HMGS / Pacific Southwest

Archive for September, 2011

For those who don’t know, The St. Crispin’s Irregulars will be putting on a Campaign at the Anaheim Muzeo in support of the Muzeo’s Victorian Era exhibit. The battle will be Khartoum in the late 1800′s and the game will be a strategic one to see if this time the British get their reinforcements to Khartoum on time.

What will be instrumental in getting Her Majesty’s troops to the city of Khartoum will be some steam-powered river paddle wheelers at Medina. Yesterday, Frank Patterson brought in his materials and continued construction on the first of four paddle steamers that will be used in the game. Here they are:

 

Gamers,

I am very pleased to report that the Strategicon was an excellent convention in terms of breath of miniature games, attendance, and fun.

Our group started with the weekend off with our traditional “Friday Night Flames of War Battle Royale.” It was co-hosted by none other then the Great American General Keith Alexander and myself.

We fought the action at Sidi Bou Zid, which was the 1st engagement of Kasserine. We played on a 6×11 foot table

and had as many 12 players throughout the course of the game. The DAK used their top of line equipment, sent straight from the Russian front, to maul the

hapless Americans. Tons of fun and an excellent start to great con. We had some new and young players that were hooked after that and wanted to join HMGS as a result.

Saturday was a bonanza of miniatures. Jeff MacArthur started it off with his Battle of Bull Run brigade scale 15mm game which attracted at least 6 players who played from 10am until 3ish. I recognized several HMGS players as well as other usual miniatures suspects. The game looked fun and the board was

certainly a nice one. Well Done! (side note: Jeff was one of several HMGS/PSW members who attended BOTH conventions that weekend! Way to go guys; the editor)

Frank Vassallo, aka Frank Vas, aka the Vassinator, or just Vas, ran the spectacle

of spectacles in his War Machine game. He had 2 full castles with walls, towers, keeps, etc in a massive struggle with beautifully painted figures. One of them he made by scratch. Frank ran it from 10am until around 6ish–WHAT A MATCH!! He really took the cake with his show. Frank is going to have a tough time matching that one the future. I believe he had 6 or players on a 6×10 table.

I ran a 28mm ancients battle with the new rules “Hail Caesar” The Imperial Romans were attacking Herman the German in an attempt to recover Varus’ lost standards.

Despite having more troops, defensible terrain, and bashing the Roman center, Artimeus could not stop Harold’s Romans from winning a narrow victory. We had 6 players on a 4×7 foot table. It was fun and fluid game with light rules.

Steve Phenow ran his anniversary of Bull Run game in 15mm with his published rule set “Mr Lincoln’s War.” He ran the battle on what appeared to be a 6×8 foot table with top quality terrain and figures. It was a splendid looking board and it seemed to last about 4 hours.

John Flecther ran his “Latin American Wars of Independence” game in 15mm.

The board was top quality complete with a sharp water hazard that looked something out of Pebble Beach. He was able to rally 6+ players for his game on a 5×8 foot table. Everyone seemed engaged and was having fun playing it.

Mike Tan ran his World War 2 “Pocket Armies” in 10mm on a 5×10 foot hex map. His card based-histrocial miniature is good mix of fun playability with solid historical accuracy. The battle consisted of a 1943 eastern front attack by the Wehrmacht’s brand new Tigers into densely defended heavy woods. Mike

attracted 6 players and ran it Saturday and Sunday.

John Paiva from the Hong Kong Cavaliers (His group 16 games at the con, 1/2 of a dozen or so were miniatures games) ran his ‘Double Blind Midway’ battle which attracted 8 players . His ships were top quality kits mounted on bases.

Larry Stehle ran an excellent Lord of the Rings battle on Sat night featuring orc thugs, wolf-riders, and giant trolls trying to maul the Wood Elves. The figures were very well painted and his class terrain was highlighted by the watchtower in the middle of the board. The orcs got stopped cold by the skill and cunning of the elves. A fun and exciting game with a good group. Larry’s game had 7 players on a 4×6 board.

The Saturday Night Classic was in full swing with The Hong Kong Cavaliers running the historical miniatures classic : THE CHARIOT RACES. I thought I watching the Raiders in the Coliseum with the wild crowd screaming for their players (riders). FLIP FLIP FLIP roared throughout the mins hall by 25+ screaming players. That was a spectacle indeed!

Frank Vassallo ran a second game on Saturday being a late night Battletech rumble. Frank had six players on his brand new hex boards. It looked sweet!

Sunday saw no shortage of quality gaming and participation with Harold Hildebrand and Ilan Mitchell-Smith running the WarHammer Ancients (WAB) mini campaign and tournament. It was a Dark Ages campaign featuring 8 players running Vikings, Saxons, Britions-Welsh, and of course the Normans.

The figures were finely painted and the campaign featured the usual WAB players with a mixture of crossover newcomers from WHFB and 40k. It was well run and very fun series of battles with prize support with the victors. Chris Mazurik and Frank Vassallo ran the Flames of War Infantry Aces mini tournament with prize support as spoils. Frank’s first class terrain was on display as 8 players with only 500pts of infantry battled it out for several rounds of combat to become the ACE. Frank became the Ace with Sam Wallis a close second.

All in all, it was a super fun weekend of gaming and a success for HMGS/PSW in terms the quality of games, player participation, and potential for recruiting new members. Thank you to everyone who came and played. Thank you to everyone who took the time to run games and represent the hobby and chapter.

Adam Hammer

 

EDITOR’S NOTE; Thanks to Adam for stepping up to the plate and posting his first “Post”, Great effort Adam! I would also like to thank Adam for his great behind the scenes work with HMGS/PSW and for promoting Historical gaming in general. Adam is one of those members who is tirelessly working in the background to make gaming better for all of us in the Pacific Southwest, Members come to attention and doff hats! I would also like to thank Frank Vassalo and all the HMGS/PSW members who attended, ran games, and generally waved the flag at Strategicon’s Gateway convention! Insert 21 gun Salute here!

One last note, ok really 2 notes,

Adam was one of those posters who had a few bumps in doing his first post, we talked, I helped, waa laa it’s up! and a great post it is! Its not hard guys, just take a bit of effort. I learn new things about this site everyday! It is however the FACE of HMGS/PSW and our best way to show the world who we are and encourage others to become interested and get involved in this hobby. It will also become a powerful advertising tool when people think about attending one of our conventions. They will come here and see write ups on past events, be impressed, and attend.

Ok last but not least. As the “chief cook and bottle washer” here at HMGS/PSW I am pretty much the Webmaster and editor of the site. Adam’s article was the first that I have done some editing and comment inserting into. I was very apprehensive in doing this as I can remember some past problems with this. I did this for two reasons and on two levels. One on a purely structural level to make the article fit into and look better in Word press format. As we all learn to better use the program this will become less of an issue.

The next was a more direct editing where I put in extra wording or comments directly into the text and picture comments. I did this only where I felt it was of direct benefit to the readers of Adam’s article. In the future I will submit revised articles to the author’s for their approval before hitting the publish button or not do any editing (other than “”structural”) if that is their request!

Also remember you can always ad too, update or even ad more photos to any article you have posted.

Bill Witthans (editor)

Hey everyone. I’m back with more pics to post.

These are my five latest small scale armor models all completed. This brings me up to 574 completed armor models. Four of these five were started and worked on during St. Crispin’s Monday Hobby Days
and some work was even done during Saturday Hobby Day.

This first one is my 1/72 scale IBG Canadian Chevy 15CWT troop truck:

Next up is one of my three ACE kits. This is the 1/72 scale Marine Corps LAV AD Air Defense variant of the LAV-25:

 

The wheels all rotate, and the front suspension also turns on these LAV’s. It was tricky, but I got them all to work.

Here’s the second ACE kit: The 1/72 scale LAV M Mortar Carrier:

[img]http://www.the-lem.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10036/US_Marines_LAV_M_Mortar_Carrier_I.JPG[/img]

The one headlight assembly disappeared, so this one was damaged in combat. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The mortar inside rotates as well on this one. I really like this model.

If I ever find the headlight Ill put it back on, but for now, I’m calling this one done.

This next model is the Trumpeter 1/72 scale M-113 A3 APC. Now I have the whole line of them from A-nothing to A-3 as well as several variants:

[img]http://www.the-lem.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10036/US_ARMY_M_113_A3_II.JPG[/img]

Finally, this last one is the third ACE kit. This is a cool little 1/72 scale model of the GAZ M-1 Russian Army Staff Car:

[img]http://www.the-lem.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10036/Russian_GAZ_M1_Staff_Car_IIJPG.jpg[/img]

This model is only about an inch and three-quarters long. No, it is not still wet. This is supposed to be a shiny car so I shot it with Gloss Black. It took a bit of filling and sanding to get it to look this solid, but I’m pleased with the results.

Okay, that’s all my latest models finished, feel free to leave comments. Meanwhile, thanks all for looking in!