1) MWAN member Frank Chadwick of Game Designers Workshop in Normal, Illinois, was elected to the game designer's Hall of Fame at the recent 1985 ORIGINS convention. Congratulations to Frank. Very well deserved from the work of his that I have seen. Frank is primarily a boardgamer although he plays a lot of miniatures and has written some very good miniatures rules.
2) I did not realize till after the last issue was printed that I had neglected to mention anything about our local group's hospital games -- perhaps because I had not attended any meetings since September due to other responsibilities. I did, however, attend the December 13th game which featured Greg Novak's Alamo in 15mm (very nicely done by B.A. Ingersoll of Mason, Illinois, and others). I think the Mexicans took the Alamo again but not uritil a hard fought battle. Rich Black brought his video camera along and taped the whole thing. Can you imagine having to listen to wargamer's puns a second time around? I firmly believe that in order to be a wargamer, one has to be able to tell incredibly bad puns. If one is unable to master this skill, they are introduced to boardgaming.
Anyway, John Duffy held a 25mm Am. Rev. scenario using Duke Siefrid's modified rules and I played in this one and had a good time. Tom Harris, I believe, did the majority of painting (correct me if I'm wrong) for Greg's 15mm troops and they looked very good. John Duffy had a large collection of 25mm Hinchliffe Am. Rev. figures which were done very nicely as well. I have suggested to several area group members who run hobby stores that they bring their wares to the monthly hospital games as many members, I think, would be interested in picking up items at that time. I would also encourage members to bring in second hand items to sell. As a mater of fact, I would like to set up the April meeting as a flea market for an hour before the game starts. Please bring in anything you are interested in getting rid of. The January game featured Rich Black with a 25mm ECW game and Greg Principato with a 25mm British attack on an Egyptian fortified position using THE SWORD AND THE FLAME rules set. Both were very well done games. The future hospital games for the rest of 1986 are listed below.
The games usually start at 7:30 P.M. and run till they are finished. Oak Forest Hospital is on the corner of 159th and Cicero Avenue in Oak Forest, Illinois. Enter off of Cicero Avenue, stop at the information booth and ask for the Nurse's Residence (we always get lots of puns about meeting there). We are on the first floor and you'll be able to hear us as soon as you walk in. Anyone is welcome. There is a seven dollar fee per year which entitles you to receive MWAN and attend all games. All we ask is that rules lawyers and those interested more in arguments than wargaming either refrain from such behavior or not attend and that the proper amount of respect be shown to the host, his rules, scenario, and figures.
Before I go on, I did want to mention a bit about the January games.
In the ECW game the Royalists made a surprise attack on a Parlimentrian held town. The Parliment rians had about six foot units (about 40 figures each), two horse units and two light guns. They were bivouacked around and inside the town. The Royalists possessed about one and one-half as many units and were told they could enter on any two sides of the table as long as those sides were not opposite each other.
The Parlimentriin's units were all considered disorganized (stand and do nothing for one turn to organize) although they were allowed to post three vedettes anywhere on the table who would identify any Royalist units entering the table within 12". Once this was done, the vedettes could ride back and inform units in their path who would then be organized, having received prior knowledge of the advancing Royalists. The entire Royalist contigent entered on my section although Randy Giesey, my co-commander, moved his force up to support me. The game ended in a Royalist victory after some hard-fought melees. Rich used Bill Protz's English Civil War Rules, which are quite well done.
March 14th- John Hendron (WWII) and Dan Rakowski (Unknown at this time)
April 11th- Charlie Prosek (American Rev War; 20mm; Battle of Germantown) and Greg Principato (25mm Slave Raiders).
May 9th- John Duffy (unknown) and Steve Lawrence (Am. Rev. or War of the Roses)
June 13th- Greg Novak (WWII) and open.
July 11th- Open October 10th- Open
August 8th- Open November 14th- Open
September 12th- Open December 12th- Open
3) MWAN member Bill Hargrave is holding his third Annual Miniature Figure Painting Figure Contest on February 22, 1986 at his Metal Craft Miniatures & More shop in Elwood, Indiana at 1000 North 9th Street, 46036 (317-552-2073). It is too bad that I didn't know about it previously as by the time this issue gets out to many people, it will be too late to enter or maybe even attend. However, I have heard that it is a very good affair and Bill is to be congratulated for making such a contribution to the hobby. I met Bill at Winter Wars in Champaign and was surprised to see the variety of wargaming figures he has. You name it, and he probably has it, including painted armies. Good fellow!!!
4) Rich Black has an Apple computer and we have played a number of wargames on it as well as tried out some programs Rich designed for miniatures battles several years ago. Rich recently gave me a listing of all MWAN articles since issue one on.a computer printout which was quite handy. He also keeps track of our SYW units on it which is great as depending upon how the unit performs in battle, it either stays the same morale grade, drops, or increases. If Santa is listening, I'd like a computer, word processor and printer next Christmas to enable me to do MWAN on it! 5) The HISTORICAL MINIATURES GAMING SOCIETY-MIDWEST (HMGS-MIDWEST) recently was asked to put on several demo games at the HOBBY INDUSTRY OF AMERICA convention held January 25th-29th in Chicago at McCormick Convention Center. We were present on Consumer Day and things went very smoothly.
We had two games, Rich Black did the Battle of Hastings in 25mm and I did Rorke's Drift, also in 25mm. Stewart Black, Mike Adams, Rob Davidson, Steve Lawrence, Greg Principato, Randy Giesey, Tim Eafterday, Shawn Wadloech, and Wendell Decker were all nice enough to come along as gamers and our demos drew a fairly good crowd around the two games all day.
We answered questions, took names of interested individuals, and in general, exposed a fair number of people to the hobby of miniatures wargaming. It was a good time and I thank those who took part. Rich Smethurst, of Ral Partha, is also thanked for dropping our name to the organizers when they asked him for miniatures gamers to host the demos.
6) MWAN members who have been published in other wargaming magazines/newsletters during the last few months:
- Bill Protz-"Essay on the Employment of French Cavalry in the Mid-18th Century, SYWA Newsletter, Dec-85, and"Same Other Pieces of Interest in Europe for 18th Century Enthusiasts."
Gary Comardo-"Greater Ardonberg-Holstein Rules for the Conduct of 18th Century Sieges," SYWA Newsletter, Dec-85.
John Laing-"Uniforms in North American During the SYW," SYWA Newsletter, Dec-85.
Hal Thinglum "Isandhlwana Wargame Rules: Scale, Sequence of Play and Terrain-Part Two," Heliograph, Dec-85.
Terry Gore-"Morale & Leadership, Part II," SAGA, Feb-86.& "Battle of Lincoln,1067."
Gary Comardo-"Regular or Professional?" SAGA, Feb-86.
Paul Hinson-"The Aradzai Campaign of 1879." Savage & Soldier, Oct-Dec 1985.
Bill Protz-"Suitable Formations for use in SYW Games." PW Review, Feb-86.
Wally Simon-"On to Richmond," & "A Note on Movement Sequences." PW Review, Feb-86.
Paddy Griffith-"Cardboard Simulator Workshop." The Nugget, Dec-85.
Hal Thinglum-"A Case for Monster Games." The Vedette, Dec-85.
Greg Novak-"Injuns: Sane Concepts for a Woodland Indian Fighting Rule Set." Vedette,
Howard Whitehouse-"Uncommonly Clever Fellows: The Light Division at Sabugal" EE&L, #90.
Wally Simon-"A Look at Keenigkrieg II." PW Review, Jan-86.
7) MWAN member Paddy Griffith is to be congratulated for the publication of his latest book which I believe is entitled: "WELLINGTON-COMMANDER: the Iron Duke's generalship." MWAN member Ned Zuparko is mentioned in the footnotes. Looking forward to getting a copy of this book.
8) MWAN member Frank Chadwick, in addition to being named to the Charles Roberts Hall of Fame for his work in boardgaming, was recently interviewed in the Feb-86 issue of GAME NEWS. I found the interview very interesting and was most surprised to see much attention being given to Frankąs-.interest in miniatures. Congratulations, Frank!
Back to MWAN # 20 Table of Contents
Back to MWAN List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com