I swear weekends are shorter and shorter. It’s getting to the point where I feel the weekend is almost over by Saturday morning.

This past weekend I was a guest at local Seattle show Conquest Northwest, hosted by the always effusive Mondo Vega. I went the first year of this con and it was nearly its last. Monda has really turned it around though and Conquest is now a vibrant and fun con. A key, I think, was getting a lot of tournaments organized that would draw people to the show. There were Warhammer and 40K grand tournaments, a Flames of War tournament, and even an Advanced Squad Leader tournament. The Warhammer/40K room was hopping, with 30 odd battles going on at once.

Saturday afternoon I played in a Flames of War game put on by Chris Ewick from Tacoma store the Game Matrix. The scenario took place during the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank clash of WWII. Chris puts on a real spectacle, with over 100 tanks on the board. I ended up playing the Germans with a guy named Steve. Our objective was to take a Russian town. After several turns using long range fire to thin out the Russian ranks, I launched a classic blitz to try to seize it. The Russians blew away my Stug platoon but my Panzer IIIs got into town. The continued pounding of the Tigers, Panthers, and Elefants then caused the Red Army to break and flee. Victory was ours. Here’s a picture of the blitz. There are more on the Facebook page.

After that I stopped by the Bucephalus Games demo table and chatted for awhile with Dan Tibbles, Anthony Gallela, and James Ernest. Then Chris Ewick appeared and offered to set us up with DBA armeis and ref a game for us. Well, how could we turn that down? So Anthony and I played Western Romans vs. Eastern Romans in a tense game. I thought I had him when I killed his general, but I could not finish them off before my mounting casualties spelled defeat. Next time, Gallela.

Today I felt like crap. Conquest is not a big show, so you’d think I wouldn’t have to worry about con crud. By the afternoon though I was feeling really run down, had a headache, and was congested. I wanted to head home but I had a business dinner I could not miss. So I made it through that and then came home to chill out. On the upside the oyster po’ boy was excellent.