Hey I read on the internet “staying warm and drinking prevents you catching the Corona Virus” so this has gotta work right?
So having some time and the thought, I’ve written a short piece to help “Wargamers” survive the Corona Virus Pandemic! It is a piece not designed to play down the seriousness of the situation but a piece to lend spirit and support to my fellow gamers!
Its a long piece so it gets a separate page!
A “Wargamers” guide to Sheltering at Home!
Enjoy, Bill W.
Still going through boxes of pictures, wait no that was old school, now I’m going through a 750gig hard drive of pictures, sorting, filing, laughing, and just remembering all the good time we have all had. I’m just going to quickly toss up a few to keep content flowing and for us all to enjoy. These pictures are from the HMGS/PSW “Spring Con” held back when HMGS/PSW had them at the boy scout hall. I sure do miss them, good times! Eventually I will have all the con pictures sorted, labeled, and under their own convention “tab” some are currently under the “bits and Pieces” tab but that will change. For now, just enjoy the trip down memory lane! Please if you have anything to add let me know in the comments so I may update info and photos!
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The “Boy Scouts” hall was sometimes crowded, hot, noisy, and occasionally smelled of old Pizza, but it always felt like home! I truly miss it!
I think we held conventions in the BS hall for around nearly ten years but others can correct me on that. It was a great spot we should never have let go. We nearly always made money at those cons, not always, but it was such a good deal that it allowed us to make money one time and lose some another time, but never go into the red!
Doug Kendricks, Robert Boyens (picture right of Doug), and Jesse Boyens (back to camera) and I play in a game of 15mm Samurai battles using the “Battles in the Age of War” by Peter Pig.
15mm “Two Dragons” samurai figure I painted as “Ii” cavalry.
My 15mm samurai “Battles in the AGE of War” game.
Unfortunate the first thing you saw upon arriving was me! Back when I was President of HMGS/PSW
the “Dogs of War” convention regulars who put on many of the most spectacular “mega” games HMGS/PSW conventions ever saw pull of another one with “Shanghai” many games are considered impressive with just on or two 28mm ships…the “Dogs” bring a fleet!
The “Shanghai” game had an enormous waterfront area full of dastardly no goods that had to be defeated! The small shore boat has my party in it!
All Dogs of War games were geared for fun, had plenty of “eye candy”, and many encouraged the participation of new or younger players. For the Dogs the reward of the game was the satisfaction of the players. Few players ever forgot playing in a game put on by the “Dogs of War”
A young John Denny guides another younger gamer in the back streets of Shanghai! A smiling Steve Phenow can be see in the background.
Pretty sure the “Dogs of War” took home the “Best of Convention” award this time!
I had brought back the awards for excellence in gaming and found some really nice awards to be used to recognize those gamers and groups but I think they discontinued this, or at least this style of award. To bad because it was starting to become a tradition!
One of the “Dogs” Chris Snell (on right) explains a few point to players. Behind him Galen Yee and at the far end of the table Chris Vivo, both long time “Dog of War”
HMGS/PSW member Mark Deliduka move figures into position on a rooftop! The central “pagoda temple” building was scratch built by Dave Dandridge yet another “Dog”!
Speaking of Dave, here he is playing in a later game of 15mm American Civil War. Simple yet elegant terrain makes for a good looking game!
Take during one of Michael Veritys massive ancients games! Tim Kennan (4th from left, black shirt) and Harold Hillderbrand (to Tim’s right blue shirt) Sadly both these gentlemen are no longer with us. Foreground in blue shirt is David Komatz assisting Michael in running the game.
Another view of Harold’s massive game.
Conventions are some of the last places to get “your feet wet” as a new wargamer since shops are now few and far between!
Steve Phenow long time HMGS/PSW member, past HMGS/PSW President, and Game Master running one of his popular American civil War games using his “Mr Lincolns War” rules. I believe next to him is the “War Gamer Rabbit” Michael Verity.
Another of northern LA’s gaming groups that I have been a part of the “Bengal Club” another great group of guys her represented by Jerry Kegley on the left and Dan Munsion on the right. The nice lady in the middle was someones girlfriend who just came and fell in to helping at the kitchen!
Jerry and Dan played in a Full Thrust game, one of the games I ran (Bill Witthans) its a fun game not to complicated but still plenty of depth. This was an assault/defense of an asteroid mining complex. The base was built in a strange rock I had kicking around for 20 years! It was at my parents house in their garden, my mom thought it was a meteor! It then went wih me years later into my saltwater aquarium, then into my garden, and now is piece of wargaming terrain! I actually think its a piece of lava….if it could only talk!
Rick Abbo (Dog of War), Adam Hammer, and Skip Gardella in a 28mm colonial battle.
Old gamers never die the just get permanent bends in their back from leaning over to many tables!
Two more members of the Bengal Club, Doug K and Jerry K around the vendors tables. The white and clear set of drawers to the left of Doug now sits under the table at my house!
Future wargamers of America! I may be wrong but I think that is a young Clark Dandridge in the Red ball cap!
Jose Mendiola, Robert Boyens, Harmon Ward, and I, in happier times!
Good days!
Well ok, it’s really just an update with more stuff I’ve found while going through all the tens of thousands of pictures and videos taken of games and gamers over the years. So I though you all my get a kick out of seeing Clark (Dave’s son) who is now 15! back in his early years once again trashing us old hands! This is at a local gaming night that was down in the San Fernando Valley around 2012-13?. When I was President of HMGS/PSW we were promoting miniatures games by going to different venues and putting on simple games like this to introduce folks to the hobby and get new members. In the game are Dogs of War members Dave D, his son Clark, and Jeff MacArthur. The gentleman in the white shirt whose name I cant remember was the game nights organizer, great guy, and part owner of the Game Ogre at the time.
I love Clark’s move where he cant find his action card spins around, down, back up, over the table, and under the arm of the other player to lay it down! Way to play Clark!
Another transferred page from the old site. Pretty old but still very readable and heck with sheltering in place we all need more things to read since we certainly have the time! There are a few good conversion/modeling tips, enjoy!
Given what’s going on in the world for almost all of us our day to day lives have changed. I know for me I have had a few weeks off (paid thankfully!) and the company now has me working at home. This “sheltering at home” policy has created some problems but also some opportunities. The opportunities are because of the extra time I have at home, no commute, no trips here and there, just more time, time to do some of the things that just always got put off.
One of those things was to spend a bit more time on my “poor” website! I say poor because I just never finished transferring and rebuilding from the “old site”, just how unfinished it was becoming apparent to me after going through a saved version of the old site and seeing how much was missing on the new one.
The old site had been built in the old style of separate pages and areas unlike the new “blogger” style of just doing post after post and using “tags” and “categories” to sort the articles based on user searches. It does make the transferring of old pages a bit difficult since you can build the page but no one will see them unless the happen to poke around your site. Nowadays blogs let subscriber’s know via email or some type of messaging when new content goes up. I wanted to keep most of these old pages as “pages” since some of them are quite long and a bit much for a post. So, what I have decided to do is move them over as a “page” but then do a small post “announcing” the “new” or really transferred, updated page with a link to it. Here is the first of those, enjoy!
Several of you have asked how I did the train tracks for my WWII 20mm set (featured in the last posts Battle report) and I remembered that I had taken pictures of the process done a few years ago intending to do a “workbench” article. So, digging deep I found them and wrote up a bit on what I did.
I use HO scale for my 20mm WWII games, yes it is just a bit small being 1/87 scale and 20mm being 1/72 but it is hardly noticeable and given how much is out there and how cheap you can pick it up for its a winner. I had done several games using the HO scale track before but it looked a bit phony just laying on top of the game map. Most train tracks are on a raised “roadbed” and I put my mind to trying to figure out how best to accomplish this. The raised roadbed would not only look better it would make the track stay in place better on the game table, as well as create the “berm” for troops to hunker down behind and tanks to go “hull down”
The first step was to determine the “roadbed” size for the different pieces of track I planed to use.
The roadbed is made from 3/16 plastic PVC sheet that you can pick up from plastic supply vendors (sign shops carry it many times). It comes in 4′ x 8′ sheets but most suppliers have some cut offs or will split a sheet for you. It’s a very handy material for all sorts of wargaming projects.
After determining the different sizes I would need I made a master for each type and then traced enough outlines to the PVC
Care has to be taken at each step to make sure the “ends” all match size wise so the track is interchangeable from piece to piece and end to end. I then used a bandsaw to cut the “angle” on each side. If you do not have a bandsaw you can use a small hobby copping saw. When doing this “angle” I created irregular sides to make the pieces more natural looking. Just take care to make sure the ends remain uniform. The first saw cuts are made straight, the second pass the cut is made at an angle and irregularly.
All the basic roadbeds done.
A Dremel rotary tool with a rough grinding tip followed by sandpaper smoothed out the sides again to make it look natural.
While not essential I went an extra step and used magnets on each end of a section so that they would stay together better. If you do this pay close attention to the polarization on your magnets.
I should mention that in the picture above the magnets are all FLUSH MOUNTED! The picture shows how I made sure the polarity was correct by using my “master” track, then sticking the next track pieces magnets to that “masters” magnets, applying a small amount of super glue and using the “master” track to push the other tracks magnets in to place. This assures a flush mount with no gap. By then sliding the track pieces sideways to separate them instead of just pulling them apart the glue can dry without bonding the track pieces together. When finished the magnets on both pieces are flush to the ends of the track.
All the PVC was primed using a good automotive primer. I use fast drying Krylon black primer.
Cheap brown poster paint did the trick for the earth color berm.
The tracks received the same treatment, Krylon primer, then brown poster on the tracks as well.
The next step is to mount the tracks to the roadbed. Take your time and get the track EXACTLY centered so no matter what combination you do they line up! Do one track as the master and then you will line every other track to match that one.
Once I had the “master track” set and pinned in place I glued the track down with Super Glue (not cheap stuff hobby quality) then carefully painted white glue in between the tracks and sprinkled rock “ballast” in and around.
When done right all your tracks should line up no matter the piece or order the are laid out in. The track on the left has only the black primer coat and a thin coat of cheap brown to give the wood, iron and rust effect. The track on the right has been finish painted. Wood, bare steel, and rust highlights make it look real!
Green flocking, the same shades that I have done my game mats with is added to help blend in the roadbed. Bushes, brambles and tufts were the used to break up the sameness and again make it all look more natural and realistic.
The finished product! I was pleasantly surprised at how good they came out and how well they work in games.
Next project is to do just a bit more track, 1/2 sections and end sections with bumper stops. I also want to do a few bombed out and destroyed sections. Then onto repainting the train engines and rolling stock to make it look more WWII period European. If you enjoyed the article please leave a comment!
The first real Wargaming I did was WWII micro armor and that became a lifelong fascination with the period, the conflict, the men and women who fought, died, and sacrificed so much for their beliefs. The battles in Europe and in Russia have always had the bulk of my interest as they were by far the most epic and important during the war. Micro armor had me for about 5+ years then I was introduced to 20mm or 1/72 scale WWII figures and was truly hooked. I have collected and played this scale for over twenty years and now have a huge collection of figures (both painted and unpainted!), more terrain and buildings than you could imagine (enough to do Berlin 1945 on a 4×8 table). Unfortunately as happens in wargaming rules change, periods go in and out of fashion, scales too…and over time I and my friends played less and less WWII, some got hooked on Flames of War and 15mm but I couldn’t get behind that type of game, to me Flames of War was a lot like Warhammer 40K, a game that made you buy their bloated rules, buy their figures, use their army list, and frankly the games don’t look like WWII. OK enough of that, bottom line our WWII games became few and far between. Well last week Steve and I dragged out the WWII 20mm toys! Wow I don’t think they have seen the light of day for years! I had even contemplated selling them off! I figured to have one last game before making that kind of decision.
Clicking on a picture will give you a larger version!
20mm scale is “Gods scale” when it comes to WWII “in my opinion”! I have always felt it gives great detail compared to 15mm, easy on the eyes, fun to paint without the detail or cost of 28mm.
A wrecked train adds realism to the scene as well as breaking LOS and providing cover. I hope to repaint and age these soon and I think this game has sparked my interest to do it!
For most of my WWII games I like to use maps to aid with the hidden deployment. I make this easy by setting up the terrain then taking a overhead picture and producing a map from it for the players.The Germans had the advantage of being deployed in defensive positions covering about 3/4s of the map with the Russian entering on the remaining quarter. Crossfire uses hidden deployment so I as the Russians had to start by probing the German lines in an effort to find them. This first probe quickly got out of hand and turned into a full-blown attack by the Russians.
The commanders maps are made from pictures taken from “their” side and then put in a clear page protector. Players then use “wet” erase markers to mark their deployments and moves.
We did a Russian front scenario loosely based on a game we did perhaps 4+ years ago where its late 1944, the Germans are fighting a tactical withdrawal back towards the borders of the Reich. The fight takes place with the Germans trying to hold a strategic section of railroad open as long as possible to allow both military and civilian transport trains to move west and escape the Russians. German forces consisted of a Company of infantry, a couple of Heavy Machine gun squads, 1 81mm mortar, 1 PzIV H, 1 Panther, and flak 88 AT gun. Russians had 2 companies of infantry, 2 Heavy machine guns, 2 x 120mm mortars, 3 T34/85s, and 2 ISU 152s. They also had some off-board artillery.
One of my first 1/72 scale buildings done 25 years ago! As I remember this one was from an Arifix kit and made of cast plaster! It originally a RAF control tower, I added stairs walls on the roof, window frames, doors, ect…. Its still going strong!
The Germans had the advantage of being deployed in defensive positions covering about 3/4s of the map with the Russian entering on the remaining quarter. Crossfire uses hidden deployment so I as the Russians had to start by probing the German lines in an effort to find them. This first probe quickly got out of hand and turned into a full-blown attack by the Russians.
Steve’s Waffen SS look real nice, he did a great job painting these!
Steve played the Germans and I the attacking Russians. The rules used were CROSSFIRE by Arty Conliffe, a very unique set of rules that while fairly simple use some very interesting mechanics that in my opinion give players the ability to play WWII in a much more realistic way. Less emphasis on dice results and more on tactics and maneuverability.
Steve once again playing the part of the “10,000 foot General”
One of the problems with most WWII rules and with larger scale rules in general is the “10,000 foot General” the fact that both player can see the deployment of the enemy force and couple that with most rule systems “I go, You go” turn based approach the games lose the ability to simulate the uncertainty in the decision process that commander faced in the field. In most games you look at the map see the other fellows force disposition and plan your attack. you can see all your enemies move and simply counter them as they can with your forces. Games turn into a simple stacking of odds and who roles better dice!
Russian armor appears in the form of three T3485s on the main road. Silly Russians…what are they thinking? That big striped thing down the road isn’t a Zebra!
Crossfire has fairly simple yet novel mechanics that allows you to as the defender to use the fact that the enemy would not really know your positions until the battle was joined and even then that knowledge would be limited. That is why in defense smaller forces many times held of or even destroyed attacking forces many times their size.
The Flak88 is a “Dragon” 1/72 model and the figures either Battle Front or Britannia.
Steve has a long-time reputation for poor die rolling so I had taken fewer troops to compensate, that was a big mistake! Steve proceeded to roll better than I have ever seen frustrating all my attacks.
Steve’s Panther works a crossfire with the flak 88 to insure a killing zone on a suspect Russian approach area. The control building was the main German held strong point.
The trains and the original track came from a HO set given to me by a neighbor. The trains need repainting and some conversion work to look more European. The track has been mounted on PVC, repainted, and flocked to look more part of the terrain.
German 81mm mortar deployed in bombed out warehouse. The painting, ageing, and basing of the train track really helped to make it look more part of the scene as well as create a defensive “berm” for troops or hull down position for tanks!
20mm gives plenty of opportunity for creating photo ops not possible in smaller scales.
After a short exchange of shots between the German “88” and the T34 the score was T34-0 Flack 88-1! The Panther moved up and soon all 3 T34/85s lay in a smoking pile…
The German Panther moves up into a better position. Now the Russian T34/85s are caught in a deadly crossfire!
The other flank saw the second Russian push but the results were not any better. The first Russian squad to leave cover was pinned down with heavy casualties, I ordered two Russian ISU 152s to destroy the German Mark IV and take the pressure of my advancing infantry but with Steve’s stellar die rolling they too soon lay as smoldering wrecks!
Britannia ISU 152s move up only to fall prey to the exceptional German fire! The pips/beads are use to mark things like Pinned, Suppressed, No fire, etc..
So within two hours the Russians lay strewn about like so many spilled matchsticks, their armor all ablaze, and I as the Russian commander being escorted into the woods, flanked by several commissars, to a fate familiar to “under preforming” Russian leaders…Dam we haven’t had that much fun in a game for years! I may even paint some stuff of the 20mmm lead mountain. .
A second German strong point on the other side of the railroad yard. The German forward observer scans for Russians.
Steve’s a happy camper given the performance of his Germans! and dice!
