Making Mayhem - The 2024 Edition: Mayhem Gaming Con ‘24 - Friday: The First Day

The question of whether or not a person should drive, by themselves, about six hours one way, for a game convention, is not really a subject that comes up in discussion too often.  Maybe it is something some people discuss more than others, but I would guess in the usual lives of most people, it never happens.  

That being said, the last couple of years, that discussion arose in my mind, due to the origin of a new gaming convention in Lebanon, New Hampshire, called Mayhem.  Mayhem has been held in April, though thinking about it, May would better fit the name (Aprilhem anyone?).   

When I heard about this convention last year, I decided to go, due to the fact that I had not been to an in person convention since Historicon 2019 in July of that year.  I had been prepared to attend Cold Wars 2020, the weekend of March 13th, but I did not know if the convention would cancel or not and did not want to get stuck with a hotel bill, and no reason to be in the hotel, so I canceled my game.  Cold Wars 2019 did happen, but that was probably one of the last somewhat normal events for a while.  

Mayhem is a distance away, about 350 miles, from where I live in New Jersey.  I could do Lancaster as a day trip if I wanted to, but certainly not New Hampshire.  So I worked things out, and drove up last year.   I went up to Lake George, New York last year, then up to Rutland, Vermont, and over to Lebanon.  The drive from Lake George was very scenic, but very long.  The drive back home was terrible last year   It rained almost continuously and the GPS routed me through Vermont using Route 9 from Brattleboro to Bennington.   Never again!   Especially in the rain and fog.   

For this year, I decided to stick with major highways (New York Thruway 87, to 84, to 91, to 89).  The drive up was plagued with rain once more, but was a whole lot easier than driving through Vermont.  No offense to Vermont, a beautiful state, that I really enjoy visiting, but I do not want to have to drive through it to get to another place unless absolutely necessary.  

I arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn, where the convention is held on Thursday afternoon. I had left between 9 to 9:30am and arrived around 4pm.  I was slowed down by the rain and stopping to eat, but otherwise I think it was a good trip up.  

The convention is held at the Hilton Garden Inn Hanover Lebanon located at  35 Labombard Rd, Lebanon, NH 03766.  The last two years, there has been a discounted rate for the "convention block" of rooms.  Looking at the standard hotel rate, the discount is fairly significant. 

 

Hilton Garden Inn, Lebanon, NH

 

 

 

 

Convention Center attached to the Hilton

 

 

The hotel is a very nice facility with an on-site restaurant, though primarily only open for breakfast, a pool, and a 24 hour fitness center.  In regard to the restaurant, they did offer a box lunch option, you had to pre-order it though with no exceptions, and the same options for a boxed dinner option.  The boxed options were things like a hamburger and french fries, chicken fingers and french fries, or a salad without the french fries (though a garden salad with french fries would have been a funny option).  The boxed choices included your choice of drink for $20.  

 

The restaurant offers a very nice breakfast, for approximently $20.  For both days that I ate there the options were basically the same though; fruit, scrambled eggs, "home fries" (actually more like traditional steak fries), toast, bagels, muffins, or danish.  I am not sure if they alternate options on different days or not. 

 

There are other food options in the area, but nothing within walking distance.  I did see a lot of pizza delivery boxes that had been disposed of in the trash, so I am guessing there was a local place for things like that.  I know there are places like McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King, and Subway a short distance away.  There is also a diner, The Fort at Exit 18, which is located in a gas station truck stop, very close by.  From someone that I know that went there the food is good, but service was slow.  

 

Views from the hotel property

  

 

Mayhem gamemaster registration opened on Friday.  I was wandering around and the people at registration actually checked me in early.  That was nice, because it allowed me to have that taken care of, and to get things set up for my 1:30pm game earlier than I had anticitaped.  

 

The main gaming room

 

 

 

Layout of the tables in the main room and the adjoining lobby / hall

 

Around the edge of the gaming area, were various vendors selling items.   A very nice layout to encourage people to visit the merchants.  

 

First Session

I was running a Sergeants Miniatures Game (SMG) event starting at 1:30pm.  The game was to feature the British Red Devils against the German forces, in one of the 4th Glider Campaign scenarios.  I had scheduled for four players, but when I checked things at the start of my set-up time, I only had two registered.   I did end up with four players though by the time the game was scheduled to start.  

As I mentioned to the players, I learned the lesson to check carefully the border pieces.  We had moved to a new place about a month prior to the convention.  I had thought I had ensured everything was together, but never pulled out the Entry/Exit pieces to make sure I had them all.  I was missing some of the ones that I needed, so could not use the border for the map.  I was also missing some of the pieces for the Gamemaster Kit phase display.  Not really sure how only a couple items went missing, but they did.

Photo courtesy of Mike Paine

Photo courtesy of Mike Paine

Photo courtesy of Mike Paine

All four players were new to the SMG system.  I spent some time going over the basics, and per most Sergeants events, they picked it up quickly and were handling things themselves partway through the first turn.  

The orders for the game weren that the Germans were trying to hold the landmark tiles, and the British were to make their way though the area and exit from a certain point on the board.   

As the game began, it was apparent that the German forces were well positioned to defend their landmarks.  Initially the forces took shots at each other, but then the one British section began moving into Combat Contact and were able to defeat the Germans, one after the other, using that.  

The one German player kept drawing Zip results for every single hit against him.  I think there may have been one Pin drawn, but almost nothing except Zip results.  That Briitsh player figured he would move into Combat Contact, since it worked for the other British player.  Guess who then drew Kill results?  It was almost like some sort of skit on a TV show.  

We played for about three hours and decieded to call the game.  Some of the players wanted to get dinner, and really things were a forgone conclusion.  If we had played out the game, the odds were that at least one British player would fulfill his orders.  While the German players would have fulfilled their orders too, the one person had a ton of enemy soldier VPs and was declared the overall winner of the game.  

Some of the players mentioned that they saw the game at another convention, liked playing it, but were concerned about the price point of the game, so they did not buy it.  

 

 

Second Session

For the second session I was scheduled to play in a game called, Amazing Adventure in Hanghai, being run by Mike Paine.  Unfortunatley, I was the only player.  Mike ran over how the game worked with me, we tried playing a little bit, but the scenario was not working with just two players.   

If you have not seen Mike's table, it is amazing.  It reminded me of being a child and seeing a model railroad display, where there were things all over to see.  Maybe the first time you looked you spotted some of the unique things, but then the next time you looked, you saw many different things.  

 

 

It was an amazing sight, and while many people stopped by to admire it, nobody joined in to play.   It became even more amazing when I learned that most of the items were scratch built.  That is quite impressive. 

Mike and I talked for quite a while, and I have to admit that speaking to him, was as entertaing and enjoyable as playing in many games.  Thanks for talking with me, Mike!  Really enjoyed meeting you.  

 

Both of us went around and took some photos of the other games that were going on.

 

All types of games were taking place.  Everything from historical, fantasy, science fiction, pulp, and probably some I missed, were happening.  Overall, it seemed to be a good turnout.