Southern Front 2026

 I went up to Raleigh North Carolina last weekend for the Southern Front game convention. As usual, it was a wonderful get together with a group of terrific guys and gals. Mark from Savannah also made the journey - he's also become quite taken with the con.

The first game I'd signed up for was a LOTR War of the Ring game. The host, Mike, wasn't as up on the rules as I'd have liked and there was a lot of time spent poring through the rule book. That was a bit frustrating. The models and table top were top notch though and we all still had a good time pushing minis around on a Friday afternoon!

I got to command the Riders of Rohan and Gandalf on the far right flank.

A view further down the table.

Ugh. An unkillable monster.

And an unkillable troll. 

That did make for an easy excuse to start drinking early. Friday evening I hosted my game of Viking-flavored Nightwatch.

I had six players - one for each Viking and two guys shared the Saxon defenders.

Heck, the Saxons actually won the second scenario!

There are the two Saxon players!

The Vikings narrowly held on to win the third scenario, ultimately finishing ahead on the night, 2 to 1.

Saturday morning, Mark and I got into a game of Blood and Plunder.

There's our dead sexy table

My Frenchies skulking about in the sugarcane.

Although Mark's nasty pirates nabbed the prisoner and hurried him away, I got the better of the pirates in the fight that followed, nearly wiping them out! My teammates fared similarly - although the pirates won their objectives, the French won a sound military victory.

After lunch, the WW2 desert war game I'd signed up had been cancelled so I got in on a game of Test of Honor. I was sandwiched between two youngsters, 13 and 10. They were terrific. Sadly I didn't get any full table photos.

My Samurai leader charged into a group of monk archers. The rest of the monks sorted him out in no time. Grrr.

But my ronin with the big hammer and sweet leopard print trousers was an absolute wrecking machine. It was a very enjoyable game, but maybe too fiddly for a 6-player convention game. It just has a lot of mechanics that need to be explained. In a smaller situation, it'd be excellent.

After dinner, it was on to The Texas Incident. 1890's Pre-Dreadnoughts duking it out in the Philippines. My teammate and I commanded the Japanese contingent. I'd actually played this game, a creation of GM Bruce, a few years back and captained the same ship in that game.

There she is. Across the table are the two Americans, left and center and a Brit, right. The American mission was to reach the stricken Texas, board and make off with her. The mission, secretly assigned to us, was to sink the Texas - a very tall order indeed.

My teammate and the lead British ship manage to collide. Crimminy.

What a mess. Having the smallest ship, my tactic was to keep a low profile and let the big boys blast away at each other. I did get in quite a few nice hits on the USS Indiana and the Russian Potemkin.

Being a turn-template game, many years of experience with Dystopian Wars and X-Wing has served me well. I can drive. The others, not so much. 

Some shots of the players...

Another great weekend of dice and toy soldiers. Already getting prepared for 2027!

Southern Front 2025

I headed up to Raleigh, North Carolina for Southern Front game con last weekend. Overall, I had a really nice time. I haven't been to a con in almost 18 months so it was good to get back in the groove. 

I took my modernized What A Cowboy variant, Shakedown and hosted a game on Friday evening. I also took Rubber and Lead and three races were run for a few attendees.

My first game of the weekend was My Galley Sally, an older club-level ruleset for ancient Galley combat. I've never played that sort of game but it was a blast.

We, the Greeks!

If there's a choice, I always take yellow.

Some action.

I managed the first ram of the battle and got a terrific result, sinking the enemy vessel outright!

More boat-smashing, boarding and arrow-firing!

At the end, two ships had been captured, one Greek and one Persian and one sunk. There were many casualties as you can see! The Greeks were deemed the victors by the GM.

After dinner, I hosted my Shakedown game. We had the Latin Kings and Outlaws in a drugs for money transaction. The Cops and Bloods both showed up mid-transaction and chaos ensued.

I made some appropriate kill markers!

Officer Axel Foley and Dale Jr. get into it.

At the end of the engagement, the Bloods and Latin Kings were the big winners, with the Bloods making off with the cash and the LKs retaining possession of their product. The Cops and skinheads both took a beating. It was a mess but everyone enjoyed it!

The next morning, Mark and I both settled in for some Blood and Plunder. We were graced with a large, pretty table.

Mark and I split a detachment. He took the veteran gunners and leader and I took the less experienced melee pirates. That was intentional, to create a focused very powerful unit (not unlike a Kill Stack in Squad Leader).

Marks gunners work on capturing the pig sty.

A messy brawl on the beach!

My crew gets into it with the French buccaneers in the village. Blue markers are French casualties. 

Mark had taken a beating over to the far left there. I was ambushed by some uppity villagers who shot my boys int he backs!

My opponent and I were both decimated by the filthy villagers and our remaining fellows shook hands and decided to get out!

And there he goes, running past the mob!

Even though mark and I failed to capture the spy in the center (the gal in the red dress by the well), our teammates on the left and right flanks performed well, giving our side the win.

I hosted three rounds of Rubber and Lead after lunch. It was tough pulling in players, but those who played got hooked and kept playing.

The high degree-of-difficulty maneuver of crossing the finish line in reverse with the cement mixer!

My final game was a Western Desert 6mm game of Mein Panzer. It was set just after Rommel landed in North Africa and had started probing British positions. The game ended up being a 1 v 1 with a fellow I had hosted the Pirate game earlier. I took command of Ze Germans and Joe was the British commander.

The British started hidden so I deployed to send my tanks, a mix of Pz II, III and IVs, up the road on the left while my infantry company and aufklarung squadron handled my right flank. The three hills, circled in blue, are the objectives.

An 8-rad becomes the fist casualty. Turns out the British armored cars are on that flank!

I got a PaK38 deployed on the hilltop in short order. A PaK36 would follow a turn later.

My Panzers creep forward. 2-Pounders and A13s await them. 

I sent the motorcycles ahead to harass the positions in the center. That firebase needed to be disrupted.

The armored car battle on the right was brutal and both sides took considerable casualties. My ATGs were very effective. 

The motorcycles were also very effective once they got right up on the infantry position. 

But over on the left, my tanks had taken a slow beating which all of a sudden became a waterfall of pain. Many Panzers were brewed up and I was having real trouble silencing the Brits.

Then to cap things off, one of the command tanks was brewed up. The other command tank promptly failed a morale test as badly as one can fail (rolled a 20 on a d20). We called the game. Although I'd had some success on the right, the left and center were just too much and without a sandstorm or smoke screen in front of my tanks, I'd never get through six hull-down tanks and two dug-in ATGs. 

We really enjoyed the game and the scenario. It was a fantastic way to cap off the weekend. 

Another successful Southern Front and I look forward to the next!