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!

Corn Creatures of the Great Land of Harvest (Wars of Ozz)

I have been continuing to build and paint up regiments for my Wars of Ozz Great Land of Harvest Army. This time, I might get a bit corny…

Ok, that was really bad. Mea maxima culpa.

Anyways, in preparation for the upcoming HUZZAH gaming convention in Maine, I have managed to finish off four regiments, plus some leaders and individuals. I will post each group going forward – starting with this one – a regiment of Corn Creatures, yet another anthropomorphic Ozz unit. I already called the Carrot Creatures Regiment the CCR in my last post – so let’s just refer to these as the Corn Creatures, or CC. The CC are part of the forces of the Great Land of Harvest and their SKU# is OZZ518, and can be seen here.

Similar to the Carrot Creatures Regiment, the unit is comprised of 10 metal figures, and each is armed with a combination of two weapons – spears, pitchforks, rakes, axes, sickles, and scythes – but in this case one in each arm. These guys look quite crazy with two weapons (even if one is a rake).

I needed to assemble the unit insofar as assigning a weapon to each of the two arms for Melee.

They also have a “kamikaze”-style missile attack – a “popping” attack:

Popping Attacks:
Once per game one unit of corn creatures can conduct a popping attack against an enemy to their front within four inches. The corn unit makes an attack as if firing light artillery at short range. This is the unit’s firing action for the turn. After conducting the popping attack, the corn unit receives two hits (all those popped corn creatures are less effective now). Typically, this is done to pop at the enemy and then either withdraw or charge.
Wars of Ozz addendum with new factions

Now that is a different missile attack to be sure – short range artillery fire to boot!

The bigger-than-people figures are just the kind of vegetables to give you nightmares. As with the other 10-figure Harvest regiments, they are based in the game on five 2″ square bases without a Regimental Commander. Their melee value is 5 out of 10, as is their one-time marksmanship rating – so very average. Their Elan and Resolve values are the same as the Carrots at 6 out of 10.

Here, my goal was to get the right shade of yellow on them – and as with orange, most of us understand that this can be difficult. Similar to my other Harvest units, I mixed up their weapons and flocking such that no two of the five bases looked exactly alike – and to match my other Harvest troops, I did paint the eyes with a glowing yellow-green (Tesseract Glow). Like the Carrots, the figures are great – they look like berserking ears of corn to be sure (but you can judge for yourself).

As is my habit, I’ll share a few WIP shots and then some eye candy of the Corn Creature regiment. I’ll start with assembly of the figures and then move to describing the painting process.

Here again I used a number of contrast and speed paints, but did also use highlights and washes. To get the right shades of yellow – and I hope that I did achieve that – took a few iterations. All of the paints that I used will be listed at the end as I normally do for those interested – and selfishly for my own future reference should I need that information – I do forget things!

WIP Shots…

The Corn Creatures as received showing the 4 poses and weapons variety – as well as the filings I made on them on the paper towel – I hate mold lines and I give the bases a good filing as well so that they stick to the washers.

After assembly and mounting to 1.25″ washers.

I then primed the CC in white and started with working on the yellow. My first try was Army Painter Speed Paint (new version) “Maize Yellow” – which ought to be just perfect – but was a bit too dark for my tastes for the corm kernels (remember I said iterations – plural). It did help as a base with shading for later additions.

After assembly mounted the Corn Creatures on the specimen jars with poster tack. This is the first yellow – “Maize Yellow”.

The choice that I made for the leafy corn stalks was a yellowy-green Citadel Contrast Paint “Striking Scorpion Green”. I liked it – but in contrast it made me really want to upgrade the corn color.

I also found that highlighting each kernel in white and then adding yellow helped, as did Army Painter washes. To lighten and brighten the yellow on the corn, I went with another Citadel Contrast Paint – “Bad Moon Yellow”. Then I made the eyebrows orange, and the lips “Panther Yellow”. Lastly, it was time to make the eyes glow an evil green.

Painting progress on the yellow. So much yellow…

Then it was onto painting the weapons, which I tried to make look a bit varied as well in terms of the handle colors and the metallics. Lastly I did the hands in the same green leafy color as the bodies and made the corn “hair” the original “Maize Yellow” washed with Army Painter “Light Tone”.

I varnished once again with a coat of gloss followed by one of matte. Then I flocked the bases with the same color themes as my other Harvest troops.

Time for some (no, not popcorn) – some…

Eye Candy

Stand 1

Stand 2

Stand 3

Stand 4

Stand 5

Group Shot

That’s all for the Corn Creatures Infantry Regiment. I hope that you liked their corniness as much as I did. This makes 118 figures that I have painted for Ozz this year!

Thanks for taking a look and any feedback, especially on the yellow colors – I am again curious as to your thoughts.

And yes, I still have more to come…

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

For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS CORN CREATURES INFANTRY REGIMENT:

Gorilla Glue
1.25″ steel fender washers
Poster tack
2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
Vallejo “Flow Improver”
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Vallejo Mecha Surface Primer “White”
Vallejo Premium Surface Primer “White”
Army Painter Airbrush Primer “White”
Army Painter “Speed Paint – Maize Yellow”
Vallejo Model Color “White”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Striking Scorpion Green”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Bad Moon Yellow”
Tamiya “Orange”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Baal Red”
Battlefront “Panther Yellow”
Tamiya “X-20A Thinner”
Citadel “Tesseract Glow”
Vallejo Model Air “Brown”
Vallejo Model Air “Wood”
Citadel “Skrag Brown”
Vallejo Model Color “Wood Grain”
Vallejo Model Air “Steel”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Dark Steel”
Citadel “Ironbreaker”
Vallejo Model Air “Black” (metallic)
P3 “Blazing Ink”
Vallejo Model Air “Chrome”
Citadel “Nuln Oil GLOSS” (wash/shade)
Army Painter “Light Tone” (wash/shade)
PS Model Color “British Brown Drab”
Elmer’s PVA Glue
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Gloss Varnish”
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Orange Tufts” (flocking)
Gamer’s Grass “Orange Flowers” (flocking)
Small stones (flocking)
Small oak twigs (flocking)

Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures’ range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the figures are available from the following two places:

In the US Old Glory has a site – Wars of Ozz Miniatures.

In the UK go to Sally 4th.

Carrot Creatures of the Great Land of Harvest (Wars of Ozz)

In my last post I said that I was next going to share a “surprise unit” – and I hinted that it was actually devoid of any Vitamin A…and here it is – the Carrot Creature regiment of the Great Land of Harvest.

Well, as far as I know, metal figures are not nutritious – so that was an easy claim. Please, as a public service announcement…don’t eat your figures!

Back to the figures! The Great Land of Harvest not only has produced the Great Pumpkin Heads and the Lesser Pumpkin Heads. There are many other mutations and oddities that have armed themselves and organized for the defense of their homeland – or to attack their neighbors – or alternatively mercenary service in other factions’ armies. This regiment is one of them, and I have several more Harvest units that I will be able to share shortly. But, let’s focus on the Carrot Creatures Regiment (we’ll shorten that to CCR but that has nothing to do with Creedence Clearwater Revival…).

Initially, when I looked at the Wars of Ozz website, there were not any photos of the CCR. That since has been remedied and now you can see the website shot of them here. The CCR are part of the forces of the Great Land of Harvest and their SKU# is OZZ532.

The unit is comprised of 10 metal figures, and and is physically armed with axes, shovel handles, shovels, and scythes. The unit required no assembly other than assigning the arm holding the weapons. I said “physically”, because in the rules the CCR is also armed with bows (which are treated as carbines). Rather than either ignore that aspect, or modify the figures, I chose to modify the bases to reflect this weaponry as you will see below. I really did not want to modify the figures for the bows – and I believe specifically bow-armed Carrot Creatures will eventually be made available for purchase. As I wanted my Harvest troops to have a few more missile troops, this choice was ideal.

From the addendum showing the CCR data. From left to right, Marksmanship, Melee, Resolve, Elan, maximum per brigade, Movement Modifier in inches, Regimental Commander (Y/N), point cost, and notes.

The figures are larger (as befits big monster-sized carrots) and are based in the game on five 2″ square bases without a Regimental Commander. Their melee value is 5 out of 10, but their marksmanship is 7 out of 10 (remember why your Mom said to eat your carrots!). Their Elan and Resolve values are at 6 out of 10 – a reasonably stout unit.

My goal was to get the right shades of orange on them – and we all know how painting miniatures either colors of orange or yellow can be challenging. I thought they should be a bit ruddy – to reflect their subterranean lifestyles (I am assuming here, I don’t personally hang out underground).

Similar to my other Harvest units, I mixed up their weapons and flocking such that no two of the five bases looked exactly alike. To match the other Harvest troops, I did paint the eyes with a glowing yellow-green. The figures are great – with a suitably cartoony and menacing look. I thought they looked quite like Tasmanian devil-inspired carrots.

As before, I’ll share a few WIP shots and then some eye candy of the CCR regiment. I’ll start with assembly of the figures and then move to describing the painting process. I used a number of contrast and speed paints, but did also use highlights and washes. Orange is not a simple process. All of the paints that I used will be listed at the end as I normally do for those interested (and for my own reference in the future should I need that information – I forget things!).

WIP Shots…

Filed and washed, the CCR awaits assembly.

As with the pumpkin heads, I primed the orange parts of the figures in black, then dry brushed them in white, followed by a dry brush of a couple of oranges, and then highlighted and shaded them. For the leafy “hair”, I primed that in green, then moved to highlights and shading. I mocked the unit up on their bases to make sure that they would fit both vertically and horizontally. This has both an aesthetic purpose and a practical one – as I did want them to look good without having their weapons in the other figures’ faces or hanging off of the bases to get wacked in a game.

The CCR mocked up and primed. The figures are actually on smaller 3/4″ square steel bases for attachment to my poster tack-covered specimen jars. Attachment to the 2″ larger bases would come later.

Showing the figure dry brushed white on the specimen jar. Turned out priming the hair green was not overly relevant!

A “conga line” of orange dry brushed carrots. I would need a good amount of color tweaking to get the orange where I wanted (which was not what you see here). But, it’s a process…

Next, I did the “hair”. Note I label the jars to show where each one will go on their final bases, right, left, front, back.

Progress on adding highlights and washes shown here.

After varnishing (gloss, then matte), I flocked the bases with the same color themes as my other Harvest troops. Additionally, I added some small crossbows that I had lying around to the fronts and backs of the bases. I painted these crossbows a brighter green – and hopefully they can serve as player reminder that the CCR actually has a missile capability!