HMGS / Pacific Southwest

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While setting up we get our first player

In keeping with our pledge to get “new blood”, “Old friends” and give HMGS/PSW a larger presence in the South West we have begun an outreach program of taking HMGS/PSW sponsored games to new and old venues. This weekend Steve Gausche and I took “Wings of War” to the Strategicon convention held Presidents weekend at the Radisson LAX hotel in Los Angeles.

We tried clouds in a few games

Lots of walk by players

We ran the game almost continuously from 10 am to 11 pm that evening! The game was a complete success with at least 15 or more new players cycling through during the day. Some would come, play, and then return to play again. At one time during the evening session we had 7 or eight planes in the sky! With different players and lots of onlookers. One family came over and played Mother, Father, and “Sully” great little 7 year old who picked up the game so quick that he shot me out of the sky by the second game! A future HMGS/PSW member there!

Wings of War is very nice looking game for little investment!

I know I’ll get questions on the “Matt” used so here’s the ansewer “I made it or Air brushed it the night before the convention in about an hour and a half” It’s not done as the airbrush clogged up a 11pm and I was to tired to clean it!

Plenty of flyers for the HMGS/PSW Spring conventionwere handed out and we actually picked up two new members and heard rumors of several “old” members planning to return to the fold at the next convention. I had great conversations with Mark Parker and Allen Hughes two great past Presidents of HMGS/PSW as well as with Rocky of the “Last Grenadier” and Steve of “The War House”. Both Rocky and Steve informed me that the 10% HMGS/PSW discount is still in place to paid, card carrying HMGS/PSW members at their shops. Ray Gonzalez and Mike Reuier of the Art of War Terrainfame were their and have committed to come our convention as dealers! I know many of you buy terrain from them off “ebay” save the shipping and hit them up at the convention!

HMGS/PSW member Robert Boyens runs his very nice American War of Indipendence game that included two past HMGS presidents

It was quite a busy day for me and I wish I could have spent two days there but my “anniversary” is the 14th and you all know how well that would go over! I did manage to squeeze in a conversation with Janice Sellers from Stategicon about helping us to encourage a bigger presence at their convention and I think it will bear fruit…. There were at least 3-4 HMGS member games there this time and at least 5 at the last Airport convention so we are a presence there.

Another HMGS/PSW member runs his beautiful 25mm American Civil War game on Saturday.

One thing I did notice was that just having our convention flyers laying out some where for people to possibly find and pick up is no good, not enough! People are busy at the cons and distracted by many things, seeing a flyer on a table much less reading or picking it up is rarely done. We need to actively give them out to every player or passerby at our games! I did this at my table and was pleasantly surprised at the great reactions from people who otherwise would never have known! I also walked over to several other non HMGS events and handed them out. I think the word is really getting out on this next convention and I hope we have the games to play for these new attendee’s! This is going to be a big step towards a future bigger con or even a third convention but we need to hook these new people with a bunch of great games for them to play in… lets get those event written up and info, table reservations, and time off to Alex Webster ASAP! We need the Preliminary Events List up SOON!

We picked up some new planes for the HMGS/PSW “Wings of War” set and some for the home set. Steve also picked up the new WWII version of the game along with some planes and we will give that one a try soon! It to may be a game to add to the HMGS/PSW stash.

All in all it was a great time and worth the putting up with the small inconveniences of “Airport” cons.

Yours in Gaming

Bill Witthans
President HMGS/PSW

Happy New Year to all!

I thought I would write up a short report with a few pictures of the first battle I played in 2010! Don King, Kevin Rounsaville, Mike Kennedy, Kevan Thomas, and Tim? (Sorry you didn’t sign the sheet and my memory stinks for names!) had met through the Asianwar yahoo group and I found that they were playing BAW (battles in the age of War) Samurai rules. The group invited me down for a January 2 battle and I loaded my troops up and headed off. It is always good to play games with groups outside your own as you find out many things about rules sets that you had been doing wrong, never knew, or found that the other group had a completely different take on it, you also find that other groups struggle in much the same way in interpating the rules as you do…LOL! Such was this game; I learned a lot and even think I brought a little knowledge to them as well.

Kevan was quick to point out important points through out the game!

With 6 players we decided that one big game with a 1000 points a side we be best as we could all work on the rules together. The most knowledgeable players were split up and we had at it. Don, Kevin R, and I being on the attacking side and Mike, Kevan T, and Tim, defending or so we thought! BAW has a typical “Peter Pig” / RFCM pregame setup where players spend “Koku” or money in the form of dice rolled to gain points that are then spent to influence the coming battle. This influence for a samurai battle is in the very historical form of Treachery, Family, Weather, Ninjas, Battle preparation, sieges, and more. This has a very nice effect of creating a battle other than a straight up head bang. With our game it put Tim’s side on the defense with a lot of his troops being late to the battle due to bribery I think it was. Tim compensated with a bold plan of taking the initiative and attacking us! That sort of threw us off balance for the whole game and allowed his follow on troops some time to arrive.

On my flank I was lucky to have some good early generalship rolls and my troops surged forward to occupy the vacant hills were Tim’s “missing” troops should have been.

My Samurai and Ashigaru "Teppo" infantry grab the hill without a fight.

I should have kept going! (hindsight) and tore into his on ashigaru teppo (gun) unit but since the other side of the battle was not going as planned I thought I would hold the hills (my orders) for a bit and see what happened. I figured I could shoot up the opposing troops but again Tim beat me to the punch hit my gunners first causing disorder that several bad rolls on my part could not remedy! At this point the center and far wings under Kevin and Don were a see saw battle with no clear winner.

The battle rages on the left flank. Samurai battles are about as colorful as you can get!

I thought about switching sides with typical Daimyo logic but as Tim’s troops were arriving and he looked like the kind of general that upon swearing loyalty to might ask me to prove it by committing Seppuku! I sent in my smaller Samurai unit to engage his Ashigaru gunners. A fierce struggle insued with neither of us winning at first. At this point I just cared about running out the clock on the battle; it did with the victory going to Tim, Mike, and Kevan T’s side getting “A good Win”

Troops from the enemy defend the hills in the center.

Don our fearless leader (Diamyo) surveys the carnage from his well stocked "Maku" area!

Some of Tim's troops on my side.

Several of us are trying to organize a group to play Samurai Battles a various spot in the Southland and if you have an army or would like to start playing please contact me so we can ad you to the player list!

Thanks to all and we’ll be back!

Bill Witthans

Bill witthans and Doug Kendrick develop their clever plans!

I have always had a love for things Japanese, the “structure” of life there with its “codes” and rules of conduct fascinated me. This has carried naturally over into Wargaming. Years ago I bought a “Twin Dragons” boxed 15mm Samurai army after playing in a Killer Katanas battle at one of the Southern California conventions. I never sat down and “did” the army at one time but added units over the years as the painting Samurai bug hit me. I also never really played with them as opponents where hard to find. Samurai battles was a real “niche” game and then the 3 or so basing schemes for the different rules sets made it even tougher. I would still get a KK2 game in every couple of years and then paint for awhile afterwards. I became involved several years ago with the Bengal Club and met Doug Kendrick who also had a love for the Japanese warring States period. We soon got together for several battles using KK2 rules but were not that happy with them. Any rule set you try to play without having the help of players already well versed in the game or having a support page to ask questions or get rules clarifications is more than likely going to be tough. Most KK2 games left many questions unanswered.

Doug then played in a Demo game of BAW (Battles in the Age of War) at Brookhurst Hobbies and was quite enthused about the rules. I had 2 Killer Katanas 15mm armies based already and was hardly looking forward to rebasing for a new rule set. We decided to play a game using “counters” of the appropriate size to represent our forces and try it out. BAW does not use figure count, rather each stand represents a number of “real” soldiers and whole stands are removed for losses. This is also nice since you can build your armies “bases” and add the painted figures later while playing and learning the rules immediately. There is a big “before game” section with a chance to do the things so common in “feudal state” period Japanese battles, like Treachery, Battle preparation, weather, family ties, ninja, and more. You get 60 “Koku” dice and “spend” these dice trying to influence the outcome in these different categories. You and you opponent then go down the category list and using the number of dice each has allotted for that category roll against each other, 4,5,6 indicating success, the player with the most successful rolls wins that category and depending on how much he won by consults a chart for the result. These results are very entertaining and help to simulate the maneuvering and fate that effects real battles but is mostly missing in “wargames”. For instance Doug beat me at “treachery” by 3 dice resulting in;

“We must not trust Lord Ishonawa! His troops are not yet mustered”. Doug then gets to pick one of my flanks and force me to roll to see if some of my clan generals troops have not come to the battle as a result of the enemy making a deal with one of my vassals to be “late” to the battle!

I beat Doug in the “Weather” category, for a result of;

“The weather has been good to us my lord. The roads are good. Lady Shinoba has sent many bales of rice!” That resulted in good supplies for one of my clans and the good roads made the journey to the battlefield easy, so each of my units on that flank got +2 activation points on turn 1.

The game has a lot of these types of events that go beyond the scope of most wargames that end up being a straight up “dice roll offs” and make for a very interesting and unpredictable game that lends itself well to repeat playing. The rules for fighting themselves are fairly well organized and complete with no questions left unanswered if you are willing to look! The end of the game also has a point system that when added up gives you a margin of victory result, something else sadly missing in many games.

So the end result is that I spent 10 hours completely rebaseing TWO 15mm armies, about 150 bases! I think it will be well worth it,

Battle report:

News that the fool Dougashika and Mattosan’s armies had invaded my province had reached the castle only days before, I quickly sent messenger out to “Mikkeo” my trusted vassal to rush to the pass of “harmony” to defeat the enemy. Treachery however was used by the enemy and many of our “trusted” men were “late” to the battle! We had hoped to attack the enemy at dawn but were delayed having to wait for most of our troops. We were forced into a defensive roll and picked the “Hoen, Million Doors” formation that gives an army a balanced structure, sort of a wait and see style.

“Dougashika” and “Mattosan” lost no time in moving into meet our troops in the center since both flanks were weak or “missing” and hoped to defeat us by using all their forces to crush my center. We held back awaiting those missing troops. The enemies dice gave them only average movement and that coupled with a “mistake” in setting up the deployment (an extra foot of battlefield was included! This made Doug and Matt take longer to get to us) prevented them from being able to fully close with us before the end of the game (each turn the defender rolls a D6, when the total adds up to 20 its game over!). This coupled with good rolls to bring our missing troops on and a disastrous charge by “Dougashika’s” samurai cavalry against my foot Samurai led to a draw do to a blinding early snowstorm ending the battle. We will meet again!

Do you have a 15mm samurai army gathering dust on your shelf! Give us a shout! Let’s play!

Yours in Gaming!

Bill Witthans
President HMGS/PSW

PS: I know some of you are playing games over this Thanksgiving holiday, lets see those Battle reports here!

Mike's late arriving Samurai and Ashigaru cross a stream threatening Matti's flank attack!

Matt adds his troops to the center attack

Doug's Samurai cavalry close with my samurai!

Always interested in the “Tour de France”  bicycle race I came across this rare picture of the “Tour” held in 1940! It was by the way won by a “German Feldwerbel” named Helmut Braun shown here leading the pack in one of hilly sections outside Paris. The course that year started in the Ardennes forest and ended at the “Arc de Triumph” in Paris. It was also one of the only two years that the Race allowed participants to carry guns! the other gun carrying year was 1944 and everyone knows that year was won by an American named “Kilroy Washere” although French Bicyclist Charles DeGaulle always claimed that the Free French team was first into Paris. Many believe that this is where the term “the Gaul of that man” came from….

The race years of 1941, 1942, and 1943 were strictly German French affairs with competition between the German “Fortress Europe” team and the French team “Partisans” quite fierce! The British did try and send a team but in a classic British “goof” sent the team to “Dieppe” and were promptly sent home by the Germans for not “having their papers in order”

Hi all,

I have reached the saturation point and now must give away some of my terrain I
no longer use. I have my country in a crate that was used for many years at
convention for micro armor battles. I no longer do Micro armor so I will pass
this on. It is still in perfect shape and come in its own Crate with wheels!
8-10 2×4 fiber glassed ceiling tile with terrain ranging for flat, gentle hills,
rivers, to city. This would also be great for Battle Tech games. This is all set up so as to be assembled in different configurations. roads will connect in many configerations.

Give me a call or email!

Bill Witthans
661-257-0196
vonkluge@ca.rr.com

HMGS/PSW Officers use only the latest innovations in in communication technology to bring you the latest gaming news!

Hi all! With the site up for only a few days I see it getting better! I encourage everyone to take a stab at putting something up ANYTHING! Don’t worry if it is silly or world shaking, the point is to use and get familiar with the site and how it works. I’m in here constantly fiddling and learning how to modify and make thing better… Matt then comes along and fixes my fixes…lol. I know we must both be in here “editing” at the same time sometimes! I hope to have a little “How too” page on how this system works (Matt?) but basically you post to the main page Everything and the program just sorts it out and list it in categories, so instead of looking through all the post you hit a category you are interested in and it brings up all the post related to that. If you guys need or want other “categories” let one of the two Webmaster’s Matt or me know via the suggestion box and we will add it. Yours in Gaming! By the way I have talked to HMGS (east) and they are up dating our info on their site. It will no longer “redirect” to the yahoo group page but here. I imagine Yahoo group traffic will decrease as traffic here increases. I will do most of my communication here instead of there now.
Bill Witthans President HMGS/PSW

Hobby Night
Monday November 23, 2009
6:00 pm – 11:00 pm
(This event repeats every week until Thursday December 31, 2009.)
Location: Knights of Columbus Hall in Anaheim
Street: 1127 North Anaheim Blvd.
City State Zip: Anaheim, CA
Phone: 714-414-2749

Notes:
The hall is open for open gaming every Monday night. (Except on the three day weekends, Labor Day, Memorial Day and Presidents Day)

Jesse Boyens shows what an HMGS/PSW convention is all about!

Doug Kendrick and Bill Witthans ran a Boxer Rebellion game.

The recent HMGS/PSW “Fall Campaign” convention was one of the best attended in recent years and we picked up about a dozen new members! All the Game space was occupied including the “Stage” area both Saturday and Sunday from early in the morning Saturday through the evening and right up to the packing up of the “boards” Sunday at five pm! There was a “new” positive energy about the convention that has been missing for sometime. Players and Game Masters were going the extra mile to have a successful convention and it worked! I do not think anyone left this convention “let down” or disappointed! Alex Webster did his usual great job and we all thank him!

Our regular HMGS/PSW meeting was held which included elections where a New President and Vice President were elected, the post of Convention Manager and Treasurer remained with the unopposed incumbents.

Yours in Gaming

Bill Witthans
President HMGS/PSW