July, 2017 | Historical Hobbies

Chris A (left) and Chris S (right) running one of the “Dog’s” mega convention games “SHANGHAI”

My “Primary” gaming group the “Dogs of War” will soon be posting their Battle Reports here on my site. Chris Snell the great patron of “The Dogs” (he devotes part of his house to us) has for many years sent out weekly emails covering what has gone on and what is coming up at the club. Over the last year we have been refurbishing the club and I thought it might nice to also have the weekly battle reports Chris does get a facelift as well and giving Chris the ability to post them here with pictures would be a great way to do this.

Chris Snell (standing right) helps run the SAGA event at Games Empire. Seated is another Dog, Frank V.

A little bit about Chris…. Well Chris has been one of the original “Dogs of War” since the beginning and also probably the most active. In fact I can’t remember any “Dogs” game or activity that he has not been at!!! Chris has put himself in the forefront of all the projects and his efforts contribute mightily to everything the Dogs have ever been, done, or hope to do. Without Chris’s patronage the “Dog’s” may well have dissolved long ago. The “Dogs” are a great bunch and they all contribute much to the whole, but in any group there are always a few who provide the backbone that others build on, thanks Chris.

Side trip to Aberdeen Proving grounds, Historicon 1999? Joe, Dave L, Joe’s nephew, Tim D, Chris A,Chris Snell, Bill W (me) and sitting on fender of German Jagd Tiger is Ron Green.

So you will soon see Chris’s weekly reports appearing here! Yea Chris! I encourage all the “Dogs” to subscribe to this site and receive notifications when these reports go up. You can simply scroll down the main page and towards the bottom of the right side column you will see an option to enter your email and receive notification of new articles and updates on the site.

So welcome Chris and “Reports from the Pound”

Chris S (in tri-corner hat and long coat) helps run the Dogs pirate game “Maracaibo Mambo” at a past HMGS/PSW convention.

Over the years my local gaming group in Southern California the “Dogs of War” have amassed a huge collection of miniatures, terrain, mats, and all manner of gaming material that when not in use has to be stored somewhere! When we moved from our long time clubhouse in Burbank (thanks to Danny’s garage) to our present digs (the bottom floor of Chris’s house) we found out just how much stuff had accumulated!!! well in the years since that move it has grown by leaps and bounds. Some of it ended up in a few storage units but most went into Chris’s garage and got to the point that it was near impossible to find things or get a car in it. The main gaming area had reached gridlock and the place was being suggested for an episode of “Hoarders”

The group put its collective head together and decided that it was time for a massive clean out and refurbish! I came up with a bit of a plan and this started with organizing the garage and building proper shelves for storage. The current shelves were plastic and groaning under the weight of several tons of lead! When newcomers visited the club and were asked if we had figures for such and such period the response was always “sure what scale do you want to play in” So it was decided to build strong shelves that would both hold the weight, provide additional space, and survive the earthquakes our area has from time to time!

Since I have built and out fitted trucks for the “Movie Biz” for many years the task of organizing this was my job, labor was pulled from all the core club members, and the material bought and paid for by selling off un-needed miniatures and terrain from the clubs pile.

The first stage of the project was to clean out and redo garage and this is a short video done over one of two weekends this stage took.

Storage Wars