Historicon '91 was the unsurpassed minatures event of 1991, as it always seems to be each year. The 10th anniverary event boasted over 2,000 attendees, over 200 events, with special guests Donald Featherstone and Paddy Griffith coming from Fngland. The four-day event was the epitome of minature gaming anywhere. Also featured the North American Society of Ancient and Medeval Wargamers Tournament, and the Free Trade Wars 1991 Tournament (a WRG tourney with Phil Barker as referee). The two outstanding games were impressive to say the least. Rick Nance brought the Pioneer Panzer groups Tarawa game using Command Decision rules. This impressive effort was done in 15mm no less! I know cause I hauled it strapped to the ceiling of my van for 1200 miles. I had a crick in my neck and no rear view mirror use but it was worth it! The game went over so well that Frank Chadwick (creator of Command Decision) was even jealous. The second outstanding game was put on by Bob Frantz and Jay Hadley and their group from Jenkintown. It was called 'Pirate's Revenge", and was a gigantic 25mm game spoofing the colonial period. The shape was a large U-arrangement with two wings each 22 feet long, it used five 6-foot tables and was 18 feet in total width. Inside the U Bob and Jay ran the hilarious affair. The display was awesome and featured a working waterfall and stream, HO-scale working railroad, and a scratch-built balloon overhead. Duke Siegfreid put on his great show and tell game of colonial warfare. The Kyber pass was as impressive as he always seems to be. Duke is the premeir showman when it comes to wargaming, and so he really fits in a category of professional rather than amatuer (as Pick Nance and Bob Frantz proudly admit). Duke's terrain and game is on a par only matched by Rich hasenaur and his excellant Civil War terrain. If you want visual evidence of the professional ability of Rich, just Took at a copy of Fire and Fury rules, the pictures are of kith's actual terrain. Bob Giglio put on a fun "Golden Age of Piracy" game in 25mm that certainly deserves honorable mention. Playing either Spanish or Pirate you have a great game with Bob at the helm. His figures were extremely well painted, and he can make you laugh at the stupid move that you just made and will certainly spell the end for your personality figure! Mark McLaughlin was also in rare form, running two fun, (if not historical) games for young garners (and young at heart garners). Mark's games always feature fun as the prime requisit for success. His historical spoof was a game ran especially for me using my own rules Soldiers of the Queen , published by Frontier Minatures. Charlton Heston at Khartoum" was Mark's vision of replaying the famous movie and battle as he first envisioned it - as he wanted it to be when he was about 10 years old. Mark explained this to the crowd as they stared with disbelief at the hogpodge of Lincoln Logs, American Bricks, and few HO scale buildings. Myself as Chinese Gordon, I showed up wearing a real Glengarry of the Royal Scot, and Bob Watts as the "Muddy" showed up with a blue towel wrapped around his head. After three hours of buckets of dice rolling, I managed to rewrite at least this wargame's history by holding out until the relief column of gunboats arrived! Actually I was so tired after the 1700 mile drive from Colorado, that they had to wake me up to tell me I had survived and won Mark's second game was his perennial game of Princess Ryan's Space Marines for the youngsters on Sunday. This year was a special treat however, as the rules have finally been published by SIMTAC. Between 20 and 30 young future wargamers had a great time blowing up and destroying everything in their way. Mark brings lead figures along with toys and plastic disposable terrain just for the utter enjoyment of his young crowd. A few liberal-minded grown-ups such as Bob Watts and Bob Hoy help him run the game and command the opposing sides. I managed to play in a couple of other games, in particular a fun game of German East Africa, where I got to be Col. von Lettow Vorbeck. It was a delightful 15mm game with hidden movement by the Germans only. When you revealed your location, you rolled a die to see how far off you were in the jungle- up to 20 inches on a 5' X 10" table! It made for a great game and although one of my sub-commanders missinterputed a crucial order -- we trounced the British dog Gen Smuts! The "Last Crusade" rules by Mark Hayes work very well for the late colonial period. I was on a roll, so I played in another Mark Hayes home rules game the following day (Friday), called the "Road to Lucknow". The "Savage Wars of Peace" rules did not seem to work as well. I was shot to pieces by the inferior Mutiny Wogs, and could not win a melee to save my soul. I was having my normal abysmal dice, but my comerades saved the game for me, and Mark and Bob gave me a victory that I as overall commander did not deserve. I did damn little to contribute to victory other than convince my two close friends to be own my side. They bloody well deserve the laurels, but of course I got the victory as I was Gen Henry Havelock and once again in command! I couldn't seem to get the hang of the rules and lost both in firefight and melee???? Feeling headstrong and drunk with victory after victory, I agreed to command a group of young Baltimore newcomers to miniatures in a WWII micro-armor game. I preferred Germans of course (even if it was 1944 France), and we were given almost all infantry with six AT guns, and 4 STUG IIIs and a Tiger I. 1 deployed my troops with confidence and flair. In defense of the debacle that was to follow, I can only that my intelligence officers must have come directly from service with Saddam Hussein. I was told to expect perhaps an enemy scout platoon, a company of tanks, and one or two companies of much infantry to be followed by a large truck convoy representing the "Red Ball Express." I foolishly believed these reports, after all I had only a mortar battery for fire support, and a reserve of a single platoon of Mk IVs, and I had to cover six road exits that spread across 10 feet of terrain in 1/285 scale. How bad could it really be? I really shouldn't have said that, because we ended up facing two complete battalions, one armor and one meth, with a full Greyhound scout car company leading. They also had three batteries of off-board artillery (not mortars) for fire support. In all fairness I should say that Dennis Wang had intended to run a Russian front game using his "Panzer Tactics" rules. I sure could have set up better, but I misunderstood how he defined where the woods edge actually were. I further relied too heavily on the intelligence. I placed my AT guns too far forward with only infantry to support them, and my mobile armor reserve was too far back and had to be revealed as soon as I moved them. I do not want to sound like sour grapes, but I blew it BIG TIME. My young groupies who I always led to victory were stunned! Yes, I could make mistakes wargaming twenty years of expierence does not prevent that. I did manage to concede gracefully, and acknowledge that I LOST THIS GAME (before we started in my set-up?). Dick Bryant Saturday night was a big wind-up for the convention. Dick Bryant the jovial editor of The Courier was honored with the Jack Scruby Award to recognize outstanding contribution to wargaming in the tradition of Jack Scruby (the founder of our hobby in this country). The dinner was a reservation only affair, and Rick Nance, Dave Grosdeck, Bill Harding, Terry Collins and his daughter all shared a table with me at the Banquet which was limited to IOU attendees. The Filet Migon was very rare and bloody, not worth the $20 per plate price tag, but the Napoleon desert was superb. The meal overall was not up to my standards, but I really did not come to the banquet for the meal. Don Featherstone was the featured spokesman as the only previous recipient of the honor. Don is the father of Colonial Wargaming and a noted author of books, articles, and his now extinct Wargamers Newslatter. Don is a sheer delight to listen to, and a wealth of antecdotal remarks flower his speech. 1 came to the banquet because he was the keynote speaker, and Dick is a friend I thought long deserved the honor he was overdue. It was Duke Seigfried who stole the show that night. He dropped the bombshell of the convention with his revelations of the whole story about Dick Bryant. This pillar of the Historical Minatures Gaming Society, a prime mover in it's very foundation was a HERETIC! Yes, he had also been the prime mover behind fantasy gaming as well. Duke Seigfreid had been gaming with Dick when he noticed in his basement a crude odd-shaped non-historical figure. This was the first fantasy figure -- an orc, and Duke was inspired to produce the first fantasy line of minatures called "Fantasiques" based on this first figure from Dick's basement! As if that were not enough, another of Dick's wargaming friends was Dave Arneson. Dave noticed one day that Dick had the entire Fellowship Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave and Dick got to talking and both shared their like of the work that evening. Within a month Dave Arneson hooked up with Gary Gygax and Brian Blume with the idea for the original Dungeons and Dragons game system, the fantasy supplement to Chainmail. YES it was true, Dick seems to be a catalyst for a lot in our entire hobby spectrum. His magazine The Courier, is the standard magazine that has remained with us for over twelve years. Well, that evening was entertaining and enlightening. It did serve to honor (& roast) a man who truly deserves recognition. Seminars There were many seminars, discussions, and non-traditional wargames that were included with the first notable effect. I had to sample these and reserved Sunday for just that purpose. Paddy Griffith had several seminars (5 of the 10 total) and I just had to make one. He was senior lecturer at Sandhurst Military Academy from 1980-1989, and is a noted author, military lecturer (lecturing at US War College in Carlisle,PA and Command and General Staff College at Ft Leavenworth,KS) and an avid wargamer. Since our loss of Brigadier General Peter Young he is our foremost military authority as a wargamer. I did not completely agree with his "History of Firepower and US Theories of Warmaking from Vietnam to the Gulf", but I found it thought provoking and stimulating. Most of his small audience (maybe 30 in number) were likewise puzzled by the British viewpoint of the waste of five weeks of bombing before the ground war started. There seemed to be no hurry in the mind of the US military or in our wargame minds, but he stated that this time was seen as a waste by the Europeans. He believes (with some impressive justification) that the US doctrine of warfare is still based on firepower and therefore obselete. This is why we delayed according to Paddy. Most of the military officers in the group (seven of us) cited the "Hail Mary" manuever and tactics as Mobility Doctrine instead. Well, as you can see the discusssion could easily cover many pages Ghazlani The final event of the convention was another "gem in the rough." A well-kept secret, that was certainly the overall event highlight for me. Capt Pete Fanzeri gave a briefing on the Battle of Ghazlani oŁ the Gulf War. Cpt. Panzeri was a participant, and a true amatuer historian of the battle. He took pictures while in the Gulf, most before or after the battle. The pictures were well chosen to show principle positions, dual battle hulks, and aftermath of the battle. He also kept some 125 of his SITREPs, FRAGOs, OPORDs, and briefings on hard copies that he managed to get declassified. He had 25 (30 min) cassette tapes of some 12 hours of the actual radio transmissions from the battle, he gave a hand-out outline of the briefing before staring and proceeded as if it were a military briefing, holding all questions until the end. He used a slide projector, overhead overlays & maps to explain the entire operation and battle. He had even taken pictures of his micro-armor set--up that he uses to wargamer it. He was in the Battalion TOC during the entire battle as the assistant. Ops Officer. He even got to choose the battle's name. He gave a very professional briefing, and it was the same one he gave at Carlisle Barracks, and at Sandhurst. He kept a complete a true account of the battle, interested as he was, from a WARGAMER's viewpoint of history in the making. He was NOT an official historian, but his account was the only complete one made at the time. That is why the military choose to have him brief the US War College and UK Military Academy. He covered some interesting points, but I will only point out a few as space is limited. 1. US Thermal imagers were so good that AP and AT mines were easily spotted at night (due to days residual heat) 2. US Armor effectiveness for engagement changed from 2750m to 3750m based on battlefield performance (some tank kills made at or beyond 4000m!) 3. US Army equipment proved reliability of over 95% in a very hostile environment. 4. M-901 and FIST-V vehicles cannot keep up with M-1 Abrams or M-2 Bradley 5. Counter-battery radar and response was so good that before enemy spotting rounds would land, US MLRS batteries had already engaged enemy batteries, suppessing their guns. 6. Rumor was that Thermal imagers were so good that you could tell sex of soldier at night through their uniforms All in all it was a great convention, I sure enjoyed it. I got to see all my PW friends, and their comraderie made the 3500 mile round trip I drove worth it. Back to MWAN # 54 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1991 Legio X 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