Little Wars 2000

HMGS Midwest Stages Comeback

by Russ Lockwood

Little Wars 2000 is a little larger than the name implies. About 450 attendees poured through the gates to visit some 30 dealers and near 100 games. HMGS-Midwest has staged a remarkable comeback in the convention department.

The convention was held at the Lincolnshire Marriott, about 20 or so minutes north of Chicago, roughly where the intersection of I-94 and I-294 meet. This upscale resort includes golf course, ballrooms, first-class accomodations, and a separate tennis building. It is the latter place where Little Wars convened, in roughly half the building (two tennis courts plus in size). Roughly half the area was for the 30 or so dealers, MagWeb.com included, and the other half was for wargaming. A Saturday morning flea market, lasting from 9am to noon, was fitted into a raquetball/handball court.

Mike Constantino and Dave Hermann, convention director and "Game Boss" respectively couldn't have been more helpful. HMGS-Midwest is looking into a three to five year committment to the Marriott, and I for one endorse the idea. A long-term place means stability, and if the convention grows, they can expand into the "three-tennis court" area as well.

They expect to hold Little Wars approximately a month after Cold Wars if the dates line up. In addition, they enforced the "no-dealers-in-the-flea-market" rule, even to the extent of kicking one company out of the flea market. As Mike noted, the flea market is for guys to sell off some extra lead, not cheap dealer tables for companies.

One of the best aspects of hitting the convention trail is to meet folks you only corresponded via e-mail...putting a face to an address so to speak. Since this is the first time MagWeb.com has ventured to the area, I was very pleased that members dropped by the booth to say hello, not to mention showing non-members what's inside our archives.

The dealer area was open 11am to 8pm - more than enough time for folks to look and buy

Tied to a booth more or less, there's much I am sure I missed so the following are just some observations in no particular order. There was a pretty cool 5mm Borodino battle, a 1/6000th scale WWII Pacific naval battle, a Duke Siefried Egyptian battle of Giza with his usual elan and wonderful terrain, playtesting of Frank Chadwick's new ancient rules (Ancient Glory???), and some gangster shootout that looked wonderfully urban 1920s-30s.

There was a nice 25mm Medieval Siege game—nice castle wall with breaches and a burned out village. A large Leipzig set up attracted attention for its "U-shaped"configuration, where the French were inside the U and the Allies were outside attacking in. There was a nice D-Day landing complete with fortifications, landing craft, and more. A 15mm 1940 German attack vs. French defense looked cool. I mean, you just don't see many 1940 battles with Char bis 1s running around Pz IIs and IIIs. Looked like the French caught the Germans a bit by surprise, because I saw a mass of French tanks bearing down on the German flank. A 15mm WWII Battle of the Bulge game featured late war German tanks bearing down on an American held village. There were a number of American Civil War games, one of which was played on a huge 12-foot hex map, others on smaller terrain.

I am going to guess one table held a Squad Leader game using magnificently terrained "Terrain Maker" 4-inch hexes as the board. Nice wintery terrain. Another game featured an adaptation of an old GDW boardgame Trenchfoot. This looked to be 20mm skirmish level action across an appropriately bleak and cratered no-man's land, culminating in a charge to zigzagging lines of trenches. Another board game adaptation was Kingmaker—same board and cards, but the markers were colorfully painted 25mm figures.

More Courier Dispatch News

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #79
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com