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/