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!
