are a couple of known cases there, too), bad business climate in Michigan, young people drawn to video games, the graying of the hobby, the well-known cheapness of historical gamers and the internet.
In the end, there were no real answers.
Still, it’s a sad situation. Conventions like SpartaCon, and Pro-or-Con in the Detroit area show what a vibrant hobby miniature wargaming is.
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