Huzzah! 2023 – my recap and photos of my 3 Wars of Ozz and 2 Feudal Patrol Games

As I wind down from Memorial Day weekend activities, I wanted to share some of my photos from the Huzzah! 2023 gaming convention. I ran 5 games there – two Wars of Ozz games on Friday, two Feudal Patrol games based on the Spanish Conquest in Mesoamerica games on Saturday, and a final Wars of Ozz game on Sunday. Each game slot was 4 hours long.

As usual, setting up and running a convention game (let alone 5) takes away from being a photographer. In the end, I want the games to take priority – and find a moment or two to take some shots for you, my readers. I do not have a good play-by-play to share, but I will give you the general gist of the games and hopefully the pics will suffice – there are a lot here.

If you like wargames photos – or you were at Huzzah! 2023 – this post is up your alley!

As background, the Huzzah! 2023 gaming convention was held in South Portland, ME, from May 19th to May 21st. It is run annually by the Maine Historical Wargamers Association (MWHA). There are two Facebook pages associated with the group, one is for the MWHA and one for the Huzzah! convention that you can access.

I arrived early Friday the 19th – around 11 AM – so that I could check into my hotel and move all my stuff from my very full car into my room and get my first game set up for 2 PM. Unfortunately, the hotel would not let ANYONE check in before 3 PM – and yes, that was during my game slot. The staff of the hotel claimed that they needed to keep rooms free for flight crews (not the fault of MWHA btw). In any case, my car was not packed such that I could just grab stuff and go – and after a bit of transloading in the parking lot I got my stuff into the convention space and set up my first 6-player Wars of Ozz game. The table was smaller than I had planned – and had a lot of figures on it, but with all of the scrambling, I made it work.

Friday Afternoon Wars of Ozz Game

I set up all of my Ozz games as “meeting engagements”. The idea was to expose the players to the rules and for them to have a fun and straightforward game. In the first game, on the “bad guys side” I had a brigade of Gillikins (loaned to me for the convention by my friend Chris Comeau), my brigade of Winkies, and another Winkie brigade (loaned to me for the convention by my friend Chris Palmer of the Maryland HAWKS club). On the other side I had my Great Land of Harvest Brigade, my Munchkin Brigade, and a Quadling Brigade (also from Chris Palmer), At future conventions, I should have enough of my own Ozz troops, but thanks to the two Chris’s, and Eric Schlegel (the HAWK who brought the Maryland-based figures m to the convention), I was set. Each player had a brigade – and here below are some shots of the action.

The players ready to play. The bases with more than 1 building represent towns.

Brad advances his Lesser Apes and Winkies.

A view of “the good guys” side – from nearest to furthest are the Great Land of Harvest Brigade, the Quadling Brigade, and the Munchkin Brigade. Some of the units will be the subject of future posts (I had not had enough time before HUZZAH!).

A Winkie zilk-riding regiment is disordered after fighting and routing the Great Pumpkin Heads. Moving up to challenge the Winkie cavalry is the Carrot Creature Regiment – supported by both Mushroom Creature and Corn Creature regiments. You can also see the Great Pumpkin Heads routing to their right.

Carrot Creatures and Winkie cavalry are disordered after melee. A Harvest Witch prepares a spell.

The Great Owl regiment attacks and disrupts the Gillikin goat-riding cavalry in front of Munchkin infantry. The Gillikin cavalry had just routed the Munchkin Light Cavalry at the top of the picture.

Munchkin infantry and artillery move up – while Munchkin cavalry continues to flee the battle.

Later, the Winkie cavalry broke the Carrot, Corn, and Mushroom Creature regiments. Unfortunately the Harvest player’s dice were set on rolling badly – very badly.

In the middle of the battle, Quadlings and Lesser Apes collide – while the other Winkie cavalry moves forward.

The aftermath of the Quadling/Ape scrum was a routed Quadling infantry.

The first game was an overwhelming bad guy victory. I reset the game, finally got checked into my room, and prepared for the next band of players. As for dinner – a bag of crackers and a Coke had to suffice for the time being.

Friday Night Wars of Ozz Game

When I reset the game, I removed some of the terrain to alter it a bit. I also deployed the forces closer to each other. Here below are some shots of this game.

The game 2 players – and yes the gentleman on the left middle (James) played again – in fact he played in all 5 of my games! This game had several of the “Berkshire Boys” playing, as well as Sam and Matt who are veterans of many of my convention games.

As before, the Great Pumpkin Heads made contact with the enemy first, and again they were routed! This time though the Harvest troops fought better.

Some Winkies advance – while others are routed…

The battle develops – and the casualties (on the blue tablecloth) mount.

With a bold move, Sam fly’s her regiment of Great Flying Apes towards the Quadlings and Munchkins.

The Munchkin Light Cavalry hits the Great Flying Apes.

The end of the game (due to the hall closing!).

At the game’s end, the bad guys had the advantage – but the tide was (in my opinion) turning in favor of the good guys. All had fun in these first two games.

At this point, I grabbed another Coke, a bag of Goldfish crackers, and a microwaveable frozen mini-pizza for the room, and crashed.

Saturday Morning Feudal Patrol Game – The Battle of Centla

The next morning, I got in early and set up my next game – the Battle of Centla. This is a Feudal Patrol skirmish game based on the first encounter between the Conquistadores and the Maya (Cortes would later fight the Aztecs).

I again sold out! It was nice to have a full table.

The players assemble on Saturday morning.

Leif and Brad – veterans of the game – brief their teams and strategize.

The Spanish advance towards the Maya city. Their victory conditions were to get to the city, or inflict excessive casualties on the Maya, or to incapacitate their leader, Tabscoob. To win, the Maya needed to inflict excessive casualties on the Conquistadores, incapacitate Cortes, or just avoid any Spanish victory conditions being met by the game’s end.

Brad advances his warband led by Alvarado.

Alvarado (red hair at bottom left) sends his war dog at the Maya in the bushes.

Maya atlatls hit the Spanish advancing on the middle road.

The Spanish players coordinate their actions.

As the Spanish move toward the city, the Maya take up a defensive position astride the jungle path.

The Maya get timely (and lucky) reinforcements to confront the Spanish bringing a smile to Michelle.

The Spanish under Alvarado try to hack their way through the Maya, but are stunned by atlatl fire, slowing their advance.

In desperation, Alvarado hurls himself at the Maya, but is stunned by an atlatl hit.

Back in the middle of the table, the Spanish are near a breakthrough as well.

The game ends with a narrow Maya victory – the Spanish nearly succeed!

Thankfully, I was able to get this game dismantled (with a lot of help especially from Leif and Brad) and put away and moved to my final table of the weekend. Fortunately, this was going to be a BIG table – five 6′ x 3′ tables of watery battlefield – Lake Texcoco – where the Aztec capital used to be.

Saturday Evening Feudal Patrol Game – The Battle of Lake Texcoco

This game would be in the evening on Saturday – so I set up during he afternoon – all 23 war canoes (with 5-6 Aztecs inside) and 5 Spanish brigantines (with 13 or so figures in each ship). Each side gets Victory points differently. The Spanish get points for successfully firing their primitive lombards and falconets (cannon) at the city. The Aztecs get points for successfully boarding each brigantine. Both sides get points for inflicting casualties on the enemy – with the Aztecs getting more points for inflicting them than the armored Spanish do. There were 9 players.

At the start – Spanish on the right, Aztecs on the left.

The Aztec players advance their war canoes,

The Spanish players try to advance their brigantines.

The Aztecs move quickly as the Spanish do not raise their sails and instead rely on rowing.

Another shot of the war canoes as they advance.

Long view of the battlefield from the other side of the table.

James eyes the approaching war canoes and fires his lombard (in the stern castle obscured by the sail) at an approaching canoe.

It’s a bad scene on El Dolar – half the crew was killed or jumped overboard – plus it got damaged hitting an island.

The massive number of Morale pips on the dashboard of El Marcos tell a sad tale…

In the end the Spanish lost the game – as not a single shot hit the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish players were somewhat cautious in their advance but also too willing to fire valuable cannon opportunities at war canoes. While they inflicted a lot of casualties, the lack of cannon hits doomed their chances at victory. Meanwhile, the Aztecs boarded all of the brigantines, and that was the difference in points.

After a cleanup, I had help setting up Sunday morning’s upcoming Ozz game on this same table.

Sunday Morning Wars of Ozz Game

I only used 4 brigades this time as I dropped the Winkie and the Quadling brigades that I had borrowed from Chris Palmer. There was a LOT more maneuver space and several of the players were from Friday’s Ozz games. Also there was lot of action in this game as you will see below!

The Harvest Brigade here – with the Munchkin Brigade to their right. The two opposing forces were deployed at opposite corners of the tabletop.

The Mushroom Creature Regiment enters a town.

Gillikins move through and around a town with their skeleton allies.

Harvest forces try to get into the town before the Winkies.

The Munchkin Medium artillery battery safely in the hard cover of the town with their infantry on the right flank.

An amazing Ozz scene as Union Civil War reenactors watch the Ozz game unfold – black powder weapons on the table and around it!

The Harvestland artillery (the pumpkin chucker) is wiped out to a man (or pumpkinhead) by Winkie Infantry. Meanwhile, the Great Pumpkin Heads seek revenge and deploy into line.

The Great Pumpkin Heads repel the Lesser Apes.

The Great Flying Apes manage to get behind the Great Pumpkin Heads and attempt a rear hit. The GPH manage to turn to face them, but now have enemies to the front and to the rear.

A Great Pumpkin Head base close up as they are surrounded.

On the Munchkin front, the Winkie zilk-riders attempt to charge the Munchkin Medium battery – and fail to make it – and are staring at the business end at point-blank range.

Meanwhile, Evora the Witch cast “poppies” in front of her Winkie Light battery to deter any assaults on the gun.

Gillikins have turned the flank of the Harvest left side,

The zilk riders are smashed by the Munchkin battery and flee, pursued by the Great Owls.

The Lesser Pumpkin Heads form line, and turn to face the rear attack of the Great Flying Apes.

That was the end of the game as time expired. It was not really over as the Munchkins were still intact and the Winkies had taken losses too. Had it gone on longer, I expect that it would have been very close – but as it ended the Winkies and Gillikins made it a three for three weekend.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos – and I want to thank all of the MWHA folks for all of their hard work – and I want to thank the players as well. I do believe that everyone had a very good time at my games – plus I think I will see some of them at future Mass Pikemen games – and I really look forward to that!

As always, I appreciate any feedback from you in the comments section. Thanks for looking!

Aztec Temple Columns and My New Love for Chinchilla Dust

When one considers the Aztecs and their empire, what does the historical record say about which visual images struck the Conquistadores in 1519 with awe? Colorfully costumed and tremendously fierce warriors? Eagle Warriors? Jaguar Warriors? Montezuma II and his palace? Untold amounts of gold and silver? Perhaps their quite bloody reputation for human sacrifice, slavery, and occasional cannibalism? The magnificence of the city of Tenochtitlan and its amazing architecture? Probably all that and more, at least in what I have read.

As I shared in my last post – I am working on terrain/buildings for the period as part of “Mark’s Aztec Building Challenge Contest”. These buildings are either resin or MDF. I originally thought that I would start with the resin buildings and then move onto the MDF ones. To do that, I wanted a good primer on the resin – and the manufacturer (Acheson Creations) recommended a Rustoleum primer. This meant spray painting with the rattlecan outside safely – or doing it unsafely inside the house and provoking my lovely bride to commit several felonies upon my person due to the fumes. Well, I can’t visit her in jail during a pandemic – or from the grave – so I decided on the outside option.

However, despite one beautiful Massachusetts day in March where we saw the 70’s (that’s the low 20’s for you metric folks), it has been in the 40’s (4-9 for you metric folks) and rainy. Neither are good for outside. So, flip the order, and onto the MDF.

My experience with MDF is very limited – all I have done before is some MDF barriers that I did back in 2017. And they were not my best work IMO. All of my MDF in the challenge is supposed to be made of stone. MDF does not look like stone of course. It’s manufactured from wood dust and glue. So, what to do? First, I watched a smattering of YouTube videos on MDF kits. The best one said to wipe down MDF with a damp microfiber to clean prior to painting which was very important for paint to adhere!

I also reached out to a couple of friends – Buck Surdu (of Buck’s Blog) and The Imperfect Modeler (TIM) to seek their unbridled wisdom. Both were great – and TIM opened my eyes to a new (to me) and amazing hobby tool that I wanted to share with you all as I am in love with it.

Chinchilla dust.

Yes, I had never heard of it before either. I have a 26 year old cockatiel, no gerbils or similar. You find it in the pet store – apparently gerbils and chinchillas and similar beasties bathe in dust, not water. This stuff is very, very finely ground pumice. A bag cost me $22 , and I think its a lifetime supply! Based on TIM’s recommendations and advice, I planned to try to use it to create a stone-like look. I hoped to accomplish this by using it over a watery PVA application.

As I had two kits of the ones called “4 Temple Columns“, I thought I’d start there as it would enable me to experiment and learn for the rest of the MDF. I broke the kits into two attempts – with the first being painting and dusting the MDF on its sheet and then assembling the kit. The second attempt would be to assemble the kit first, and then dust up and paint.

The two unopened MDF kits. I decided that I would not need the columns stacked up as the single columns were sufficiently tall enough for my needs.

After wiping the kit off with a wet microfiber cloth, I had this.

As stated, my first kit attempt was to paint and flock in situ as it were. I applied a watery PVA coat to the MDF, and then lightly spooned on or pinch-applied the chinchilla dust. I tried removing excess with a reusable Testors plastic cheap brush. I did this in a plastic tub so as to minimize the mess (and avoid unnecessarily ticking off the wife with the unannounced arrival of a new beach in the cellar). This was a bit time-consuming and not very efficient I found.

Here you see the MDF sheet with the chinchilla dust bag in the back. The watery PVA glue was applied with a cheap brush, and the chinchilla dust was applied with a tiny sculpting spoon or my pinched fingers. I tapped off or brushed off any excess.

After the glue had dried, I used my cheapest airbrush (my Iwata Neo) to paint the sheet with Vallejo Model Air “Sand (Ivory)”. When that was dry and basically cured, I dry brushed the sheet serially with three colors: Vallejo Model Color “Dark Sand’, then Citadel “Ushabti Bone”, then DecoArt “Buttermilk”. I wanted to get some depth of color this way. Then I painted the idols’ faces (all paints are listed at the end of this post as references too). The main challenge I had was not to let my paints be too thin, as they could easily run via capillary action to unwanted parts of the models. Happily, the chinchilla dust is so porous that it grabs paint easily.

The MDF sheet after dry brushing the three colors over the base coat.

Here you see the idols’ images painted. I wanted them to look well-carved but painted with primitive paints.

After painting all of it, I used Army Painter “Light Tone” over the whole of both sheets.

Now, it was time to assemble. the directions were easy enough – but I discovered three issues. One was that I wasted a lot of paint and effort on parts I would not need. Second, that assembly would be complicated (just slightly) by the added thickness of the painted/dusted MDF. That was easily dealt with by an Exacto blade. Thirdly, the brown (laser-burned) surfaces of the MDF would not be the same texture and color of the rest – hardly a way to look like stone. These were the surfaces I did not get to paint by leaving the pieces of MDF on the sheets. I needed to touch all of those areas up after assembly and leaving to let the glue to dry overnight.

Assembled and left to let the PVA used in assembly dry overnight.

All the brown areas needed touch up to match the rest of the pieces!

I added more chinchilla dust and repeated the previous process with paint and wash. I needed an easier way!

Close up of example from the first group. I would later tone them down a bit more.

Going forward, I saw opportunities to address the shortcomings from the first go -around.

First, I would assemble first, and then apply the chinchilla dust, paint and wash. This would limit the need for so much touch up. Second, I got a small spray bottle and a cheap salt shaker from Wal-Mart to respectively apply the watery PVA glue and the chinchilla dust more easily. Both were huge improvements for round two.

An example after the chinchilla dust application put on a plastic plate with poster tack in my spray booth.

I used the exact same order of paints and washes as before – and then went back afterwards with “Light Tone” to get better blending on all of them. A few bonuses here around chinchilla dust – it is so porous that it traps a lot of the paint and the wash – and it dry brushes great. You will use more paint too. Varnishing was unnecessary – a big plus!

So here are the final results:

This is a shot of the first four Temple Columns that I completed.

Here are all of the 8 Temple Columns. I used a different design top for the second set. The lighting here is making the tops look too shiny – see next shot – they are fine.

Here is a top view. The first set tops ironically looked less “seamless” than the second set.

Here you see the columns with a couple of 28mm Conquistador arquebusiers for scale comparison out of the booth.

I did use a new setup for photos here – got some black fabric to put in my spray booth, binder-clipped it, and add a flashlight – et viola. My previous Sonoran Desert background would not have worked well. I probably need to put a filter over the spray booth light next time as the light was too bright – even with editing.

So that’s my March 31st completion. I am hoping to add any next April-completed pieces to Ann’s “Paint the Crap You Already Own” challenge.

BIG THANKS TO BUCK AND TO TIM!

Remember to follow my blog and enter my contest! The entry window closes on midnight EDT (US East Coast time) on April 10th, 2021.

And always, I invite your feedback on this post! Thanks for taking a look!

Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:

Previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide”

Aztec Temple Columns and My New Love for Chinchilla Dust (this post)
Mark’s Aztec Building Challenge Contest
Game Aids and Tools for Feudal Patrol games using the Civilizations Collide Supplement
And the Winners of “Mark’s Conquistador Contest” are…
Conquistador Cavalry. 24 figures total: Outpost Wargame Services #CON5 “Conquistador Cavalry in light armour 1” (4 horses & 4 riders); Outpost Wargame Services #CON6 “Conquistador Cavalry in full armour” (4 horses & 4 riders); Eureka Miniatures “Moving Horses” #100ANM05 (8 horses used as casualty markers).
Conquistador Falconet and Crew (Artillery). 3 figures total: Outpost Wargame Services #CONA1 “Falconet and Crew”.
More Conquistador Sword and Buckler Men. 8 figures total Outpost Wargame Services #CON001 “Sword and Buckler Men”.
Conquistador Sword and Buckler Men (Wargames Foundry). 18 figures total in three blister packs: Wargames Foundry #SB015 “Swaggering Swordsmen”, #SB016 “Brutal Sword and Buckler Men”, and #SB017 “Bold Bladesmen”.
Perro de Guerra (Conquistador War Dogs). 13 figures total: Outpost Wargames Services #CONS6 “War Dogs” (8 war dogs); Eureka #100CON13 “Dog Handler and Dogs” (1 dog handler/pikeman and 4 war dogs)
Conquistador Foot Command, Crossbowmen, and a Couple of Officers. 11 figures total: Outpost Wargames Services #CONC1 “Conquistador Foot Command” (a leader, a banner bearer, a drummer, and a bugler); Eureka #100CON04 “Crossbowmen” (5 crossbowmen); and Eureka CONC1 “Conquistador Officer” and an unknown SKU officer (2 officers)
Merciless Adventurers (this post) – Wargames Foundry #SB014 (6 Conquistadores with arquebuses)
Audacious Arquebusiers! – Wargames Foundry #SB012 (6 Conquistadores with arquebuses)
Mark’s Conquistador Contest – for my loyal blog followers!
Montezuma and Chieftains – Wargames Foundry #AZ011 for Feudal Patrol – 6 Aztec figures (Montezuma, 4 Chieftains, 1 Warrior Priest)
Aztec Shock Troops – Cuachic Warriors aka The Shorn Ones – 8 Aztec cuachicqueh warriors
Tloxtoxl and the Priests of the Great Temple, Wargames Foundry AZ021 – 2 warrior priests, 1 priestess, 1 priest, 1 leader, and 1 signaler
Civilizations Collide – The Wars of the Aztecs, the Inca, the Maya, and the Conquistadores is now available as a FREE Download for Feudal Patrol™ – plus a Feudal Patrol™ review!
18 Aztec Novice Warriors for Feudal Patrol Walk into a Bar – 18 Novice Warriors
Aztec Warrior Priests (painted as Tlaxcalans), Ral Partha 42-302, circa 1988 (this post) – 6 figures – 6 Tlaxcalan Warrior Priests
Tlaxcalan Novices, Elite Warriors, and Command Group – 18 figures – 8 Novice Tlaxcalan Warriors, 8 Elite Tlaxcalan Warriors, 1 Tlaxcalan Captain, 1 Tlaxcalan Conch Blower
Tlaxcalan Archers – 8 Veteran Tlaxcalan Archers
Aztec Game for Feudal Patrol across thousands of miles – via Zoom!
Aztec Snake Woman and Drummer – 1 Aztec General, 1 Aztec Drummer
A June and July Jaguar Warrior Frenzy (plus some Aztec Veterans and a Warrior Priest to Boot) – 3 Aztec Veteran Warriors, 17 Jaguar Warriors, 1 Aztec Warrior Priest
Doubling Down – Aztec Veteran Warriors – 24 Aztec Veteran Warriors
Aztec Arrow Knights, Ral Partha circa 1988 – 6 Aztec Arrow Knights
Aztec Eagle Warriors from Tin Soldier UK – 6 Aztec Eagle Knights
Aztec Novice Warriors and a few Frinx – 12 Novice Warriors

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE PIECES:

Elmer’s PVA Glue
Poster tack
Plastic Plates
All Living Things Dry Dust Bath (chinchilla dust)
Vallejo “Flow Improver”
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Vallejo Model Air “Sand (Ivory)”
Vallejo Model Color “Dark Sand”
Citadel “Ushabti Bone”
DecoArt “Buttermilk”
Army Painter “Light Tone” (wash)
Vallejo Mecha Color “Off-white”
Vallejo Model Color “Red”
Americana “Kelley Green”
Craftsmart “Black”
Citadel “Yriel Yellow”
Americana “Vivid Violet”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Turquoise”
Vallejo Game Air “Red Terracotta”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Iyanden Yellow”
Craftsmart “Bahama Blue”

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