MEGA Convention (Melbourne Gaming Show)

MEGA Convention (Melbourne Gaming Show)

January 3, 2025

2–3 minutes

Australian Waragames, convention, Conventions, Eureka Miniatures, gaming, Review, Wargame Conventions, wargaming

Some background. Just down the road from where we were staying on Collins St, Melbourne, is an old model shop called Hearns Hobbies located in the Flinders Street Railway Stration (been around since just after WW2 apparently). I dropped in to take a look. Met a guy there from Canberra who was down for a wargaming convention on the weekend. Well, I had nowhere else to be so…I got the tram to the MElbourne GAming Show put on by the aptly named Gentlemen’s Wargame Club of Melbourne.

https://www.mega145.com/

I arrived to a very cool display by re-enactors and vehicle collectors. Check out this M3A1 White Scout Car.

Inside was an incredible presentation of WW1 medical equipment and first aid kits.

The first thing I saw, after entering the hall was in fact the Bring and Buy stall. I saw this Ghostly pirate ship and brought it. When I got back to the hotel later in the day my wife looked at it and said “How the F are you getting that home?”. I had not really thought that through. Yeah that was going to be a mission but the masts came out and I wrapped it in bubble wrap and it managed to fit in my suitcase. It survived almost intact – only a few repairs are necessary.

The convention was small but packed with all sorts of games (and a bar – well they are Aussies after all). Some pics of various game and stalls.

I got to play in a test game of a 19th C version of Chain of Command (by Two Fat Lardies) that some of the Aussie guys there were putting together. There was a Zulu War and an ACW game on display. I got to manage a Confederate brigade. Frankly, these rules were fun and definitely had an ‘ACW’ feel. I still volunteer to play test these rules. Look forward to seeing them in print.

Eureka Miniatures had a stand displaying some of their ‘eclectic’ range. Nic also brought along a vignette he thought I might like – he was right – the Monkey Hangers of Hartlepool.

Warsurge display – This is a great idea. You can use any figures in your collection for whatever type of cross-over games you want. I have played French vs Orcs using Black Powder so this type of thing appeals to me. Check out their website. Great use of hard copy books and technology.
https://www.warsurge.com/

One of the nice things about this convention was that I met people who knew of me through this blog. “Oh, you are the Woolshed guy”. Yep, that is me.

3 responses to “MEGA Convention (Melbourne Gaming Show)”

Thomas B

January 3, 2025 at 1:15 pm

French… Orcs… I’m routing for the Orcs! 😛

Do you have the crew of dead buccaneers and pirates that you now need for that ghost ship?

Also, where did you get the *super sized* Darlene map of the Flanaess that’s behind your ship? I had that original gazeteer format of Greyhawk (with the big map) but yours looks bigger. I still think Darlene is one of the greatest cartographers for fantasy – a really clean, yet good looking style and her colouring was very good.

Back in the early 2000s, got to play a Predator game where each player had a Predator and the goal was to score the most wiped out enemies (“hunted”) and the more amazing a fight they gave back, the more the score was. The first wave was VC. Later we got NVA which were more disciplined and dangerous. By that point, I’d taken enough damage to lose my cloak, my staff was shattered, my shoulder mounted plasma gun was blown off, and all I had left was my metal claws. At one point, when my cloak was gone, I climbed to the top off the tree cover and gave out a huge roar, which brought the foes coming my way…. which was just what I intended (minus some better-than-expected enemy fire…). Good memories.

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1. briansmaller
  
  January 3, 2025 at 4:36 pm
  
  I do have a lot of Pirates, including dead ones – and another three or four ships to convert from toys to wargame models.
  
  The Darlene map I got off Etsy – I ordered it, paid for it and it was shipped within days. Then I get a message from Etsy saying the seller was no longer associated with them and they refunded my money. I got it for nothing. So I spent that money on framing it. I have got Worldographer (Hexographer) and can recreate that style of map.
  
  The Predator game had 28mm minis of all the main characters. I did not get a good photo of them unfortunately. For somne reason I couldn’t see the Predator. He must have been hiding.
  
  Thanks for commenting.
  
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  1. Thomas B
    
    January 3, 2025 at 4:52 pm
    
    You just reminded me that in our game, they had clear resin versions for when they were hiding.
    
    Dang… now I might not have one of those maps. My next item would have to be one on linen…. lol… saved by laws!
    
    (Getting free stuff like that is a real bit of luck….)
    
    I have Hexographer and I’m thinking about picking up Worldographer but I have CC3+, FM8, and maybe another couple (plus GIMP and inkscape)… but my eyes have been considering (in addition to Worldographer) is Inkarnate. I’ve seen some of their ties and I kind of like them.
    
    Greyhawk Quick Story:
    
    The year is 1987 and I’m off to Uni. Go to the ‘club night’ and someone says there’s a game club. It was, as it turned out, a chaotic dumpster fire. However, me and one other guy who both obviously had the same concerns got to know one another and he was one of my wedding in 2017, 30 years later.
    
    But that’s not really the story… in those days, people scrambled through garage sales. Said friend picked up a Gazeteer version with map but it had been put into sheet protectors and sliced 8.5×11 from that product. I happened to be looking at it and at the end, there were 6 8.5×11 pages of the TSRs small hexes and the guy who had this (whoever he was) had completed 3 of the pages and had one other substantially along – IN THE STYLE OF GREYHAWK and DARLENE. I forget now if it was off the base of the known map or the right side, but it was one of those. Now, they were not the same size (because the hexes were from the small ones for discovery like in the original X1 Island of Dread) as Greyhawk.
    
    The artists had a dab hand at replication. His maps had good colour (except colour pencils so a bit not just one colour because of some colouring variations) – mountains, forests, hills, coastlines, desert, etc. – the whole bit.
    
    So I have either a whole 4 pages of Greyhawk or another half done campaign area that has better art than I can produce.
    
    I am working on getting it into GIMP after doing some path creation in Inkscape (if I get to more time). Then I can make whatever size that makes sense for printing.
    
    I wouldn’t have made every choice (some areas look like they built major cities a bit away from a huge river, etc. and some names (Sanctuary – as in the Thieves World series, Amazonia, and a few others were not as grounded as I’d like, but a lot of it was).
    
    It survived me running a 19 year real world campaign in that setting.
    
    From a garage sale.
    
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