Courier Dispatch

Cold Wars 2001:
A Very Successful Show

This report was put together from the very capable reporting of Bill Rutherford, Pat Condray, Scott Holder and several others who attended. - ED

The anticipated snow-storm missed Lancaster altogether and the weekend just went uphill from there! Gamers, spouses, and other assorted hangers-on made it to Cold Wars this year and from my limited perspective, everybody seemed to have a good time. They certainly did, if the large number of games being played at any given time was any indication! The Lampeter Room, as usual, looked cavernous and half-filled, but this was more due to its vast size than to any dearth of ancients gaming. The Kinderhook Room was occupied by the Fellowship, a group of Mithril 32mm “Lord of the Rings” collectors, for most of the weekend, with several displays of LOTR figures and several games. I only mention this because this was a good example of how a special-interest group (SIG, in model railroading parlance) was very successfully able to maintain a theme over the course of the weekend, with a constant flow of visitors to see what was going on.

My main area of interest is WW II land gaming and this was well represented, with something going on at just about any hour. Old Dominion Gameworks seemed to have “Mein Panzer” games running non-stop in several scales including 1/285th , 12mm, and 15mm, depending on the time of day… I missed Dave Reynolds’ Lorraine 1944 game using “Kampfgruppe Commander” in 12mm (I didn’t even realize there were people running games at 8am on Friday!!!) but the debrief I received from one of my spies made me really regret not arriving at Cold Wars early enough to see the game. 12mm and 15mm seemed to be the scales of choice at Cold Wars for WW II land games (e.g., “Command Decision”, “Battlefront WW II”, and others) but 20mm and 25mm (28mm?) games made their presence felt in a big way by virtually taking over the skirmish gaming genre, with games played using at least seven different sets of rules!

There were even more game rules used in these and other scales but I simply didn’t get their names… The Woodbridge Area Gamers (Hey - I’m from Woodbridge - how come I didn’t know about this gang?) ran several games using “Brew Up” - I need to find out more about this… One of the most entertaining games, I thought, was “Rollerball”, played in 1/35th scale. OK - it’s now WW II and it’s only notionally a combat game... Round and round and Whack! Round and round and Whack! The PEL says Jape Trostle ran these games, though I cannot vouch for this, as they all had their heads down over the rink every time I stopped by! They were very intent…By the way - though I had my eyes open for WW II land, there was plenty else in the “modern”, i.e., 20th century genre going on, including several naval games, several Vietnam-era games, some WW II air games (Blue Skies, again!), and a couple of well-presented WW I air games. Hal Dyson, in particular, should get some brownie points for the work he’s done running games using “Aerodrome 1.1”, a very simple, but quite fun, set of WW I air rules. One fellow ran a pair of WW I air games in 1/144th scale using a variant of John Stannoch’s “Blue Skies” rules called “Blue Skies, Wood and Canvas”, which I liked - the scale is great and the rules are simple and fast. There were many more equally worthy games - check the Cold Wars Yellow Book - but I missed them; a body can only be in so many places at one time!

The Tennis Barn, home of the Dealers, was busy whenever it was open, though it was hard to tell what the buying trends were (OK - lots of bags full of loot, but who can tell?). The convention was weird. As a convention per se, it was lightly attended. I would guess, based on information released at the wild membership meeting,that about 1200 to 1400 attended. Attendance has reached 2200-2400 in the past. Yet the profit to HMGS East was high - on the order of $20K! There were of course many good games. The USPSF people were putting on a particularly good show. I spoke for some time with Artie Conliffe, he will be a great Guest of Honor at one of our shows.

Ancients TOURNEY Report

For the first time, over 200 people in six gaming systems participated at NASAMW events at a Cold Wars and this doesn’t count players who particpated in Bob Beattie’s round-the-clock DBA events. Bob, who has run DBA events for the Courier for years, is now also the NASAMW’s DBA Umpire. Big attractions this time were DBA, DBM, Warrior (the 7th edition follow-on) and Warhammer Ancients Battles.

Unexpected guests included Phil Barker and wife Sue who played in DBA and DBM tournaments and presumably working with Bob Beattie on questions arising from the newest version of DBA. Both Phil and Sue will be at Historicon 2001. Events were back in the Lampeter Hall at the Host (the old dealer’s room) with new lighting, a/c, and carpeting. We awarded Sportsman Jerseys to Brian Kennedy in DBM (who also won the Sportsman award in the DBM Open), Todd Kaeser in Warrior and Paul Delaney in Warhammer. Old Glory sponsored our events with prizes in DBA and t-shirts to member participants in the Doubles Tournament .- Scott Holder

Tournament Results
by Scott Holder

Sportsman Jersey Awardees Brian Kennedy, Todd Kaeser, Paul Delaney
25mm DBM Doubles Hady/Huml, Early Crusader
15mm DBM Doubles Zallnick/Zorn, Yi Dynasty Korean
15mm DBM Open Phil Jarvio, Skythian
25mm DBM Open Jim Kasper, Ugaritic
DBM Mini Theme G. C. Wellington, Lydian
25mm Warrior Doubles Stier/Gilson, Medieval Spanish
15mm Warrior Doubles Dietrich/Turner, Maccabean Jewish
25mm Warrior Mini Sean Scott, Seleucid
15mm Warrior Mini Derek Downs, Khmer
Warhammer Adam Hughes, Chinese
Medieval Warfare Alex Aimette, Anglo-Norman
25mm Ancient Warfare Kevin Boylan, Late Roman
15mm Ancient Warfare Greg Taylor, 2nd Punic War Carthagenian
Armati Arena Rob Robertson
DBA Midnite Mike Demana, War of Roses
DBA 25mm Doug Wank, Polybian Roman
DBA Bronze Age Dave Ray, Neo Babylonian
DBA Classical Doug Mudd, Marian
DBA Steppe Dave Zechini, Japanese
DBA Dark Ages Robbie Fisher, Norman
DBA Medieval Steve Donlon, Free Company

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