Hello war game readership! And welcome once again to another issue of The Penny Whistle. There is so much war gaming going on that this issue was hard to sit down and write. If this seems like one long rambling letter from a friend, just let it roll and keep reading. I have postponed the writing to the deadline and now I must sit back and remember about the last months activities and give you a quick synopsis.

We are very busy with another 1862 American Civil War scenario (Jackson in The Valley), only this time we are using the inter-net to run the campaign and map moves. We have run this campaign once before in the standard club night format where map moves were written and then handed to the GM to move map pins and then set out the pieces and figures for a battle. This time through when the club members arrive for that nights game session the map moving and campaign moves have taken place over the preceding weeks and the players all walk in to a battle already terrained to fight out.

Everyone seems to like the e-mail run campaign - it adds a little bit of the fog of war to the whole affair, and the e-mails that are written in "character" are a lot of fun to read and judge as the game master.

Convention

We attended the HMGS convention in Oklahoma City in March. The trip was a club travel opportunity and eight Lion's Den members attended. We had a fantastic time in the games we played in and we entertained our share of the attendees by running two racing game events. Twister Con VI was a successful convention as far as we were concerned and we look forward to going again next year.

Part of the success of Twister Con is the great hobby auction they hold every year. Lion's Den did well in the auction both in the buyer and seller category. We were the largest single "lot" of gaming materials on sale. And we came away from the auction with a new addiction - Micro-armor. I bought a set of painted and based Micro-armor of the 11th Panzer Division.

This only leads to the fact that they need something to fight against and now the whole club is set out to claim their piece of WWII fighting armor. If you would have told a Lion's Den member a few years back that some day they would be pushing lead tanks smaller than a gnat's *** you would have been laughed at and scolded - No Thanks 54mm is all we ever game in! I really can't explain the purchase. In fact after I had bid and won them I realized what madness I had done but then it was too late. (Fascinating Hobby!?!?!).

We sold roughly fifteen titles of boxed games by Avalon Hill. A ton of assorted dead lead in 25mm. And the auction highlight - 24 @ 1/2400th scale wooden sailing ships by GHQ. These were painted and based and rigged with ratlines and standing rigging etc. They really where the hit of the show and the bidding was a great part of the weekend for me. I want to say thanks to the show organizers and auctioneers for some great entertainment.

I will try to describe several methods for creating ship models by scratchbuilding with copier images. We are several years into a role playing game set in the American Revolution/ Naval. The players are all British captains and admirals working there way through a low spot in British naval history. For this campaign/role playing we needed a lot of sailing ships (wait a minute didn't you say you just sold off all of your 1/2400th scale ships). We needed more ships than my budget would allow purchase.

In times of need I have used paper cut-outs of sailing ships with some degree of success and player acceptance. The methods I would like to describe in the accompanying article will allow you to create fantastic looking sailing ships accurately, easily , and cheaply. Lion's Den gamers are getting geared up for a new campaign set in the far future using Full Thrust rules for a space campaign. Turning to our new technology - the computer paint program- we will describe how to create science fiction starships accurately, easily, and again cheaply!

All Paint Evening

Lion's Den club members gathered recently for an "All Paint" evening. On these nights instead of pushing toy soldiers and rollin' dice, we set out more than we can hope to paint of 54mm figures and take turns painting and passing the figures around. We had five painters working and here is a list of what got wet: 43 cavemen, 30 ACW casualty figures in 54mm, 5-6 WWII German Eastern front personality figures (watch for an upcoming scenario for Role Playing in Theater of Operations), several ship models in the sci-fi range of "Paint Ships". Not bad for an evenings entertainment. The cavemen will probably go to Branson this year for Punic Wars IV.

The casualty figures are for our ACW 54mm wargame from an idea I read about in MWAN about using a casualty figure instead of a roster sheet and marking unit hits by the direction the figure is standing! The personality figures are for a role playing game based on our Theater of Operations rules set. And I have mentioned already the Sci-Fi ship scenarios we are undertaking.

Really a pretty busy couple of months! There is no end to this fascinating hobby and as you can see a clubs interests can swing wildly from one extreme to another; but when you have a group of friends that work together for the benefit of the club things get done and tangents of everyone's imagination get to be explored.

MagWeb

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