SYWA REGIONAL NEWS: MIDWEST

1. The 10th Annual SYWA Convention will be held at the Harvey Holiday Inn on March 19-20, 1993. The Holiday lnn's address is 17040 South Halsted Street in Harvey, IL and you may call (708) 596-15(X) for reservations. Mention that you are with the SYWA for a slight discount off normal room rates. A complete listing of area hotels, maps and directions, and a schedule of events will be included with Issue No. 3, March 1993. Tentatively scheduled events include a Duke Seifreid F & l demo game, video tape showings of 18th Century battle scenes from Hollywood, and perhaps a showing of Christopher Duffy's GENCON lectures, in addition to the usual games and Saturday evening banquet. If you wish to run a convention game or have any other questions, then please feel free to call Brian Vizek at (414) 657-5078. Refer also to the pre-registration flyer enclosed with this issue. Projected admission fee is $30.00 for the banquet and games or $10.00 for gaming only, good for both days.

2. The Fourth Annual Leuthen Day wargame will be held on Saturday December 5, 1992 at the Emperor's Headquarters, 5744 Irving Park Road in Chicago, IL. Festivities will commence at 110) A.M. and run to 7:00 P.M. As of this writing, over twenty players have signed up for a day of SYW gaming "in the grand manner" with thousands of 25mm miniatures. A full report will be included in Issue No. 3. Please feel free to drop in to play or visit with other SYW enthusiasts from across the midwest.

3. John Brewster is currently running four on-going "Sport of Kings" campaigns at the Emperor's Headquarters. This user-friendly campaign system is so good that it compelled me to start building and painting 15mm wargame armies, and I'm a life-long advocate of 25mm wargaming. These campaign rules are part of the Age of Reason rules package and produce a lot of diplomatic intrigue and good old wargaming ftin.

REGIONAL NEWS: EASTERN USA

4. Christopher Duffy has advised me that he intends to visit the Historicon Convention in July 1993. Historicon is the premier wargaming convention in the United States and is worth attending in its own right. Perhaps some "man on horseback" could step forth and help organize a SYWA convention to be held in conjunction with the Historicon convention. The Lancaster Host Hotel has a number of smaller meeting rooms that are large enough to hold four or five wargames at a time. Bob Coggins has told me that he could make one of these rooms available to the association for the whole convention. I would envision us running SYW games all day Friday and Saturday, perhaps with a banquet for members on Friday evening. It would be difficult for me to coordinate all of this from Chicago, but perhaps one of our members in Pennsylvania or Maryland could organize the event. Just think, SYWA, Duffy, and Historicon all rolled into one !

REGIONAL NEWS: UNITED KINGDOM

5. Phil Mackie was kind enough to forward the following news of the SYWA activities in the United Kingdom. Phil coordinates SYWA activities in the UK and may be contacted at 30 Penn Hill Avenue, Lower Parkstone, Poole, Dorset B H 14 9LZ :

September was a fairly busy month from an SYWA point of view. Two events were attended: the Wessex Regiment Anniversary Tattoo and the well-known wargames show, Colours.

The Wessex Regiment Tattoo should have been a good opportunity for us to meet with the general public and present the SYWA to them. The regiment gave us a 6'6" x 8'6" table upon which to set up the Lobositz demonstration game and space to put up the portable exhibition stand that was kindly lent to us by Miniature Wargames. Unfortunately, the weather for the weekend was very wet and this kept the public away, except for a few hardy souls equipped with boots and waterproof clothing. It was also very cold and being in a marquee we certainly noticed this. We did, however, attract a fair degree of attention from other exhibitors and some of the members of the armed forces.

We refought the battle using a ratio of 1 figure to 50 actual men in 15mm scale. The terrain uses an actual ground scale of 1mm to 1 metre on the horizontal and 1mm to 2 metres on the vertical scale. Consequently, the base sizes of the troops are out of sorts with the terrain scale, as is so often the case in battles with miniatures.

One of the most interesting visitors to our stand was the curator of the Queen's Own Hussars Museum. This regiment was known during the SYW as the 7th or Queen's Own Dragoons and fought at Warburg. The regiment also fought in Europe during the War of Austrian Succession.

One week after the damp weekend in a glorified tent we were at the niure sumptuous setting of the Hexagon Centre and Civic Offices in Reading for Colours '92. This is one of the largest shows on the wargames calendar and is always a good source of new members. Lobositz once again was used as the demonstration, only we changed the troop scale to 1:75 in order to enhance the visual appearance. We received many comments on the terrain and many more on the use of 'fog and mist' on the first morning. To represent this we used a yard of Kapok (a material used by dressmakers for padding out clothing) stretched very thinly in all directions so that the fibres start to produce irregular shapes that resemble fog or mist. This was placed over the Austrian position with just a few cavalry squadrons in the centre being placed upon the table such that glimpses could be seen in the mist.

The most amusing comment concerning the effect runs as follows: Little boy: "What's that Daddy?" Knowing father: "It's supposed to be musket and cannon smoke, but they have obviously over done things." Before any of us could correct the assumption they walked off!

The thing that most people seemed to like--other than Don McHugh's well-painted figures, was the size of the table and the fact that it was not crammed edge to edge with figures. The 1:75 ratio seemed to work well in this instance for it presented a more realistic relationship between troop and ground scale and helped to demonstrate what sort of distances troops needed to manoeuvre within to maintain formation. ln short, we had a very good weekend, recruiting two new members at the show and giving out numerous leaflets.

6. Christopher Duffy is exploring the possibility of conducting a tour of Seven Years War battlefields in eastern Europe during the summer or fall of l993. This venture depends largely on finding a tour operator to handle the logistics, given the scarcity of tourist lodgings and transportation in the former Soviet-bloc countries. The tour might include visits to Lobositz, Prague, Kolin and Chotusitz in Czechoslovakia and Dresden/Pirna and Torgau in Saxony. This is a preliminary idea; anyone interested in such a tour should contact Jim Purky. More information later.

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Miniatures, Scenery, and Rules

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