HMGS / Pacific Southwest

Archive for the ‘Wargaming’ Category

Last year on December 19th our ten week run at the Muzeo in Anaheim during their “Treasures of Napoleon” exhibit came to a close. We pulled out all of the stops to host a Christmas Party to commemorate the occasion. Attendance was over forty and a wide range of groups and organizations were there. We had representatives of the HMGS-PSW including Bill Whittans, the President and Harmon Ward, the Vice President. Fritz Bronner and Margie Beeson represented the Warhorse Foundation with other renenactors in Napoleonic Era uniforms. Mark Deliduka from the International Plastic Modelers Society and Tim Knapp from SoCalWargamers were also in attendance. HMGS/PSW member and St. Crispin’s Irregulars stalwart RJ Galati started the 28mm Battle of Waterloo miniatures game and managed to run two games before the evening was over. Most attendees arrived at 3:00pm to tour the Muzeo and visit the priceless Napoleonic artifacts including his last surviving diamond signet ring and hit famous hat. At 5:00pm we walked over to the movie room and started watching “Waterloo” with Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer on the projection screen. The reenactors in uniform led us in cheers as their depicted regiments appeared on the screen. The wine, cheese and crackers, tapenade dip, basil and sun dried tomato dip and other tasty treats appeared at 6:30pm and dinner was served at 7:00. The dinner menu consisted of chicken marsala, sausage and peppers, roast turkey, pasta, meatballs and dinner rolls. Dessert was chocolate cake, peach cookies, and fudge. Everything was home made and when the cook entered the room, she received a standing ovation. The conversation continued on into the night. With lawyers, professors, actors, architects, carpenters, painters and stockbrokers in the crowd, we had a incredible range of conversations floating about the historic old Carnegie library. Napoleon and Josephine would have fit right in!

As the night wound down large numbers of people helped clean up and put everything away to continue the St. Crispin’s Irregulars tradition. There evening was a perfect blend of wargaming, history, family and friends. The Age of Napoleon lived again for one night to create wonderful memories and bond new friendships.

So St. Crispin’s Irregulars 10 week run at the Muzeo drew to a close and we can look forward to the future with a smile and fond memories.

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

Last night, the Bengal Club held two very entertaining games using “The Natives Are Restless“, a simple yet sophisticated set of rules previously only used for Boxer Rebellion games (See below for information about the convention games played in the fall). Zulus versus Brits, and although the Zulus lost twice, it was still an exciting game — both of which were played in the span of three hours.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any pictures of the games, but we’re starting to think that these rules may be a handy replacement for The Sword and the Flame, a game system not currently in favor at the club.

Here is an older AAR from the Miracle Mile Gamers.

Tonight, the Bengal Club will be attempting a retry of Plastic Ships & Iron Men — wherein we use the old Wooden Ships & Iron Men rules, a hex mat, and WizKid’s Pirates of the Spanish Main (etc) ships.

Some of us have actual scale model ships, a la “Ship of the Line”, but there’s nothing easier and more convenient than just punching out some ships of the wide variety available in the “Pirates” line and whipping up a battle.

For those who don’t have a copy of the old WS&IM rules, Hasbro has made them available at their website here.

Note that this PDF is missing page 7, so you can find that here. The log sheets here, the counters here, and the advanced tables here.

Here is the latest game report from the Miracle Mile Gamers (MMG) of Los Angeles.

From Tunisia '43

We meet about every five to six weeks for WWII gaming. Our latest campaigns have been in Crete and France ‘40, though we occasionally venture off for single scenarios of interest.

Cheers,
Blue Leader

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!

I would like to extend an invitation to game on Dec 5th, at Brookhurst Hobbies. I am the official area Catalyst Rep (Battletech). Catalyst is the company that runs and owns Battletech.

Yes, a few things have changed for the better as there is variety now, and a good solid serious game company backing up the game.

It is also the 25th Anniversary of Battletech.  Also, for those of you that always wanted to take Battletech to a more realistic level without getting over complicated, Catalyst has created fully developed Terrain Miniatures rules.

Ray of the “Art of War” terrain company and I will be running a full scale Battletech event at the store. Hours will be from 12 PM to 5 PM. I will provide all that you need : the rule books and Mechs and Terrain and prize awards.

Don’t be nervous to try out the newer version of the game. It has remained true to the source. However, now movement is in inches instead of hexes.

Come on over — we hope to repeat the great times at the Mini_Wars Convention.

I also run the Official events at St. Crispin’s Hobby Day every month. You can spot me easily as I will be wearing the company uniform and hat.   The event at Hobby Day is scheduled at 11 AM to to 4 PM there will be prizes and info handed out as well.

Don’t worry if you haven’t played in a long time. We have had several returnees, and they have all been having fun getting up to speed.

Brookhurst Hobbies is located at 12188 Brookhurst St. Garden Grove Ca, 92840

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

A view from New Zealand: