A while back several prominent members of the midwest wargaming community approached me and reported they would be happy to help if I was crazy enough to put together an Origins bid. In that it was the closing moments of LITTLE WARS and I was suffering severe battle fatigue, I said I would consider it. As a lark in the next few days, I pondered the ways it would be possible to pull off such a stunt. The first thing I remembered was the TSR had been hostile in previous years to having Origins in their back yard, especially that close to GEN CON. So I reasoned that if I approached them first, there could be no objection on their part, if they were unable to help, if we ran a midwest Origins. The first thing I did was contact the Gen-Con staff. While the idea of running an Origins a couple of years off was not rejected, they had more immediate concerns. They had NO miniatures games at GEN CON this year! This, they assured me, was not how they planned it. Marti Hayes, the coordinator, could not understand why we gamers/judges were not showing. I asked her if she had a few minutes and listed the reasons TSR was perceived as hostile to miniatures. Then a miracle happened! She said if I and the Gamemaster's Guild could put some games together, all the things I and you, dear reader, would find objectable would be dropped. We would not have to pay good faith money; we would have well lit rooms with 10,000 square feet to boot. We would be able to call our own shots if we would only let them know in advance. What was I to say but "yes"! With only a week before the flyer was to be printed Bob Bigelow and I scrambled to put 30 games together. By the time you read this, the convention will be a fait d'compleat, The success of this effort is best judged by you, the reader. With the effort to scramble up games complete, I met with the TSR staff to propose Origins. Miacle number two! They thought it was a good idea. Their proposal was to riot a ioint GenCon/Origins with the miniatures sub-contracted to HMGS-MIDWEST, I would be a liason placed on the convention oversite board to look out for the miniaturists concerns. A bid was nut together and presented at ORIGINS in LA. Competing bids were made by Bosto and L.A. After an exhausting meeting, it was was elated, It is only now that I am beginning to ask myself "What have I done?" The amount of wo'k will be staggering, I will need the support of all of you, This is a chance to show off the Midwest and let the rest of the country know what we are made of. We all have two years to put together the best presentations possible, Two years to play test our scenarios. Two years to assemble our armies, The challenge is laid at our feet - let's pick up the gauntlet! It seemed to me that this may be the best opportunity ever to show the rest of adventure gamers what we are all about as a hobby (historical miniatures). That, after all, is one of the main reasons HMGS MIDWEST exists. Many of our friends from the east and all aver the country will be in attendance, lets be the best hosts possible! (Editor's Note: I have to agree with Todd in many respects regarding this turn of events. I think that this is the reason HMGS-MIDWEST was started, to showcase the hobby and to make others aware of it. I must admit that over the years, I too, have felt that GEN-CON (TSR) was not at all interested in our facet of the hobby and this greatly influenced me regarding GEN-CON and TSR. However, perhaps it is time for us to give them another chance and I think we will know how they really feel now, towards historical miniatures, by the response we get at GEN-CON the next few years. I am not naive enough to think that everything done wrong in the past could be cleared up in one year (i.e. Gen-Con-86) but I think it is worth our effort to see if it can work better than before. As regards ORIGINS-78 being held in the Midwest, it will be a big job. I do feel, however, we in the Midwest could host enough quality games at this very moment to make the historical miniatures end of a national convention extremely successful so I really don't see any problem in doing so two years from now. A lot of cooperation will be required from all of us, however. I think that Todd Fisher deserves a lot of credit for what has happened as well as HMGS-MIDWEST. When we sat down to talk about the state of historical miniatures in the Midwest a year and a half ago, I never thought the organization would be capable of becoming involved as it has thus far. Please consider joining HMGS-MIDWEST and lending your support. It is intended as a service organization and I sincerely feel it has been that thus far. $2.00 yearly membership dues. Back to MWAN # 23 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