Cold Wars 2002

The Dealer Area

by Russ Lockwood



All the familiar faces were in the dealer area and I enjoyed walking around and saying hello again. As I mentioned before, it was mobbed on Friday, light on Saturday, and mobbed on Sunday.

Did I see anything new and exciting? I saw plenty in the gaming areas, and all those products were available in the dealer area.

At left: Leo Cronin from The Courier running a game.

At right, Leo Walsh of TCS with a display of his marvelous buildings.

Belle and Blade continue to amaze us with a selection of war movies that boggles the mind. One look at his catalog...I mean, who knew there were so many Zorro movies? Or that Errol Flynn's son starred in a movie (before being killed in Vietnam)?

Clash of Arms was showing its new boardgame on the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777, which will be called something else, but I cannot remember. Ed Wimble was giving demos at the booth.

At left: Ed Wimble from Clash of Arms shows off his new super-size version of Philadelphia Campaign of 1777.

At right, Ferkin holds MasterFront, the latest in Columbia's the block series of games.

Ferkin and Columbia Games brought another in his WWII block series game. I saw a couple folks playing one of the games in the open space area.

John had more plastic sheets in production for us 25mm gamers--gorgeous stuff when done. Phil Viverito (Mr. Classical Hack) produced an absolutely marvelous model of the city of Saguntum that Hannibal sieged before heading over to Italy during the Second Punic Wars. His secret: John's products. Sure enough, I forgot the camera when I talked to Phil. Phil won a HMGS streamer for best game in a session for his work.

At left: John Hutt from Precision Products, sans suspenders, poses in front of his new set of stands holding many of the sheets of terrain.

At right, George Nafziger, author and prolific publisher smiles from behind his computer and in front of some of the booklets he's produced.

Of note, and I think this is great, is a new book by George Nafziger and Marco Gioannini on the Italian Campaign of 1813. I believe it's by Praeger Press. Marco wrote a great article, among others, on the Battle of the Piave 1809. Flipping through this book, I noticed that it was full of good things like maps and orders of battle.

I've got some sad news for you Osprey Military Journal fans. It's about to end as a subscription magazine. They will be doing special issues, for example, I just saw one co-labeled with HMGS and GAMA that is going to be released in the summer. It never sold that well per se, and that it ate resources better put towards the production of those marvelous Osprey books. We'll see.

Pat Condray stands up at his dealer table of Spanish Civil War miniatures. Over his shoulder is Russ Dunaway of Old Glory Miniatures.

In the co-labeled issue, there's an article about the Battle of Cowpens, written by David Bonk. Phil Viverito also happens to be a Cowpens fanatic, and happened to be standing there when I was looking at the issue. So I nudged him and merely flashed the page proofs in his general direction. The great white shark in Jaws couldn't move faster than Phil did in snatching the pages from my hands. And he starts talking about modeling the battle and so on, and runs across a photo. It was a bit fuzzy (it's a page proof, not a final copy) and who do you think is in the photo? Well, it sure looks like Phil running a miniatures game. It made his day, so I can say the issue, even in preliminary stages, got three thumbs up from three gamers. On a sad note, after visiting Osprey in New York City, and getting my hands on an advance copy of the Supplement: Wargaming and Modeling, I'm sorry to say Phil didn't make the cut.

Speaking of magazines, there's a new boardgaming one just born: Against the Odds. The first issue looks good, and I had a chance to talk to publisher Steve Rawlings about it. He looks to produce this as a quarterly ($65 per year), with a game in each issue. The map looks absolutely gorgeous. I don't know how the game plays, but a quick flip through of the accompanying articles seems of the same wonderful physical quality--glossy, professionally printed, etc. Steve asked about MagWeb.com helping him spread the word about ATO, so here's the first bit of publicity. I think we can help him even more in the future.


Thoroughbred Miniatures 1/600 scale American Civil War
brand new Ironclad and Monitor, plus existing ships of the era.

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