Off to Chicago with Pat Condray to attend the HMGS-Midwest LITTLE WARS convention. Doors opened at 5 PM on Friday, April 24, and closed at 5 PM on Sunday. The site was Triton College campus, a community college. Nice large rooms: one (about 60x60) for the dealers, and three others (ranging from about 100x50 on down) for gaming. In all, lots of room, no cramping, lots of tables, lots of free gaming space, and a dealer's area, separate and apart, which could be locked up and secured when so desired. I judged no more than 400 present, counting dealers, but perhaps' I miscalculated due to the nature of the spread-out area... Todd Fisher, the coordinator, indicated over 700 attended. Condray carried about 30 pounds of his 15mm Editions-Brokaw Marlburian figures to convince the IRS that this was indeed a business trip and therefore deductible. I carried nine little 30mm figures... the famed Wheaton Berserkers Baseball Team... to challenge both Geoff and Bill McHarg. Geoff's Albuquerque Dukes won a 5 inning game... by a fluke, of course. Going into the fifth inning, he led, 5 to 1. I tied it up and went ahead, 6 to 5, in the first half of the fifth inning, in an amazing display of baseball skill. Geoff's Dukes then had their last go at it, last of the fifth, and my ace shortstop, Ed "Smasher" Schmidt, ordinarily an excellent fielder with a 2% chance of a fielding error, flubbed a grounder. A couple of hits, a couple of walks, and Geoff polished me off, 7 to 6. What really hurt was that the player that drove in the winning run was Sabrina McGillicuddy. Usually I have nothing against women in tight pants... this was an equal-opportunity league, however, and Geoff indicated that Sabrina, to make the team, had to carry more than her share of the work load. I decided not to protest. The LITTLE WARS program announced a total of 104 scheduled games, of which 5, count 'em 5, were the old Napoleonics standby, COLUMN, LINE & SQUARE (CLS). The CLS presentations were in 15mm, 25mm and 30mm... a sad note: Bill McHarg reported that the Sunday CLS effort, the 30mm affair, petered out for lack of players. I looked for, and found, an English Civil War (ECW) game, hosted by a Bill Nardin. An interesting approach to movement and morale, almost paralleling the game Bill McHarg described in the May REVIEW article, CONCORD REVERSED. Each turn, each force was assigned, via a series of cards, frorn 2 to 3 actions ( MOVE, CHANGE FACE, RELOAD, etc.) and had to choose one. The "menu" changed from turn to turn, and, after your units fired, it was nice to have a RELOAD card to prevent you from being swamped by the enemy. Figures were not removed, unit status was tracked on a roster system, and if a unit fell below a certain number of points, it would disintegrate. Next it was Bill Protz's French and Indian War rules. Bill is about to publish this effort, and we used it to fight for the famed Seven Years War Cup. Way back in '85 (?), I challenged Bill for possession of this most prestigious battle honor, and Bill done whupped me twice -- once in a CHARGE game, and once using my own rules and took the Cup home. Here was my chance to get it back. It was Simon and Bill McHarg (French), versus the team of Protz and Geoff McHarg (British). I must note the following: a. The rules sequence uses a card deck system similar to that of THE SWORD AND THE FLAME; a red card draw says the Brits will go, and a black draw says the opposition will move. Bill Protz reached into the crowd and called on an allegedly impartisan, unprejudiced, unbiased third party to draw cards. It was only when this "unaffiliated" third party drew about 20 red cards in a row, permitting the redcoats to continuously blast away with frightening ease, that I began to suspect that he was, after all, nought but a British shill. b. The British players, Geoff McHarg and Bill Protz, were quite familiar with the rules; the French players, well ... let's not even talk about them... they couldn't even speak French. c. General Protz placed the Cup in the center of the field in the middle of the Great Forest... it was first come, first serve, grab the Cup and run. Bill McHarg and I agreed that the first of our units to penetrate the Great Forest and touch the Cup would be a 35 figure crummy (Protz's words) militia unit. Up the field they raced and into the woods. It was only then that we found out that, in the ranks of the militia, were included some womenpersons ... can you beat that? Needless to say, I didn't see any womenpersons in the British ranks. A word on the figures This was the Protz collection of 30mm figures... mouth-watering Surens, Staddens, Pax Brittanica, etc. I know that Bill has Terry Sirk paint figures for him, and I'm not sure of what percentage of the army Terry does and of what percentage Bill does ... but they're all first rate. It's a pleasure to push the little fellas around. I should also mention that, on our side, Bill McHarg had brought along the notorious Royale Regiment de Plastique, a fighting unit of the el cheapo Spencer Smith figures. Bill is associated with STONE MOUNTAIN MILITARY MINIATURES, and I keep telling him that it's time that STONE MOUNTAIN ventured forth into 30mm land. The present output is in 15mm and 20mm scale. STONE MOUNTAIN resists my input, however, and what happens?... we have to fight a bunch of Surens and Staddens with plastic figures. Unbelievable. I'm not sure how many turns we fought, both sides lined up in midfield, trying to break the other, with the British 44th Foot slamming away at our equal-opportunity militia in the woods. Bill's rules cater to the dice throwing crowd. Volleys are referenced to a chart as shown. Two 6-sided dice are thrown, plussed and minused for factors (-1 for medium range, +2 for first volley, etc.) and the chart gives the number of potential hits. A 20- man unit, at first glance, can wipe out over half the opposition in one blast. The savings factor is a series of savings throws. He who commands the target unit casts one die for each figure hit, and it's only 50% chance that the li'l fella is killed. Bill, therefore, keeps the dice throwing crowd happy, and, at the same time, brings the average kill rate down to a respectable 20 percent or so. Back to the battle Despite the extraordinary staying power of the supposedly crummy French militia, and their womenperson recruits, it was obvious that the French forces were getting whittled down. It was only a matter of time before we'd have to fall back from the Great Forest and abandon the Cup. Rather than fight to the last woman, I chose to surrender my sword... General Protz keeps the Seven Years War Cup for yet another year. A major cause of the French defeat was the absolute, utter, unequivocal determination of the Royale Rousseleau Regiment, holding our left flank, to disobey my orders. For some five turns, I tried to get this 48 man unit of Surens to deploy and approach the enemy... all that was required was to simply total 6 or more on two dice. And for five turns, these 30mm white coated Suren Frenchmen refused to budge. A 48 figure unit and its potential firepower is not to be sneezed at, and if I could have brought this one unit into line, the results could have been vastly different. The Rousseleaus reminded me of Bob Wiltrout's just-as-nicely-painted Pretty Boys, another 30mm French regiment that has, on occassion, refused to close with the enemy. I wandered around from table to table, staying to observe particular scenarios that caught my eye. One was an interesting game put on by a Steve Lawrence, using his own CONK ON THE NOGGIN rules... several bands of Neanderthal cavemen converged on each other and began, as the rules prescribed, to conk each other on the noggin. Quite historically accurate. Todd Fisher's PONY WARS scenario was pleasing to the eye: Peter Gilder's range of cowboys, Indians and horse soldiers, in 25mm scale, looked excellent. One thing about these last two presentations. Both the CONK ON THE NOGGIN and the PONY WARS games were fairly small scale skirmish actions. Both games, to make the action last a little longer, apparently required two hits to kill a figure. And both games used casualty caps to indicate the first hit. It disturbs my refined and delicate sense of the aesthetic to see an excellently painted figure run around the table blinded by a large black plastic cap placed over his head. It is my contention that casualty caps, like smoking, should be barred from miniatures conventions. Unfortunately, at this one, neither was. For a couple of minutes I watched Pat Condray's Marlburian game in 15mm. It was a typical Condray game in that the players were utterly helpless without Pat's continual assistance in reading the rules... which, apparently, is what Pat wants. Hal Thinglum's Isalahwanda battle displayed many good looking 25mm British troops against many more good looking Zulus. Hal's presentations, the ones that I have seen, are "mass" efforts ... hundreds of figures. No need for casualty caps here, as there are always enough figures per side to enable handfuls of little men to be removed without making a dent in the size of the opposing forces. The THREE MUSKETEERS, a role playing game with one figure per player, was worth observing for a while. The scenario took place inside a castle, whose interior was gridded into 4 inch squares. The 25mm Musketeers could move two squares per turn, searching for the Queen, or her necklace, or the evil Richelieu's Guardsmen. Each 4 inch square had a teeny table, or chair, or candlelabra, or vase, which could be used to bash the opponent. I noted a distinct lack of adherence to the Dueling Honor Code of 1548; as soon as an opponent was sighted, everyone would converge on the poor fellow in a mass gang bang. The victim would go down under a torrent of chairs, tables, lamps, etc ... very historically realistic. I noted one modern house-to-house scenario set out on a 4 foot by 8 foot long field. The attacking force was to start out on one of the 4 foot baselines and fight its way up the 8 foot length of the table. Single mounted 20mm figures were used in this WWII action. The game was played on Friday night; at the finale, the attacking force had penetrated at least 2 feet in from its baseline. On a repeat performance on Saturday, a 3 foot penetration was achieved. At this rate, it would take 5 or 6 conventions before the entire table was called into play. AGE OF REASON was the third game in which I registered. An interesting two-table Seven Years War affair with 25mm figures. Here, I was teamed with Johnson Hood's daughters Charlie and Charlette, as we French fought off a British attack on Fort Francais. On Table 1 were the advancing British land forces (3 guns, 4 infantry units and a bunch of friendly Indians) escorting a siege train with gunners, whose intent it was to set up on Kershner Hill and bombard the fort. Holding up the British advance were me, with 2 units of French, and Charlie, with 3 units of Indians. Unit size ranged from 12 to 16 figures. On Table 2, we French had about a dozen guns in the fort and 4 defending units. And swiftly closing in was the British fleet of 5 ships, many, many, guns and a superior landing force of infantry. Charlie is in the 7th grade, and I had no problem in assuming command, telling the wee lass I was an experienced Indian fighter and woodsman. Battle Plan A405Z called for: Charlie's 3 Indian regiments (?) brigades (?) or whatever clumps Indians come in, were to hide on Kershner Hill and ignore all the advancing troops except for the siege train. Get the siege train, prevent the fort from being bombarded, win the game. As simple as that. But we forgot about the "Blood Lust' rule. For each Indian unit, three 6-sided dice are thrown, and if a "1" appears, it's "Blood Lust" time! When their time of the month comes, Indian units go berserk and attack the nearest enemy troops with Plus Power... plus in melee, morale, etc. There is something "ethnic" about all these Indian rules. Even Bill Protz's game had a "White men surrounded by Indians" negative modifier. Not, mind you, an "Indians surrounded by White men". but only the reverse. Surely if the NAACP or similar group knew how we wargamers treat Indians, they'd zero in on us. And rightly so... why didn't Bill, for example, include "Canadians surrounded by Nova Scotians"? Or even the more generic "Anybody surrounded by anybody else"? But I digress ... back to the AGE OF REASON and Blood Lust. Blood Lust One of Charlie's warbands got its Blood Lust up and charged forward. Defensive fire did not cool the the Blood Lust ... Round 1 of the melee was fought and since both sides took equal casualties, a second round was decreed for the next turn. For an unexplained reason, however, Blood Lust cooled -- apparently evaporated -- between rounds; here were all these Indians hatcheting and knifing and sticking and kicking Britishers and suddenly - POOF! - their Blood Lust vanished, and with it, all their plus modifiers. It was not surprising that when their Blood Lust went away, so did the Indians. They routed in Round 2. Blood Lust was well and good, but it fouled up Battle Plan A405Z. The Indians couldn't concentrate on the siege train and that left me, the French reserve. I had entered on the western edge at Point A and got hung up with a couple of units heading north on The Pike. The British se t up a gun, which I charged. My 16 Courier du Bois figures surged towards the 3-man crew. The crewmen fired, knocking off one Courier and the remaining 15 passed a morale test and closed on the 3 British artillerymen. A fascinating way of resolving melee: a. First you get a "pip" per man. With 15 men I got 15 pips. Every 6 pips gets you one die, so that I had 2 full dice and 3 pips left over. The 3 left over said that a 1, 2, or 3 on a 3rd die would be "activated". b. Now to the melee table. For every modifier, you get a full die. A die for fighting against artillery, a die for an officer accompanying the charge, a die for being in close order, etc., etc. I wound up with a total of 8 dice. c. Now you throw all your dice, add 'em up and divide by 6 ... that's how many casualties you score on the opponent. The side scoring fewer casualties loses the melee. I took my 8 dice, threw 'em, added 'em up, divided by 6 ... and killed one artilleryman! Unbelievable! The artillery crew threw its 2 dice and killed one of mine! A standoff. Never had this happened before, stated our host... artillery always lost, artillery were always beaten unmercifully, artillery were pushovers, he said, smiling. I did not smile back. In Round 2, I managed to eke out a victory with my 8 dice. But the two-round melee had given the second British gun an opportunity to pull back, unlimber and set up, facing. What care I? CHARGE!! Enough of this. While Charlie and I were valiantly trying to hold up the siege artillery, the British fleet pounded the fort and put enough guns out of commission to permit a landing to be made. Fort Francois fell, and I left to attend an HMGS-Midwest meeting. Not too much at the meeting. President Hal Thinglum called on various members to say silly things (same as our HMGS meetings, but we have the excuse that we meet after midnight). First Todd Fisher said a silly thing, then Ken Kaufman said a silly thing, and then the entire ensemble began shouting silly things. Yup... just like our meetings. And in conclusion: a good convention, well run, pleasant people, lots of old friends, a relaxed atmosphere. Need I say more? Back to PW Review June 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