Hundreds of people came through the room throughout the day and spoke positively about the attention to detail and realistic appearance of the layout. Yet Khartoum wasn’t just a tabletop display, it was a full game ready to play. When told it was a game; many of the younger crowd were eager to jump in and start playing. Due to the enthusiastic attention that the Khartoum tabletop was receiving, the battle didn’t get to start until later when the crowds thinned out a bit.

Once they did, four young men followed in the footsteps of many a Victorian-era gentleman by taking command of the elements of both sides to see if History would be repeated…. or changed.

The battle started out well with Her Majesty’s troops gaining the initiative. They manned the walls of Khartoum, watching as the Dervish came into view. Meanwhile, orders went out to the Red Sea Force to move in, and the Nile River Force to start down river. You can see here the troops and their supplies starting on the southern voyage to try and relieve the beleaguered city.

From Rod Galati’s fine 28mm Sudan collection (painted by himself). Steamboats crafted and constructed by the gifted Frank “Bama” Patterson. The British River Force departs from camp at Korti and begins its 400 mile journey – negotiating treacherous cataracts on its way up the Nile to rescue Gordon trapped in Khartoum. The advance guard of the River Force under General Earle, is led by a 9 pounder artillery piece on the bow and a Gatling machine gun on the top deck. The 42nd Highlanders (The Black Watch) man the decks and are in tow.
The Steamboat at Meddina also made steam as she headed out to help evacuate the civilians from the city before the Mahdi’s forces arrived. meanwhile, far across the desert sands, the British Camel Corps were venturing out into the Sahara on their way to the Oasis in an attempt to get some forces to Khartoum as soon as possible.

The Camel Corps, desperate to quench their thirst, makes a determined push for the Wells at Abu Klea driving off a Dervish scouting party. The Camel Corps, led by Gen. Stewart, was an ad hoc formation of hand picked troops from each of the best regiments in the British Army. Their mission was to cut across the desert and make for Metemmeh, along the Nile and board Gordon’s pre-positioned steamboats and make the last hundred mile dash to rescue the city.
The Mahdi meanwhile was doing everything he could to stop the British from thwarting his attempts to make his way to Jerusalem via Khartoum. He sent some of his Dervish across the desert and down the Nile in little skiffs to try and delay the British.

The Hadendowa tribe (Fuzzy Wuzzies of Kipling’s poem) led by the Turco-Sudanese Slave trader, Osman Digna, makes a ferocious attack upon the Red Sea Force as the Brits try and force there way through the rugged mountain passes to gain access to the Nile and then on to relieve Gordon of Khartoum. General Graham in Scarlet tunic upon a white horse leads men of the Naval brigade (Royal Marines & sailors) Scots Guards and Bengal (India) Infantry.

Things were not looking good for the British as the enemy Dervish swept across the barren sands on their way to the walls of Khartoum. The rabble force stretched across the horizon as they swarmed onwards toward the defenders of the city.
Fierce fighting broke out as Her Majesty’s troops engaged the oncoming enemy. Meanwhile, behind them, the Red Sea Force was able to wipe out one of the Mahdi’s units, causing the rest to cower in the sands as the Red Sea Force pushed onwards. In the east, the Camel Corps fought through a number of ambushing Dervish to gain the oasis where they rested and prepared to move on into Meddina to gain more transport upriver.

Alas, it was too late for Her Majesty’s defenders on the walls. The Dervish managed to breach the walls and flooded into the city, causing the remaining British troops and their Egyptian allies to fall back to their internal fortress where General Gordon tried to hold out.

Eventually though, General Gordon managed to fight his way through to the steamboat at the docks to escort the civilians to safety while the city burned behind him. As the sun set on that day’s engagements, Her Majesty’s troops started a slow pullback while the Mahdi’s forces continued their rampage in the abandoned city of Khartoum.
There were so many people at the Muzeo who wanted to see this display again; most of them were just as eager to see the game played through. Special thanks goes out to Rod Galati once again for his generosity and support of this endeavor through the use of his extensive collection of miniatures. Maybe soon another opportunity to replay the History of Khartoum will come to the Muzeo again. The Kabel Gallery is available for the HMGS/PSW to exhibit games in until the end of the year. Please contact VP Harmon Ward for information. If you don’t have an army or know the era very well, please volunteer anyway. We always need a lot of members available to speak to the public about historical miniature gaming.

To those besides Bill who actually check out my posts:

Yesterday I spent the day at Orangecon, the yearly big contest held by my IPMS club here in Southern California. I had a blast! It was one of the best days ever. I won five raffle prizes; one of which I sold, and I also took delivery (finally!) of my 1/72 scale German Dora Railgun! What a monster that beast is!

The cream of the day is the fact that I also placed Third in Rotary Wing Aircraft; All Types, All Scales with my Hobbycraft 1/72 scale Piasecki H-21 Flying Banana!

This is one of the models I have started and worked on at St. Crispin’s Hobby Days on Mondays and Saturdays. Some of you may have even seen it at any one of those days if you’ve ever been down to St. Crispin’s.

I consider any award I win at Orangecon to be second only to an award from the Nationals. Then again, it is my club’s contest; and it is the premier contest in Southern California. It is also the toughest one for me to place in and that means I earned it!

Now that all that is done; I’ll be trying to finish up my armored train before I start that monster Dora. I’m hoping by the end of the year I’ll be done with the train and then I can start the New Year with the Dora under construction.

Meanwhile we were trying to decide how to get the Nile to look like the Nile and be worthy of the tabletop battle for Khartoum. What we were using was a brown tape that; while pretty accurate in color, looked too much like a road. Suddenly, RJ himself came up with a brilliant idea.

We got some rope and laid it out on the underside of the tabletop terrain cloth:

Once we’d shifted the rope around to get the best representation of what we wanted, we taped it into place and then flipped the terrain cloth. The Nile was now a channel passing down the battlefield:

Yes, it is a little hard to see in this pic, but the effect was excellent.

Now what to do….

Blue carpet was then purchased and cut into long sections that fit right into the two banks on each side of the channel. Then we shot some green and brown paint over the carpet in a light spray, simulating a green-brown river.

And the Nile was flowing free!

We continued to work on the tabletop, getting it ready for the opening of the Muzeo exhibit. Khartoum got a ‘paved’ section that was cut from the carpet as well, allowing us to keep the city in the same size and shape we wanted for maximum effect:

Frank Patterson also finished up a couple of his paddlesteamers that will be used by Her Majesty’s troops on the Nile:

Forgive the use of Civil War troops here; we were using them as templates to insure that the stands of the Mahdi’s force and Her Majesty’s troops would fit on the boats properly. Both the Mahdi’s forces and Her Majesty’s troops are based the same as these Civil War troops.

Here is a barge he also did, simply by leaving the upper cabin and deck off the boat. It’s all loaded with more troops for the besieged city of Khartoum:

So now you all have a sneak preview of what the Khartoum battlefield will look like:

So, now that you’ve seen all this, we at St. Crispin’s do hope to see all of you stopping buy to see the battle. Who knows? You may even make or re-make History should you decide to take command of one or the other of the forces vying for control of the lower Nile….

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:

Frank Patterson's Ingenious Steam Engine.

Frank Patterson's First Paddle steamer with Three More Awaiting Completion

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!

Back in May a friend and I were manning the IPMS booth at the Chino Air Show. Further down the flightline was sitting a Piasecki H-21 Flying Banana that we both thought was an unflyable static display. Well, as we were packing up after the airshow, we heard an interesting sound and looked up to see the Piasecki sitting on the taxiway firing up it’s engines. We stopped what we were doing and watched as it fired up, taxi’d out and did a rolling takeoff. What a sight!

As soon as I got home I dug through my stash to find this Hobbycraft kit and got started.

Now, a couple weeks later, here it is all completed:

The Duke's 1/72 scale US Army Piasecki H-21 Flying Banana

I added the extra large insignia and “ARMY” on the side from my spare decals to make it look more like the one that was at the airshow. Other than that, it’s built OOB. I hand painted the canopy rails too.

I am working on several more trucks and modern armored vehicles at St. Crispin’s on Mondays as well. I am able to get alot of work done on these models before taking them home to finish up.

Thanks all for looking in. Comments are always welcome.

Friday night at Gamex there was a large scale General Quarters WWII cruiser battle host by the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Harold Hildebrand hosted Coral Sea using Victory at Sea rules. In both battles the USN discovered that the Japanese Long Lance torpedoes were pretty deadly. There were demo’s of Uncharted Seas and Full Thrust. Mostly everyone was settling in and checking in and playing some pick up games. The HMGS/PSW members were attending their third convention in four months! Tomorrow is the big day. The So Cal Crusaders are bringing out a huge Warhammer 40K Apocalypse battle on a 16 foot table. Dave Maupin of the HMGS/PSW is laying down a great looking 100 Years War battle and the is a National Qualifier Flames of War Tournament.
On Saturday the gaming began early and participation grew throughout the day. Eric came by at 2:30pm and mentioned that we were already at last years  attendance of 1,000. There was a great WWII Squad Skirmish game hosted by Rob Boyens, and a Flames of War tournament. Harold set down a great Warhammer Ancient Battles tournament with an Age of Arthur theme. Preliminary reports indicate that attendance exceeded last years numbers by over 10%. It appears that our long winter may be coming to an end. Thanks to all of the volunteers who did such an outstanding job hosting an extraordinary event.

SUMMER OFFENSIVE

Its Summer get your friends together and come on down!!!

Get more for your HMGS-PSW dollar(s)and start the summer off right with Mini-Mini Wars, a one-day only HMGS-PSW convention (hence the Mini-Mini Wars name) to be held on Saturday June 25, 2011, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Anaheim (some of you will know this as the place where the St. Crispin’s Irregulars group meets). The address is:

1127 North Anaheim Bl., Anaheim, CA. 92801.

Print some and send around!!!

Mini-Mini Wars Flyer in PDF

Mini-Mini Wars Flyer in DOC

Summer Offensive Final Events List DOC

Summer Offensive Final Events List in DOC

Why now, why there, and who’s doing this, you ask?

A couple of us, myself (Steve Reid) Skip Gardella, Mark Deliduka, and George Paler thought it would be nice to have a “Mini con Gathering” to start the summer so with the backing and support of HMGS/PSW  we have organized our first “Mini- Mini con. June 25th is the first Saturday of summer, so it seems like a good time to hold the first of what will hopefully be a number of one-day cons in different places, in order to make your membership even more valuable and to help us continue to grow. The KoC Hall is a little more centrally-located, and though it’s too small for a weekend-long event, it should be perfect for a smaller, one-day con. Plus it’s affordable for us and it’s got free parking and a kitchen!

Admission will be free to all paid-up HMGS-PSW members, for non-members it will be $10 payable at the door.

Non-members are encouraged to become members and attend all of our events for free of course (hint, hint)! Members can check their membership status by calling 661-816-7991 and re-up by using the “Paypal” feature on our site. http://www.hmgspsw.org/

The usual lunch and dinner fare will be served for the usual $5. Doors will open at 9 AM and games will run from 10 AM to 10 PM. That’s 12 hours of bonus gaming time to kick off the summer!

Regarding the games: There’s room for 7 or 8 games at the KoC Hall, and they’ll have to fit on 5′ x 8′ or 5′ x 12′ tables. The plan is to set up the games at 9 AM and run each game more than once, allowing players to try multiple games and allowing GMs to take a break and play in someone else’s game for awhile. To make things easy, we’re not going to have multiple sessions – the games will set up and stay set up all day long, so don’t be shy, try something you haven’t played before! Pretty cool, huh? We’ve got a few games lined up already so we only need a couple more, but preference will be for games that last 2-3 hours and we’re going to try to keep it to historical games. Contact info is below if you’re interested in running a game (we don’t have any ancients, Napoleonic, FoW, or naval games yet) but please keep it on the smaller side and be prepared to run the game more than once.

Mini-Mini Wars Flyer in PDF

We’re also going to have a “Painting Clinic” run by member Mark. Whether you’re new to the hobby and looking to learn “how-to” or an old hand looking for some new tricks, let Mark show you that it’s much easier than you think to paint some good-looking figures in a short amount of time. We really NEED some of you to donate some of the figures you have sitting around that you’ll never get to painting to make this happen though. See the contact info below if you can donate a few figures; the goal is that everyone participating (especially our newer members) can take the figures home after Mark demonstrates that painting miniatures doesn’t have to be intimidating.

The other thing we REALLY need is some volunteers to help set up and take down the tables and chairs, some kitchen help, some help to man the desk (checking for membership cards, etc.), and a few more games. To ease the work load from our already over-burdened officers Steve Reid has been tasked to coordinate the volunteers and help with all of the arrangements. If you have any questions about the games, if you can run a game, if you can donate some miniatures for the painting clinic, IF YOU CAN VOLUNTEER TO HELP, or if you just want to say “Hey, it’s great that we’re having a one-day con in Anaheim, I’ll be there”, PLEASE contact me, Steve Reid at:

frog@graphicpenguin.com

or by phone at (818) 951-1350.

Summer Offensive Flyer PDF

One last thing: If you want to come but live far enough away to not want to drive, there is an Amtrak station in Anaheim not too far from the KoC Hall. Check the train schedule at:

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/HomePage

and get your tickets. If you can let us know when you’ll be arriving and departing at least one week ahead of the con we’ll make sure someone picks you up and gets you back to the station in time to catch your train. Just south of the hall at the 5 Freeway is the Disneyland bus terminal. Buses from all over pull in there all through the day and their traffic often increases on the weekend. From there a quick trip north on the 43 Bus line on Harbor Blvd. and you are just a short walk away from the hall.

That’s it fellow gamers!

Mini-Mini Wars

Sat. June 25, 2011 10 AM – 10 PM

Knights of Columbus Hall, 1127 North Anaheim Bl., Anaheim, CA.

Come on out, bring a friend, and play some games! Let’s make the first of our one-day cons a big success!

Steve Reid

Frank Patterson and his able assistant work on the Tarawa airfield. The island is set up with a lot of perimeter detail as American intelligence had the clearest picture of those defenses. As the Marines proceed inland, they are going to find the depth of the Japanese defenses.

As the battle rages, an American minesweeper braves enemy gunfire and coral reefs to support the pinned down Marines.

Since our esteemed President, Bill (Witthans), was kind enough to plug my fledgling painting service, I thought it only fitting to provide some more information (prices, services etc.) and some examples of my work.

I have been painting miniatures for about 30+ years in one form or another starting with car kits and moving to 1/32 scale military, then to 25 mm role playing figures and finally 28/30 mm fantasy, Sci Fi and historic.

Below are some samples of my recent work on Royal Navy, Pirate, Fantasy and 40K.

My prices are dependent on the amount of detail a given customer will want, but generally speaking I charge $5.00 – $7.00 a figure for 25 – 30 mm foot. That would include base colors, washes and simple highlights (dry brush etc.) Mounted 25 – 30 mm would run $10 – $12 per figure for the same type of service. 20mm run $3.50 to $4.00 per figure for foot, 15mm $1.00 per figure for foot. Anything smaller then 15mm or larger then 30mm would need a price quote.

Priming, prepping and basing are all separate charges usually an additional $1 to $2.

I will put together a more comprehensive list of services and prices and update you all very soon.

I can be reached by E-mail at Colonel Winky or by phone at (818) 675-5399

Thanks for your time,

Colonel Winky

Economic times are hard on us all and war gamers are not exempt. One of our members is fighting back by opening a painting service. He is HMGS/PSW member, Bengal Club founder,  friend of many of us and can be trusted to get you your mini’s on time,  and in tip top “Bristol” fashion! No need to ship them off to some far away land to be painted by a chained pygmy who only last week was painting flowers on pots…. Have someone who really knows what a “Scottish Highlander” really looks like paint yours! Col. Winky is taking orders for Historical-Fantasy-Sci/Fi in all scales. Colonial’s a specialty! I’ve seen his work and its A-OK! Call Jerry Kegley at 818-675-5399 or email him at colwinky@aol.com