CoastConFan Blog: August 2018

Monday, August 6, 2018

Bayou Wars 26 - Miniatures, Wargaming, and Camaraderie

This year Bayou Wars was held in the small town of D’Iberville, right outside of Biloxi on the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast from June 8 to 10^th 2018 at the D’Iberville Civic Center. Bayou Wars hosts some official sanctioned miniatures tournaments as well as a number of interesting gaming opportunities for fans. The two big tournaments hosted this year at Bayou Wars were the Art De La Guerre (ADLG) and a Warhammer 40k tournaments. By the way, this was the largest Warhammer tournament in Mississippi history to date.

Bayou Wars is primarily a miniatures wargaming convention held each year in the south coastal area. Gamers of all ages and experience levels are welcome there! It has been hosted by different miniature gaming groups in several places over the years. This time it was under the umbrella of the HistoricMiniature Gaming Society, South East Chapter.

Miniature wargamers had armies represented from all periods; from ancients to, Napoleonic, to Warhammer 40K, and Star Trek fans converged on Bayou Wars 26 to duke it out with their diminutive armies. The figure sizes ranged from a few inches tall to only a few millimeters tall. Generally speaking, each figure generally represents several to hundreds of soldiers/ships/vehicles so a few dozen models on each side might make a considerable force facing each other on the top of a table.

I was invited to attend Bayou Wars 26 and brought along my staff photographer, Michael W. Moses who took more shots than an American Civil War skirmish. The place was filled with avid fans and their military miniatures all dicing away towards victory. The gamers were patient with our photographing them and their figures.

I attended my first miniatures convention in the late 70s up in Illinois, strangely, I don’t exactly remember when or where, but I was impressed with what I saw there. But I was working for Gamescience back then and the conventions and gaming cons tend to run together over the years. In those days, it was strictly historical gaming such as ancients, medieval, Napoleonic, American Revolution, American Civil War, and WWII. In fact there were lots of tank enthusiasts there with their microarmor, but for my money I really liked the Napoleonic and Rev War sailing ships games and miniatures. There is greater diversity in miniatures gaming now days. Its more than just historical miniatures as fantasy and science fiction wargames have a huge following.

The 5mm scale ancients had great detail for their tiny size and the Warhammer 40k figures were large, colorful, and superabundant. There was even a WWII era invasion, but it appeared to be more of an Operation Sea Lion than an Overlord scenario. A real crowd pleaser for all ages was the spectacular Circus Maximus game, pitting charioteers against each other just like the chariot races in films Ben Hur.

I’d like to thank the folks at Bayou Wars who allowed us to photograph there, allowing unlimited access to make our shots. I’d also like to thank the gamers for their patience and professionalism as we occasionally got in the way, held up play, and invaded their fields of honor for a few photographs. Below are a few of those photographs for Bayou Wars 26 in no particular order all taken on Saturday.

I had a great time, thanks to all for hosting the CoastConFan Blog photo shoot at this year's Bayou Wars!

CoastConFan

For more information about Bayou Wars

https://www.facebook.com/BayouWars/

http://www.bayouwars.org/gaming.html

https://www.hmgs.org/ (Historical Miniatures Gaming Society)

http://www.hmgs-south.com/

Local Gaming

http://www.macnarbgaming.com/

https://www.facebook.com/maCnarBGaming/

Local Gaming Group

https://www.facebook.com/Gulf-Coast-Gamers-Club-105990799453273/

LINKS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

CoastConFan's YouTube Videos a page for my YouTube videos on YouTube on sundry subjects.

CoastCon Inc's Official Site CoastCon is a Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Anime & media convention that has been around for over 30 years

Michael W. Moses Pottery Site of unearthly pottery that brings to mind H. P. Lovecraft and the drawings of Ernst Haeckel

Propnomicon's Site a site dedicated to making props for Call of Cthulhu RPG

AboutSF is a resource center for speculative literature, science fiction, and education. They are also hosting podcasts of classic SF read aloud.

Reading for the Future is a grassroots volunteer organization whose aim is to help young people develop a love of reading and intellectual adventure through the vehicle of science fiction, fantasy and other speculative fiction.

S. T. Joshi's Blog A leading scholar on H. P. Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction.

The Steampunk Forum at Brass Goggles is a forum for Steampunk enthusiasts with an emphasis on physical props and how to make them.

AWOL - The Ancient World Online A fantastic conglomerate site about research on ancient

CITY OF DUST Primarily a site about New Mexico ghost towns and history

Gaslight and Gilt A clever look at steampunk from an arts and crafts standpoint

H. P. Lovecraft And His Legacy A site about HPL and his works

The Cat's Meat Shop Postings about Georgian and Victorian England, primarily London

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana An interesting view of comics from a Turkish point of view

The Tobacco Pipe Artistory The artistry and history of pipes

Tom Banwell—Leather and Resin Projects Clever props and masks

Warfare in the Age of Steam NeoVictorian wargaming

Fancyclopedia 3 A wiki by fans for fans. Learn about the heritage of fandom through the years.

Paleobabble Your antidote to cyber-twaddle and misguided research about the ancient world. Lots of people do research on the mysteries of antiquity. Some insights are valuable; others are insanely stupid, learn why.

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