The HISTORICON convention took place on July 21/22/23/24, Thursday through Sunday -- Lots of people, lots of flea marketeers, lots of games, lots of dealers, lots of space. In fact, even more space than before... HMGS secured another huge room, another quarter of an acre, to add to the leased facility. The additional area was devoted to the flea market and to pick-up games. It seemed that, at night, more gaming was being done in the new areas than in the original spaces. Bob Coggins, who has been the HISTORICON manager f or HMGS these many years, announced his retirement from the Board of Directors and from his HISTORICON role. No successor has yet been announced. Scott Holder programmed the usual WRG tournament, several rows of about 10 tables each, and each with the WRG participants sitting in splendid isolation, across from one another. Dave Waxtell's comment, upon seeing all these intense, solemn gamers, sitting across from each other, hunched over the table, all deeply concentrating on the field before them, was to the effect that they all looked like they were taking a simultaneous bowel movement. His exact language, of course, was much more colorful, but there's no reason to get into the details. As I passed by the tournament area, I noted that one player had a Burmese Army, the same type of elephant-infested force that did me in when I entered the lists at COLD WARS. I didn't stay to see if he decimated his opponent. I wandered through the gaming areas, noting (this was Friday morning at 0900) all the early birds gathered round the tables, being briefed by the game hosts. As a briefing finished, each of the involved groups seemed to break into two parts, each part off on its own, plotting, in secret, great strategic and tactical table-top moves. After a couple of days of drifting amongst the games, I began to develop a definite hostility toward 15mm figures. When the 15mm's f irst appeared, a dozen or so years ago, I had the same adverse reaction... I remember saying, in the REVIEW, that all these little scrunchies should be popped back in the lead pot and used to make some "worthwhile" figures, i.e., 25mm and 30mm figures. Over the years, I acquired my own 15mm collection... I've now got ancients and Napoleonic and ECW and ACW armies and so on... and I thought my hostile days were over... but not so. I I d approach a table-top set-up, and squint at the figures and try and determine what era was being portrayed, and then I'd lean over the table, muttering "Looks like Napoleonics, but it could be Phlavo-Kripky War of 1823..." I went hunting for games with the "big boys" ... 2 5 and 3 omm figures... and didn't find too many. A couple of very nicely laid out ACW encounters, some ancients battles, and Larry Brom's 30mm collection, but in the main, the 15mm's.had easily won the day. Perhaps I was biased because Bob Hurst, Fred Hubig and I had lugged our Seven Year's War 30mm collections to the convention to put on a pick-up game on Thursday night. If we have 30mm figures, why can't everyone else have them? HMGS had invited Don Featherstone as a guest, and, out of the clear blue Arizona skies, appeared another notable, Paul Koch, author of ON TO RICHMOND (OTR). Paul said he had tried to contact Program Manager Bob Coggins, thinking he'd volunteer to host a series of OTR games and give a lecture or two -- or three or four -- if the HMGS organization paid his way, but Bob never answered his phone calls. Alas, Paul had to pay his own way. I saw one interesting set-up; the table configuration is sketched at right: This was part of a campaign. The players had set up the Avalon Hill boardgame of NAPOLEON, the one that uses wooden blocks as counters. They would make a few moves, and if an encounter occurred, they'd switch to the gaming tables for the actual battle. I don't know what rules were being used, but it would seem they'd have to be fairly rapid to keep the action going between the campaign system and the table-top battles. Duke Siefried was present, complete with some beautiful terrain, a tape player and a loudspeaker or two, playing "military sounds" to keep the neighborhood awake. "Military sounds" seem to consist of cheering and a lot of shouting, just the thing to have at a crowded convention. It was pointed out to me that, on the Siefried table, consisting of ridges and mountainous areas, and ravines and woods and hills, etc., all beautifully done, sat a huge unpainted plastic tree in the middle of the woods. I asked Duncan MacFarlane, who was taking pictures of the display, to focus on that particular tree and feature it on the cover of his WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED. We shall see. On Saturday morning, the HMGS meeting was held... perhaps I should say that HMGS "attempted" to hold a meeting. President Pat Condray opened the session, and Bob Coggins, in his last offical act as treasurer, gave the financial report, and it was, from that point on, downhill all the way. Prez Pat announced that Board member Leo Cronin had sent in a letter of resignation (11 ... resigned in disgust... 11 was the way Pat put it) due to Leo's dissatisfaction with the lack of coordination with which the organization was run. Pat said that the Board had appointed Bill Gray to fill Leo's position until elections could be held next year. HMGS Board member Dick Sossi raised his hand, was recognized by the Prez, and Dick then stated that there was no quorum present and therefore, no business could be conducted. Dick stated that under the definition of 'quorum' contained in the by-laws, we couldn't go on. Definitely a surprising and unexpected revelation. The meeting got hot and heavy, with more and more voices raised, getting louder and louder: "There is a quorum!" "There is no quorum!" "Read the bylaws!" "Don't read the by-laws!" and so on... Through it all, the Prez stood on the podium, outwardly calm, seemingly unaffected by the proceedings. Suddenly, however, someone raised a side issue, and the Prez blew up... in fact , he blowed up ree-ee-eel good. "@#$%!%!" said the Prez, "We've got this @#$%!%! quorum issue in front of us, and we're not going to get sidetracked on another @1$%!&! issue!" These were not presidential words, but they were certainly timely. During the hustling and shouting and the bustling, someone suggested we take a quick vote of the members present to see if we could carry on business as usual. When this was presented to the Prez, however, he announced that HMGS really had no current tally of membership, that the lists were not up to date, that there were duplicate listings... in short, that there was no way to tell who was, and who wasn't, a member. And so now, therefore, two separate yet inter-related problems surfaced... first, who's a member, and second, if, indeed, there were any members present, did they constitute a quorum? The meeting started at 0800, and broke up around 0900. Imust admit that I've never attended so lively an HMGS session, and I've attended all of them since beyond the dawn of time. After all the real-time strife-and noise and conflict, going back to the quiet gaming areas -- where little people, 1- inch tall, were killing each other -- constituted a veritable let-down. Usually, at each convention, I find what appears to be an interesting game, camp myself down beside the host, and watch for a while, looking for innovative approaches. I didn't do that at HISTORICON. Some of the games used original rules, but most of them followed the published guidelines. There didn't seem to be anything worth camping next to. The one game I wanted to observe was Vic Schmidt's renaissance affair, but I arrived after the game had finished. Kiddie Game On Thursday night, our group hosted a huge SYW battle with our 30mm figures. In looking for participants, I invited a passing 'Dad' to join in and discovered that I had also invited his two accompanying kiddies to play. There were immediate rumblings from a player or two at the table ("We're trying to have a serious game, and here, Simon is inviting all the kiddies in the neighborhood."). In truth, the tots turned out fine. They kept their interest up throughout the game (they were about 9 years old, and we played past midnight) and had way more energy than I. A true kiddy game (certainly not as 'serious' as our game) was hosted by Ed Mohrman... a huge 30mm Napoleonic affair with simple rules: move your troops, throw gobs of dice, and knock the other guy's soldiers down. Casualties were simply turned over on their sides, and, passing Ed's table, it was hard to see who was left standing... all one could see was square foot after square foot of white, vertical figure bases. Over the years, the HMGS conventions have steadily improved in size and quality. The Program Managers (Bob Watts for COLD WARS and Bob Coggins for HISTORICON) have done a superb job. I'm not privy to all the HMGS inter-organizational intrigue, the behind-the-scenes dickering and bickering, and the internal politicking that goes on... but I hope that the current turmoil concerning the Board of Directors and what they can do and what they can't do, and what they should do and what they shouldn't do, doesn't affect the conventions. Back to PW Review August 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 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