Greetings gaming gods! I guess it is time to check out the wargames in yet another part of the country. Yes, the Air Force has decided to ship me off again, this time to Montgomery, Alabama. I can only conclude from that choice that Fate has a peculiar sense of hurnor in sending a Yankee to the heart of the South, but it may also just be telling me I haven't played enough ACW lately.
Anyhow, the Stafford vehicles pull out of Washington 1 August for the truck. E-mail would still work for me but the phone number and address will be bogus for a while. At least I'll be closer to Nashcon, Siege of Augusta, and the HMGS East events. So what's new in my mailbox?
By the way, I want to thank Pat Condray, wargaming legend and thoughtful guy, who is working on a big project for HMGS putting together a comprehensive painter's guide. In the process, he updated many of the listing in the Megalist below. Please remember. I am one guy trying to keep track of what's going on in a global gaming community. If you don't tell me if a club rep has changed or you've gone out of busincss, then I likely won't know for a long time. So please keep those emails coming. Thank you.
New guys! Terry Morgan, President for Life, Pasha, and Emperor of the Known World, dropped me a line about his new club the Withern Wargamers in Lincolnshire, UK. They claim to be the fastest growing club in the world with a 62.5% growth rate per week. Admittedly they have a current membership of 5 but they are looking for more. They play anything and everything from ancients to Zulus to Napoleonics and have all the popular scales. Stop by for a pint and a good game.
More new folks, this time from Scandinavia. Akseli Antila of the GeMiGaBoK game club in Finland wrote to tell me about his game friends. They meet bi-weekly with a dozen or so members with perhaps 50 associate members. Gaming is by invitation and so has the air of a "Gentleman's Club" (with ladies occasionally too), and play is relaxed and friendly. They are currently trying out a variety of Napoleonic rules trying to find one suited to their tastes. Rule played in the past include Battleground, Spearhead, Canvas Eagles/Blue Max, Shako, Form Line of Battle III, Rapid Fire, General de Brigade, Charlie Company, Valmy to Waterloo, and General Quarters. Their two most Popular carnpaigns were a Canvas Falcons WWI air campaign, and a 1942 Tunisia series. They hold DBM tournaments at least once a year too. The campaign serving as the basis for the Napoleonic exploration is the 1808 Russo-Swedish War. You can find their) at www.the-ancients.corr/gemipbok or try their local hobby store Fantasiapelit in Helsinki 358-9-650 803.
Akseli also gave me a review of gaming in Scandinavia too. It seems Games Workshop has invaded the north as well as America and is very popular. Games can be found at Swedish universities in Lund, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Uppsala and Linkoping but there is no national Club or group. Peter Englund, well-known author of rules for the Great Northern War lives there. Denmark gaming tends toward DBM and Viking-era games and they are usual visitors to German conventions. In Norway, again, universities in Oslo have game groups but larger organization Finland have groups in Helsinki. Turku, Tampere, Lahti, Oulu. Lappeenranta. and Jowensuu. With a national convention called Ropecon in Helsinki in the autumn. World War 2 is popular there, and the boardgamers tend to be more organized than the miniature gamers. So now you world travelers out there have no excuse not to get in a game when you go visiting.
Dave Bennett, webmaster and VP of Lone Star Historical Miniatures dropped me a line to say "hi" and tell me what they are up to. LSHM is actually four clubs in one, meeting in Austin, College Station, Houston, and San Antonio. The main group is in San Antonio and meets at F/s Brick Oven & Grill 734 W Bitters at 281 North on Thursday nights. The Austin group meets oil Saturdays and Sundays at 1:00 pill at Great Hall Games in the Dobie Mall. His Brazos Valley group meets in College Station at the College Station Library. And the Houston group meets every second and fourth Saturday at Gamesmasters. You can go to their website and find contacts for each location. The Austin and San Antonio clubs have about 30 active members each. The College Station club has about 20 and the Houston club is new and has about 10 active members but it is growing. What do they play? Well. almost everything. Sonic of the more popular games scheduled at least once a month include Battlefront, Canvas Eagles, Volley and Bayonet (SYW and Napoleonic), Warhammer English Civil War, DBA, The Sword and the Flame, and oddly enough Star Wars Pod racing. The San Antonio and College Station clubs has had a very active campaign of Canvas Eagles WWI air combat going for over a year. The San Antonio Club is organizing a Napoleonic campaign set in 1812 and the College Station club has a 1944 Normandy based campaign using Battlefront and a WWII Naval Miniatures campaign going for the summer. The Austin club is organizing a very ambitious campaign using Volley and Bayonet, which they are calling Total War by '64. They have Set up their own risk-like map and each player is building a 10mm army from the 1860's including the CSA, USA, and most of Europe. Sounds great for any folks down in the great state of Texas.
Between trips to places like Belize and Cambodia, Mike Demana continues to crank out superior issues of the HMGS Great Lakes Herald. Mike's Justinian Wars campaign has come to a close after two and a half years--great fun was had by all and the Byzantines rule a bigger chunk of the world than they started with. Now that he can play instead of GM, Mike is whipping everyone's behind in the 1st century BC Mediterranean campaign. These guys are starting an interesting idea--they are soliciting homebrew rule sets from their members, which they will publish in booklet format, then use as giveaways to new members when they sign up as an inducement. Cool! I'm thinking of offering them my grand tactical ACW rules. Advance the Colors is coming 13-15 September, and sounds like it'll be the usual good show. Many members contributed to the HOTT events at Origins over the 4th of July weekend, and the game list was impressive. Dennis Frank continues to write interesting articles about the history of wargaming. The latest effort encapsulates Jack Scruby's Fire and Charge rules, Fred Vietmeyer's Column, Line, and Square, and John Candler's Warfare du temps de Napoleon. David Doty penned a thorough guide of the Seven Years War, giving lists of general and unit histories, uniform guides, flags, orders of battle and rule sets. Doug Rogers teaches us how to find and prepare your own lichen for scenery instead of paying money to Woodland Scenics. Rich Smethhurst wrote a short piece describing the use of Russian naval infantry in WW2 that I thought tweaked my interest. Finally, Ray Garbee offers a new twist for naval gamers, especially ACW, with rules for captain and crew quality, and game effects.
The HMGS Mid-South Dispatch held some good stuff the last couple issues. First a quote from George Washington I liked: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how the\, perceive tile veterans of earlier wars were Treated and Appreciated by their nation." Bill Osborne writes a good column called the Curmudgeon's Corner where he reviews a variety of items. Tile one that caught my eye was a new Napoleonic book called The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin. which lie gives rave comments. Some funny individual wrote a humorous list of "Blue Neck" (that's a euphemism for Yankee) one liners like, "you just might be a Blue Neck if..." on think barbecue is a verb meaning to "cook outside."
HMGS East sure does put on a good show. I attended Cold Wars back in April and had a fantastic time meeting old friends, playing games, and shopping. I particularly enjoyed helping Pete Panzeri and the GM International folks give out awards for best of show. So much hard work by the GMs, so much beauty and fun for the players. I remember the Rangers at D-Day Cliff and the WWI double-sided battle game as most visually stunning, and Bob Beattie's Bungle in the Jungle adventure game as most creative in my mind. Pete also ran a number of Russian front Napoleonic games in 25mm using modified Santa Anna rules that played well. Of course Historicon is Jul 25-28 and will undoubtedly be a blast. On the news side, newsletter Editor Scott Holder took the bold stand to focus on news 90% of the time, and "fun" articles only 10% of the time. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. The March and April issues are therefore mostly full of finance reports, BoD policy statements, voting stuff, event listings, and meeting minutes with a couple articles at the end: Early Lombards by Darrell Smith, and the Diaclochi by Norbert Brunhuber. The East folks highlighted a laudable idea they are pursuing -- partnering with GAMA and Osprey Publishing to produce a special newsletter to reach the 1000's of non-gamer historians who read Osprey publications and might be recruited to the hobby if they knew where to go to find games and learned a little about the hobby. Excellent.
I must bid adieu to my friends at HMGS Northwest. I've enjoyed your conventions Lip here in the Pacific Northwest and made some good friends, especially among the Canadian contingent. At the last Enfilade in May I ran a number of Columbia Games boardgame events as well as competing in the campaign DBA game. Chris of the Game Matrix built a beautiful set for D-Day in 25mm that ran three times during the convention and won best of show-constantly surrounded by hordes of onlookers. From their newsletter The Citadel you can read Wes Rogers Eylau battle report including some good random event cards (lie calls theIll Murphy cards). I'd Teixeira added a nice piece covering the Dalton boys of bank robbing fame in the 19th century.
Big Muddy HGA is struggling to get some new leadership going, but they continue to game on in fine tradition. Command Con NA will launch 16-17 Nov in St Louis. Harold Wones continues his Ages of Warfare Column moving into the Industrial era and discussing the pros and cons of dispersing infantry in light of increased firepower and the reduction of morale that ensues. Pat Conaughton finished up his 20 tips to running a good convention game, then followed LIP with a few pages extolling the viirtues of campaigns over one-on-one games. Bob Johnson ran across a useful website for those interested in early Amerind history and then- role ill American wars, including population data. See www.tolatsga.org/compacts.html
The Gamer's Closet issues from NOVAC report that Wally Simon and the Potomac Wargamers have joined NOVAG. Wally's the basement was getting too crowded. Wally, no slouch as coming up with game ideas, tackles the Avalon hill Battle cry ACW game and discusses how he and Bob Hurst are modifying it to be a more satisfying multiplayer game. I ran into editors Bob and Cleo Liebl at Cold Wars and we traded news for a few hour Thursday night over cheese and wine-ah, yes. There is a description of Le Grand Cirque game involving strange 19th century vehicular contraptions which nice around a circuitous track to vctory. Which is very Liebl-esque in its flavor. Pat Condray contributed a line little article on WW2 German ad Russian cavalry. Don Featherstone offered a skirmish game for the AWI involving a dozen redcoats and about half as many Rangers and as many Continentals. Bob and Cleo and Tony Bath could to write a couple articles discussing the pros and cons of chariots and why most rules fail miserably in reflecting their actual use in warfare. More about Napoleon in Egypt. Rommel in the desert, and Israelis in the desert on Yom Kippur also grace the pages. Their semi-annual Game con kicks off 28-29 Sept at the usual Westpark hotel in Tyson's Corner.
I've spoken of the HAWKS before, the Harford Area Week Kriegsspielers. I've enjoyed their games at a number of Historicon/Cold Wars/Fall In cons. They always put on a number of games at a show and keep a whole room busy. October 5th they hold their own convention at the Perry Hall Community Center in north Baltimore. Only $5 to play all day (less ifyou pre-reg or are military). They always enjoy new recruits so check them out.
HMGS Pacific Southwest's Messenger has gone upscale with glossy color covers. In addition, the pages were full of interesting articles on Italian armor in WWII. You might use them successfully in a game. Next came modern Israeli tanks-the Merkava Mk 3. Tim Greene laments the fragmentation of ancients wargaming into many rules, most of them tournament discussed, while Alex Webster offers ideas on how to resurrect ancients at conventions. Mark Parker wrote an informative piece about the colorful Papal Swiss Guard.
HMGS Heart of America held their signature con Call to Arms in may with a Russian theme... interesting. In addition, their newsletter contained some unusual and useful articlws that made their way to my files. Bill Boyle wrote a good piece on Trans-MiSSiS.Sippi Uniforms in the ACW. Brian Beal treated readers to a tour of the Minifigs factory. Mike Duffield spelled out the ancient warfare ideas of the Heart of America Ancients Society, while others gave a review of' several conventions they'd attended. Nice issue.
The latest Camino Real Post offers two organized events per month for those living in the Rio Grande Valley and 23 gamers for individual contact and gaining.
My Italian friends at the gaming magazine Dadi & Piombo (dice and lead) are holding the Dadi.Com Milano Games in November at the University di Crenia. Entry is free and many different types of games and miniatures will be played. For more info contact Lorenzo Sartori at 339-327-1101 or losort@liberto.it
Kevin Rounsaville, my long time friend and leader of the Secret Society of Miniature Wargamers out in CA has been keeping his group busy. They meet weekly playing a variety of games, but recent trends include Might of'Arms, ECW and ancients, as well as Civil War and DBM. They meet usually at the Avventurers Guild, but other games are common too.
Thanks everyone for all you input and help with this column. I really enjoy hearing from you and reading your news reports. Please keep them coming.
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© Copyright 2002 Hal Thinglum
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