Greetings, Wargaming Bruthas - Ah, it's good to be back at it again. Thanks much for all your letters and kind comments generated Mom the last column. It's great to know you're reading.

The more astute of you will have observed that the column now has a log, but still no name. The masterful rendition of the leaning Napoleon was resurrected from the old "Bits and Pieces" column. I'd intended to call this column "Bits and Pieces" until Hal patiently reminded me Curt Murff has been using it, oh, a couple of years now. When Hal asked me what to call the column, he caught me on a tranquil Sunday afternoon when I was busy playing Dad, so absolutely nothing that was sexually suggestive or ethnically insulting came quickly to mind. Things like "The Bugle Blows" or "Bend Over Drummer Boy" were considered but quickly discarded. I guess it remains for you, gentle reader, to come up with something. There's no guarantee it'll get used, but if it's hilarious, I'll at least try to get Hal to print it - and pleased, I'm just kidding about the ethnically insulting part.

Jackson, MI

I'd like to tell you about a group of Wargaming Bruthas in whom we can all be proud. They're the local gamers in my home town of Jackson, Michigan. What they've done is form a club - of sorts - and at the same time they've managed to come up with every wargamer's dream, a permanent club house that's open all the time.

You're dying to know how they did it. Naturally I am happy to tell you. It started with a group of die-hard Warhammer 40,000 gamers, who headed for the basement of Dave Vermulen's every Friday night, gaming to wee hours of Saturday morning. For a long time this low-ceiling basement was quite satisfactory to this like-minded bunch; even Dave's considerate wife, Wendy, had no problem with the guys and their ever-increasing colleagues. Like all popular things, however, after a time the growing number of gamers started to make things a little tight in that Michigan basement. Some nights there were, after all, up to thirty people down there. Reluctantly nights they began to talk about bigger quarters.

Now one thing can be said about downtown Jackson - there's plenty of vacant store frontage. One of the gamers, a Steve Shotwell, ran a shoe store in the downtown area and knew many of the downtown store merchants. The guys had first started thinking about using the downtown area when a local comic book store offered them the floors above that business for gaming use. That chance had died out, but it wasn't long after that when Shotwell foumd a large basement below the Sav-A-Lot drug store available for a very reasonable monthly fee. The place looked like a set for a Terminator movie. The basement had been flooded out; paint was chipping and plaster was falling; and to top it off, there wasn't any bathroom.

Shotwell and Brethren loved it. It was endearing in it's post-apocalyptic sort of way. It was big, very big, with room for gaming tables until the cows came home. Little side rooms offered the advantage of private gaming space, locked storage areas, and a place for a porta-potty. It was also air conditioned in the summer and well heated in the winter. Like teenagers moving into their first apartment, the gamers lugged chairs, tables, old sofas, gaming supplies and an ancient stereo into their new labyrinth. After that, realizing some degree of organization was called for, the lads up a sign charging two bucks American for entrance, and settled in for some serious gaming.

One Year

That was all one year ago as of May, 1997. For all intents and purposes, the club has been a success. Charging an entrance fee quickly put the group over the top money wise, which left them into the embarrassingly envious position of having their rent paid several months in advance.

To raise other money, Steve, Dave, and a select few others became "key-holders", meaning they pay an extra sum to possess a key, giving them the ability to enter the gaming area at any time and to have access to the locked storage area as well.

Other innovations include a permanent toilet, the club name of Battleground, a telephone, and sales of snacks and soda pop on an honor basis. Volunteers have built l-o-o-ng gaming tables and other volunteers clean the place up on occasion. There's even talk of painting the place. Public gaming has spread from Friday nights to include Wednesdays and Saturdays.

A lot of space is devoted to MAGIC card games and the like, but setting aside a table for a miniatures conflict at any time is absolutely no problem. Many people stroll down on a Friday night just to socialize and talk hobby it's en entirely mellow affair.

Now the lads are going one impressive step further. On Saturday, June 14th, they'll hold their first all-historical miniatures convention. It's a convention with an unusual twist. They plan on following the old Miniatures Gamers of Michigan One-Day convention format, which offered three gaming sessions, morning 9AM-1PM; Afternoon 2PM-6PM; and evenings 6PM-1OPM.

Now they'll have the morning and afternoon session, but instead of a regular gaming session in the evening, all paid attendees will stroll down the street to the local movie how and wander in for an exclusive gamers only big-screen viewing of the war classic, ZULU - you know, Michael Caine, Stanley Baker, et al, you may have heard of it. The movie will be shown throughout the day, but the 7PM screening is for convention gamers only.

Sounds like good stuff, doesn't it? Do you wonder what the secret is to their success? ARer watching them for a few months, I think the secret lies in their commitment to a good time. There are no elected officers. Key holders make all the decisions. There are no club dues. There's no obligations. Volunteers take care of what needs to be done, and nobody checks anybody if they don't volunteer. These Bruthas have managed to remember that this is a hobby, and it's all for fun.

It's that simple. Maybe we should all try to remember that, eh? Till next time, Wargaming Bruthas.