On Saturday and Sunday, February 27th and 28th of 2010 the HMGS/PSW Demonstration Team took their show on the road the Westcoaster Toy Soldier Show at the Marriott Hotel in Irvine, California. Harmon War, RJ Galati, Mark Deliduka and Frank Patterson hosted games on both days and handed out hundreds of pages of information about our organization to attendees at the largest gathering of it’s kind on the west coast. We enlisted and collected dues from five new members and had a great time doing it.

We were demonstrating a wide range of historical periods by basing the demo game on Jerry Pournelle’s “Janissaries” science fiction books. The use of soldiers from different time periods allowed us to reinforce the game table with 28mm Essex War of the Roses and Front Rank Napoleonic and Redoubt American Civil War miniatures. The response was enthusiastic and many of the focused 54mm collectors took literature to bring to friends who wargame with miniatures who were not at the show. We met a large number of people who came up from San Diego and we are going to help them to have a more active HMGS/PSW division down south. We also got hours to browse the tables for metal and plastic toy soldiers, diorama accessories and military collectibles of stunning variety. It was a great weekend and we look forward to doing it again next year.

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

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.

Happy blogging!

– Matt

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