This is termed a "brief" report, because I remember very little of what happened. I do remember that I enjoyed myself.., and I keep asking "Why?" Probably because of the chance to shake hands with, and speak to, all the fellas with whom I correspond and see only once, at most twice, a year. I looked for "innovative" games, i.e., something new on the horizon with which I wasn't familiar, and found: a. Barry Gray putting on a scenario with his recent siege-craft rules. b. Rich Hasenaeur's new American Civil War rules. c. Terry Sirk's approach to WWII microarmor. d. A Craig Taylor adaptation of an air-to-air combat boardgame with aircraft mounted on 6 inch supports. e. Not much else. I joined in at the beginning of Larry Brom's Napoleonic bash, a throw-back to the mid-1960's, wherein lots of 20 man infantry units and 16 man cavalry units flailed away at each other until only on;.- survivor (well... almost.') remained and shouted "I won:" I also started out in Terry Sirk's microarmor game, acting as military consultant to Mike Caum's young son, who was in charge of the infantry in a German assault on a French defense. Mike's son was extremely cautious, I thought, and I advised him that the best tactic was to put all his German infantry on halftracks and go roaring up to the French lines across 2000 yards of open terrain. Terry, our host, raised his eyebrows at this and said deprecating things like "You're gonna get wiped out." I ignored him. What did he know? I left the table just after the infantry got wiped out. There was obviously no further need for my services. I hope I didn't sour Mike Caum's lad on wargaming. I then sat down to help out Rob McLean, one of THE COURIER bunch, who was in charge of 6 Japanese cruisers and battleships being smashed by a Russian task force. I had no sooner made myself comfortable, when one of Rob's key ships, the Asahi, received several blasts, lost about 300 hull boxes and settled down some 10 feet lower in the water. Was it something I had done? Whatever, I immediately assessed the situation and offered my analysis. Rob, however, resisted my suggestions concerning zipping in at flank speed towards the Russians and boarding. Not the thing to do, he said. Stubborn fellow.  I kept wandering around looking for an ECW game. Never found one. In truth, it was difficult to "wander". "Push and shove" was more like it. Despite very little broadcasting and advertising, at least 600 people were present... too many for comfortable gaming in the facilities available. At first, I kept tapping people on the shoulder: "...would really appreciate your putting your cigarette out." Useless gesture... I finally gave up, and the noise and the crowd and the smoke foced me to retire every so often. After awhile, I was in a constant daze, and I remembered Hal Thinglum's and Bill Protz's comments, not too long ago, on how they were usually wiped out after a convention. At least I'm not the Lone Ranger, thought I. I chaired an HMGS meeting scheduled, quite cleverly, to commence at the midnight hour on Friday. For some reason, people still showed up. It turns out that, at midnight meetings, all proposals brought up for discussion seem to be greeted in negative fashion: "Boo.' Hiss.' No.' Kill 'em:" and similar remarks. Should we join the Game Manufacturer's Association? Boo! Should we institute our own HMGS miniatures awards? Double Boo.' Should we postpone HISTORICON '88 so as not to interfere with ORIGINS that year? Triple Boo! Should we do this? Boo! Should we do that? Boo! Despite the fantastic audience reaction, we still got our business done. I hosted two games: the first was an ACW encounter in which THE COURIER boys, Rob McLean and Leo Cronin, as Yankee commanders, lost the Civil War by a score of 1 Victory Point (VP) for them to 10 for the Confederates. With VP's being doled out in 1's and 2's, I still don't know how such a lopsided finish occurred in what started out as a symmetrical, balanced scenario. My second game was co-hosted with Fred Hubig. This was a dual-table, SYW affair described elsewhere in this issue. Each commander had forces on both tables and had to allocate resources between the two sites. In retrospect, considering the crowded conditions, noise level, etc., we probably should have put on a much simpler effort. And then, what did I do to round out a weekend of miniatures gaming presented by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society of which I am a member of the Executive Board?? Why, I bought a boardgame, of course! I picked one out with incomprehensible and incoherent rules. And then I went home. Back to PW Review April 1987 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 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