Little Wars, the midwest's premier historical miniatures wargaming
convention, was held on May 9-11,1986 at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois,
a western suburb of Chicago.
Khartoum (Models and game by Duke Siefried; Photo by Howard Klupp)
From an historical miniatures wargamer's point of view, it had to be the extravaganza of one's hobby involvement as the 480 attendees had 104 miniatures games to choose from and 31 figure manufacturers to shop from. The dealer area, due to the fine representation, could well have been thought of as a trade show for historical miniatures.
The selection of Triton College as the site of Little Wars was a reasonably good one as it was relatively near the airport, readily accessible by Chicago's super highways, and close enough to lodging. However, the gaming areas, broken up into one large room and three smaller ones, could have been a little larger to accommodate all of the games as it did seem as though the tables were at quite close quarters. The dealer area, on a different floor than the gaming rooms, probably suffered to some degree from reduced exposure.
A number of factors regarding Little Wars stood out to me. I was most impressed with the quality of games, which is a good reflection on the judges as well as the ability of the Little Wars organizers, Todd Fisher and Ken Kaufman, to attract such a high number and caliber of gamemasters. The quality of terrain and painting also ranked very high in my opinion. There appears to be a growing inclination for judges to exhibit the same dedication to ensuring their games are visually appealing from a terrain point of view as well as from the painted figure side. A number of innovative ideas regarding terrain were exhibited. I was perhaps the most surprised by the presence of a large number of young gamers which, to me, indicates that Little Wars has been successful in expanding its base of attendees and such a fact speaks well for the future of the hobby in the midwest. I was also struck by the behavior of all gamers in that, despite the close-packed quarters and the addition of younger gamers, everyone behaved most appropriately. This may be a reflection on the judges' ability to present quality scenarios and more importantly, on their ability to "control" games.
The games available encompassed nearly every historical period, wargaming figure scale, and level of action (skirmish to army actions). There did not appear to be any real concentration of specific historical period nor did there seem to be any pattern regarding rules complexity. There did appear to be a fair amount of "home-grown" rules being utilized although a review of commercial rules used revealed utilization of systems from Column, Line and Square to Empire III. I found it interesting that several Fletcher Pratt naval games, developed in the 1930s, attracted a considerable amount of interest from gamers who may be rediscovering this unique rules system.
Prizes were awarded for every game and included a medal provided by Little Wars and gift certificates supplied by the manufacturers. I found the player awards of medals to be interesting, as in my British Colonial games of Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift, the players tended to treat the medals as Victoria Crosses. Awards were made to Best of Show (First - Waterloo by Tom Tuck and Randy Pearson, Second - Khartoum by Duke Siefried, Third - Firefight by Mike Hill); Best Terrain (First - Waterloo, Second Napoleonics 1813 by Jeff Cohen, Third - Firefight), and Best Painted Wargames Figures (First - Randy Kadow for his ancients, Second - David Wear for SYW, Third - Bill Protz for French-Indian War).
In general, Little Wars, in its third year of existence, has managed to grow and improve each time. I would hope that the few shortcomings observed, especiallythe dealer area being set apart from the gaming area, will be rectified in the future; however, it would appear as though Little Wars is well on its way to being the National convention for historical miniatures wargaming!
AWARDS
BEST OF SHOW Waterloo Demo Tom Tuck
BEST OF SHOW 2nd Kartoum Duke Siegfried
BEST OF SHOW 3rd WWII Mike Hill
BEST TERRAIN Waterloo Demo Tom Tuck
BEST PAINTED TROOPS 25mm Rome& Carthage Randy Kadow
More News
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VII #1
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1986 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