HMGS / Pacific Southwest

Posts Tagged ‘Colonial’

Poorly armed by Western standards the boxers gave a good account of themselves in battle but were very savage in their treatment of non-combatants.

Those of you who are frequent visitors to this page may have read some of the previous post on HMGS/PSW’s Demo Team putting on games and historical displays in conjunction with the Muzeo Museum in Anaheim, California.  HMGSPSW’s vice president Harmon Ward has over the last few years developed quite a working rapport with the folks at the Museum that has allowed us to bring historical gaming out to the public as never before.  If you’re unfamiliar with what has been going on down to Muzeo it works like this, when the Muzeo brings in an exhibit that we feel we can support with some form of historical gaming related to the period, members of the Demo Team and other volunteers from HMGS/PSW put on displays and games depicting battles from the era.  So far over the last two years we have been involved in the exhibit  “Treasures of Napoleon” and over the last few months “The Queens Gallery” a collection of Victorian art and artifacts from the collection of Dr. Howard and Linda Knohl. The museum has been really good and made quite an effort to help us showcase our hobby.  We have had premiere spots in both galleries as well as access to display cases and audiovisual aids.

HMGS/PSW "Demo Team" members Rod Galati and Rob Abbo (right) along with interested Muzeo visitors.

When Harmon mentioned to me the subject matter current exhibit was Victorian England and told me he was looking for people to put on games from that period I was quick to volunteer myself and Doug Kendrick to put on our Boxer Rebellion game.  Doug and I have put the Boxer Rebellion on almost a dozen times at several different conventions and game clubs throughout Southern California.  I felt it would be a perfect fit since it was one of the last colonial battles fought by England during the reign of Queen Victoria.  December 10 was decided for the day to bring the game down.  This was an important decision as it was also the day of the downtown Holiday art fair so attendance was way up. We were given a beautiful space in the Muzeo theater right off the beginning of the exhibit.  People entering the exhibit could not miss us!  The room we had could not have been better, the walls were dark, they sent us a nice tables with Black table cloths, the terrain was lit from above by half a dozen can lights that made the terrain look like midday while leaving the rest of the room dark enough that we had the museum's projector playing "55 Days at Peking" in the background!  Many times during the game the action on the table mimicked the action in the movie and  it was great!

The fighting was intense as always with the Chinese once again just missing a "win"

I was a bit apprehensive as far as having museum goers playing the game.  After all most folks who come to see a museum exhibit on Victorian art work would probably not be inclined to start rolling dice while leading a charge of a dozen wild eyed screaming Chinese!  How wrong I was... within the first half-hour we had two women, 60 years old, not only rolling dice, leading wild eyed Chinese, but mowing down the empire's best troops while wearing funny Chinese hats to boot!  During the course of the five or six hours that we were there, there were easily

100 plus people come through our gaming area with many asking questions, picking up convention fliers, as well as a good handful actually participating.

The day worked out great and showed just what is possible by pairing historical miniatures gaming with another type of historical event. The Muzeo’s Victorian exhibit  as well as the steam punk exhibit on Victorian science fiction will continue to run during the holidays and up until January 11, 2012.  I recommend that if you have any interest in either of these exhibits it would be well your trip to Anaheim to see this.  I would like to thank Harmon Ward, Mark Deladuka, RJ and Rod Galati for getting HMGSPSW involved and their support of the project, the Muzeo Museum for their support and allowing HMGSPSW to combine with them in these events, and of course the ever awesome Doug Kendrick who runs the game after I set up the terrain and puts up with my inventing rules he's never heard of from thin air.

Yours in gaming,

Bill Witthans

President HMGS/PSW