1. Fred Haub's Seven Years War 30mm conversions have served PW well. The club has earned enough money to see it through the year and more. For this we thank Fred and we thank the gamers who were kind enough to purchase the figures. All this "thank-you-business" means that we've decided to stop producing the figures for the present. It well may be that production will resume at a later date under another label ... FUSILIER is seeking to expand its lines. 2. HMGS goes west. Hal Thinglum reports that wargamers from about ten different clubs from Wisconsin and Illinois met in mid-March and banded together to form HMGS Midwest. Hal, who is the editor of the Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter (MWAN), was appointed liaison to our eastern HMGS. HMGS Midwest will essentially remain anindependent organization and conduct its own programs. In May, Bob Coggins andPat Condray will attend the Chicago LITTLE WARS convention ... at thattime, we'll see in what fashion the 2 HMGS organizations can work together. 3. I am now an enrollee in Bill Protz's CHARGE project in which a dozen or so Seven Years War enthusiasts each control a principality in middle Europe. This is a rather tricky effort, for the participants are scattered throughout the USA and the campaign is, for the most part, conducted by mail. The Lion's state of Ostlandt is located on the Baltic; bordering on my northern frontier is Prillistate, run by Ron Prillaman, a local PW member, while to the south lies Ardoberg-Holstein, under the command of Gary Comardo, a New York State resident. Gary also puts out the Ardoberg Enquirer, a newsletter containing the participants battle reports and a general overview of the campaign. Bill Protz generated and distributed a very simple and general set of campaign rules. It is, in essence, a bare bones outline which the participants will have to flesh out for themselves. Despite the name of the campaign (CHARGE), opposing players may use any rules agreed upon by the parties; the use of CHARGE rules is mandated only at "official" meets during conventions and the like. 4. Times are tough!! 1985 is proving a bad year for planning; First, the input for our grand, oversize issue may be classified as just-about-nil. Second, the plan to put out an issue of the REVIEW combined with Hal Thinglum's MWAN entails too many complexities to implement ( at least, to a man of my age and fast fading faculties ). Third, the plan concerning the submittal of explanatory material for Rules-On-A-Postcard contest has come a cropper ... ain't no response. What's to become of us all? ... about the only successful things that have occurred in '85 are, one, that HMGS seems to keep on making money, and two, that PW has a comfortable bankroll for the rest of the year. Ah, well ... it's only money. 5. Tom Elsworth writes from Oxford that he is somewhat weighed down by the vast amount of work that appears to be involved in umpiring our club's Ancient campaign. It is set in the Peloponnese in 500 BC, a early period in warfare in which things will be kept simple by the small scale and concentration on one troop type. So the umpire thought... He didn't reckon with the fact that a small, cramped country positively ]ends itself to Machiavellian politics and innumerable ambushes, delaying actions, and dirty tricks (like damming rivers running through enemy camps, and if that wasn't enough, using them as sewers to induce typhoid, dysentery, etc.).,. 6. Campaign fever is upon us. Barrl Gray, author of KOENIGKREIG, is conducting a Seven Years War campaign through the mails. Barry acts as a central depository and describes the activities as follows: The way the battles work is, when two armies enter the same hex on the strategic map (and their commander wishes to fight), I calculate the attrition losses to both sides (based on what they've been doing since the last battle/siege/rest period) give each CIC a list of his forces and generals, a "scouting report" on the enemy (containing number of regiments only, with a + percentage based on luck and the light cavalry), and a sketch map (created using my random terrain rules in KOENIGKREIG) indicating which side they deploy on, and whether it is a "maneuver" or "positional" battle. A maneuver battle happens when the 2 armies bump into each other during their move ... each side starts close to its edge of the table and can maneuver freely. In a positional battle, one army was waiting in a hex while the other pounced on it. In this case, the "defender" may deploy up to the center of the table, but his forces cannot cross the centerline during the deployment stage of the battle (except light cavalry)... 7. Barry Gray is also broadcasting a special notice for ORIGINS, and has asked us to include the following: Just dropping a line to ask you to include this in your next issue, whenever that is. The official Origins registration and schedule listing just came out, and my event has a rather important typo in it, which changes the whole meaning of the event. Now, this Byer is mostly going to boardgamers and fantasy RPGers, so I'm not too concerned about them misunderstanding it, but since some people who may want to be in my event probably read your newsletter, I thought I'd ask you to slip in what amounts to a plug. Anyway: At Origins, on Saturday, June 29, at 7:00 PM, I will host a Koenig Kreig free-for-all, with an unlimited number of players. The catch is, you're supposed to bring along your favorite brigade of 15mm troops that you use for KK. (The official Origins brochure says bring your own brigadier; I can see two dozen people showing up with one general figure each!). So anyway, if you bring a brigade, that's what you'll command in the game. Otherwise, depending on the number who show up, I will either provide my own troops or make you a wing commander, in charge of several brigadiers. Before the game, the wing commanders will have a council of war with the commander-in-chief, after which they will be left to conduct the battle on their wing, and will only communicate with the CIC through one of the referees. The game will be played on sculpted terrain boards like the ones seen at previous HMGS cons. It will probably run on until they kick us out of the room Saturday night. HMGS will provide prizes to the best player from each side. I appreciate your posting this. Back to PW Review May 1985 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com