Der Alte Fritz Journal

I am back from my trip to the HMGS East Fall In Convention in Lancaster, PA November 6-9, 2025. All told, it was a successful show, having hosted three games featuring Captain Richard Sharpe's adventures in Spain during the Peninsular War of the Napoleonic Era. I won a PELA award for my game on Saturday ("Sharpe's Bridge - The Battle of the Coa River") and I also won the Best Terrain award for the convention. Finally, all three games were fully booked with players and this is always my personal goal when I am hosting games at war game conventions.

Fall In is held every Fall at the Wyndom Resort in Lancaster, PA. This is the same site as the old Lancaster Host Hotel that used to hold Historicon before it moved to a better facility in downtown Lancaster. New ownership completely renovated all of the rooms, so the floor layout was the same as before, but more importantly, the rooms were brought up to a high standard and they had a fresh and new vibe to them.

Fall In is a bit smaller than Historicon in terms of the number of games available and the number of attendees, but it is larger than the HMGS-Midwest Little Wars convention as a point of reference. The convention organizers gave me a premium table site in the main foyer in front of the large Lancaster Ball Room; so everyone had to walk past my two game tables before entering the main game area.

As often happens during a game, you find some loop holes in the rules or discover a better way of doing something differently.

During a melee, the individual figures match up and both sides roll a D20 die, with modifiers, and the high score wins the melee. Then a card is drawn from the deck: a heart results in a kill, a diamond results in a wound, a spade results in the loser running away, and a club card results in the capture of the loser. During the second game, some of the players started applying this "results method" to small arms fire as well as to melee outcomes. I liked the way that this worked and so I used it in the third and final game. It amounts to a saving throw of sorts and reduces the amount of hits/kills from small arms fire.

In the next several days I will post some pictures of the other games that I saw at Fall In so stay tuned for more.

I finished making river sections for the main table of my game at this year's Fall In convention in Lancaster, PA Fall In Convention web site. November 7-9 2025 at the Wyndham Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, PA. (This is the hotel that used to be called The Host). Click on this link to get to the convention's home page so that you can register for the show and make reservations for the games via the Table Top Events app.

First things first:

I need some of my followers (you) to sign up for my Friday morning game (see below) because, so far, nobody has signed up for the game. If you plan on attending the convention then I would be most grateful if you would sign up for one of my games. Each game has 8 tickets or player slots. I can run the games with 2 or 3 people since I can then step in and play multiple commands to facilitate the game.

Each game is a Napoleonic skirmish game set in Spain during the Peninsular War and feature the exploits of Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men against the Forces of Evil, notably Pierre Ducos, Obadiah Hakeswell, and Colonel Henry Simmerson.

Click on the links in blue, for each game below, and sign up for one of my games. I have made some terrific bespoke terrain boards for the game and have painted a number of 40mm figures from Sash and Saber and Perry Miniatures.

Sharpe's Treasure sign up Event number 528 at Friday 10AM (8 of 8 tickets available)

It's 1810 and Napoleon has conquered most of Spain. Captain Richard Sharpe and Sgt Harper must find and retrieve the Sword of Santiago before Napoleon's spy, Pierre Ducos finds it. Legend has it that the bearer of the sword will unite the people of Spain and drive out the invaders of Spain. So Sharpe and his Chosen Men of the 95th Rifles find themselves in a race against time to find the Sword of Santiago before it falls into the hands of the French. This is a Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Bridge - Battle of the Coa River Event number 441 at Friday 7PM (5 of 8 available)

Crawford's British Light Division has made a fighting retreat across the Coa River Bridge, but just barely. However, somebody forgot to give Richard Sharpe the order to retreat. Was the lost order the work of French master spy Pierre Ducos? We will find out. Now Sharpe and his Chosen Men must fight for their lives to reach the safety of the Coa Bridge. Help Sharpe escape in this Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Rescue Event number 527 at 10AM Saturday (3 of 8 available)

Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men must rescue Lady Farthingdale, who is held hostage by a renegade army of British and French deserters under the command of Sharpe's mortal enemy: Sgt. Obadiah Hakeswell. Lady Farthingdale is the wife of an important British diplomat and the heat is on Lord Wellington to find her. Wellington turns to his only hope:Richard Sharpe. The hostages are being held at a remote mountain village where all sorts of dangers await the rescuers. Napoleonic skirmish game.

Making River Sections

Moving on, the water parts of the river are painted black and then dark green on top of the black. Some lighter green color can be used along the edges of the river bank to denote shallower waters than in the center of the board.

Next, I spread a mix of wall board paste and tan paint over the surface of the board, but take care not get any of the goop on the water sections. While the goop is still wet, I sprinkle some fine Woodlands Scenics railroad gravel on top of the goop. Now I let the boards dry overnight.

Now I dry brush several different layers of paint that is lighter than the underlying tan primer.

Note that the final step of the river section boards will be glossing up the water. This is because you don't want any of the fine gravel, dust or other bits of material falling into the water piece and mucking up the surface of the water. I used two or three coats of Mod Podge on the water parts, letting each coat of the material dry before applying the next coat. I use a small craft brush (ten to a bag for about 3ドル.00 at Michael Stores) to brush the Mod Podge onto the water. This produces a moderate amount of gloss on the water that almost looks like water when you look at it.

The final touch is to find a bunch of rocks and spread them along the banks of the river. I do not glue the rocks to the terrain river board. When the game is over, I just scoop up all of the rocks and put them in a metal gallon pail, which makes them easy to carry around.

If you want to add some tall grass or reeds along the river bank, then do this after you have dry brushed the river board. I use a sisal door mat and cut off small bits of the fiber. I dip the strands of fiber into a small pot of green paint. The fibers suck up the green paint so as to make them green. The pieces are then glued to the board using two-part epoxy glue.

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I have been busy as a beaver working on the Spanish terrain boards and terrain ground clutter pieces and I am nearing the end of the construction phase of the project (or at least as far as I can foresee). Recent terrain additions include some vineyards, an olive grove and a mount to place the monastery in the Sharpe games.

I decided that the Monastery of Santiago, the center piece of my terrain, needed to be elevated a bit more to make it truly stand out, so I cut off a chunk of 2-inch thick pink foam insulation board and carved out some steps and ramps to provide access to the monastery.

NEXT:

Now I have to turn my attention to the construction of some river sections to place inside the river gorge. I have cut up some cork placemats and given them a coating of tan primer. Then the water will be painted onto the boards using black paint and dark green paint; then the ground gets covered with wallboard paste and all other dry brushing work gets done. Finally, a gloss coating of either gloss spray on primer or Mod Podge will cover the water to give it a shiny shimmering water effect. This step must be done last, otherwise bits of sand and dust will get on the gloss surface and stick - this doesn't look good.

THE BOTS ARE GONE?

The bots disappeared at the beginning of October and now my viewer count is deemed more accurate with respect to the number of visitors and page views that each blog entry is getting. The previous entry currently has around 350 views compared to 15,000 views for several of the September postings. I hope that this is the last of the bots for awhile.

In closing, here are two pictures of the Perry 40mm British light infantry company of the South Essex Regiment.

Click on the Pix to enlarge

I have been very busy making terrain boards for my 40mm Richard Sharpe games at this year's Fall In Convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania Fall In link November 7th through 9th. I will be running three Napoleonic Peninsula War skirmish games featuring Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men. My games will be on Friday morning, Friday evening and Saturday morning of the convention.

I finished construction of two vineyards the other day, using the "how to do it" instructions from Pat Smith's "Setting the Scene" books. Pat's instructions are easy to follow and even easier to build and I highly recommend the book.

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Why Have Just One Table When You Could Have Two?

The plan was always to have two parallel 15ft by 6ft tables for the game. I was only going to make terrain boards for the main table and use a Cigar Box Battle Mat system for the second table. But now that I have seen how the terrain boards look, I decided to take the plunge and build a smaller number of boards for the second table. Fitting all of this in a rental SUV to transport everything to Lancaster will likely place a constraint on how much terrain I can take to the convention. I have a reservation for a large SUV already, but I might have to switch to a rental cargo van, which has much more cargo capacity than the SUV. We shall see.

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I wanted to post an update on my 40mm Spanish Peninsula War project that I am building for this year's Fall In Convention on November 7-9, 2025.

British and Allies

South Essex Regiment (20 figures) - Colonel Henry Simmerson

South Essex Light Company (20 figures) - Captain Leroy

Sharpe & His Chosen Men (7 figures) - Captain Richard Sharpe

95th Rifles (13) - Richard Sharpe

La Aguja Spanish Guerillas (21 figures) - Theresa ("The Needle")

23rd Light Dragoons (3) - Major Hogan

French and Allies

French 8eme de Ligne (20) - Major Dubreton

1st Chasseurs a Cheval (10) - Major Pierre Ducos

Evil Spanish Guerillas (20) - El Metarife and Father Hacha

French Voltigeurs (15) - TBD

Other Evil Bastards

The Army of Deserters (1) - Obadiah Hakeswell

Summary

The above table indicates that the British and Allies forces are largely painted and completed. I plan on increasing the cavalry contingent of 23rd Light Dragoon up to a total of 10 figures.

The French will get another 5 Voltigeurs. I might combine these into Ducos' command of cavalry as one command in the game. I have the figures for another 20 French line infantry, but they are not really needed for this particular game. Other than the Voltigeurs, the French forces are close to completion.

The Army of Deserters has no figures, other than Hakeswll and these will be a mix of British and French soldier figures, totaling 20.

So the total number of figures left to paint stands at 32 figures as of today.

Terrain Construction

I could go to war with the terrain that I already have on hand: see pictures in this posting. I can use Cigar Box Battle Mats and put some styrofoam boards underneath the mats to create some land elevation. I am using my existing 28mm Herb Gundt buildings for the town of Mondego, two other small villages and one small farm house. The central terrain piece, the Monastery of Santiago (Battle Honours) of 40mm buildings, is painted.

Other nice-nacs to make are some vineyards and several olive groves and some stone walls.

However, that would be too easy, so I plan on making some terrain boards measuring 4ft by 30-inches that will serve as the higher elevation where the Monastery will be. I have the pink insulation foam already on hand and I've starting gluing the 2-inch thick pieces together to create some 4-inch high and 6-inch high areas on the table. I want to create a river gorge with a couple of stone bridges and that is why I am considering some 6-inch deep boards.

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This evening I submitted two events for the HMGS East Fall In convention, November 7-9, 2025. Both games will feature Richard Sharpe scenarios played with 40mm miniature figures. There will be 8 players in both games. If for some reason my games get sold out (doesn't seem to happen for me very often) I can probably add one or two commands to the game.

The first game will be on Friday November 7th at 10:00 AM. The game is called "Sharpe's Treasure"

The second game will be on Saturday November 8th, also at 10:00 AM. This game is called "Sharpe's Rescue".

Sharpe's Treasure

Legend has it that the Sword of St. James (or Santiago in Spanish) will be wielded by a person who will unite the Spanish people and expel the foreign invaders. Napoleon's master spy, Pierre Ducos, has conveyed the story of the legend to Napoleon and the Emperor has ordered Ducos to find the Sword of Santiago before the British do.

On the British side, Lord Wellington has assigned the task of securing the relic, before the French can steal it, to Richard Sharpe and his band of Chosen Men. It is inevitable that Sharpe and Ducos will cross paths at the Monastery of Santiago.

Sharpe's Rescue

Lady Farthingale was kidnapped by a ruthless gang of deserters from all of the countries fighting in the Peninsula War. British, French, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers, among others, for the army of deserters. They are commanded by Sharpe's mortal enemy, Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswell. Lord Farthingale is a VIP in British political circles and so Horse Guards has turned up the heat on Wellington to find and rescue Lady Farthingale. Wellington knows that there is only one person who can do this task, and that person is Captain Richard Sharpe.

The Cast

All of the usual characters in the Sharpe novels will be present in both games. On the British side:

(1) Richard Sharpe, Patrick Harper, Hagman, Harris, Perkins, Tongue and Cooper

(2) Sir Henry Simmerson and the South Essex regiment of foot

(3) Commandante Theresa and her Spanish Guerillas

(4) Major Hogan and the Light Company of the South Essex regiment.

On the French side we have the following:

(1) The French (infantry of course)

(2) French voltigeurs and light cavalry commanded by the evil Pierre Ducos

(3) The Bad Spanish Guerillas fighting with the French

(4) Father Hacha and El Metarife

Figures and Terrain

Most of the figures will be the 40mm Sash and Saber figures, although I have a small order of Perry 40mm figures that are in transit from the UK to the USA.

It looks like I can use my 28mm buildings made by Herb Gundt for this project. I also bought some 40mm 3D printed Spanish buildings from Battle Honours in the UK and these look very nice.

I am working on several purpose-made terrain pieces made from pink insulation foam board. I will be showing work in progress pictures over the next several weeks.

The Bots

I guess that I will keep on blogging on the Blogger app rather than suspending operations or moving the blog to another social media platform. What with the Bots descending in the thousands on my site, I no longer have the ability to tell how many real people are viewing my blog content. Thus I have no way of knowing whether or not anyone is reading my content because the view count of visitors is meaningless now that thousands of visits are being made by the evil bots.

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