Fall In 2019: Dash In and Dash Out by Russ Lockwood
Fall In proved to be
another marvelous convention
effort by HMGS in a venue we
hadn't been to in many a year:
Valley Forge Convention
Center (and now with a
Casino). Well-lit, comfortable,
and with literal white
tablecloths on the tables, it
includes a food court, sit-down
pub and restaurant, and lots of
free parking.
Bir Hakeim with Bolt Action rules.
Why my phone made this a sepia
tone, I don’t know. Must’ve been a
dawn attack.
The one drawback: a
lengthy walk between the two
ends of the convention down a
twisting corridor worthy of a
dungeon adventure. On one
end: the dealer hall, flea
market, and tournament area.
On the other end: gaming ballrooms. In between, some conference rooms given over to gaming.
The benefit to all this separation, besides getting your steps in, was that noise was never a problem and you
could carry on a normal conversation. If you wanted to do additional steps, you could descend and ascend two flights
of stairs to go from corridor to food court to gaming/dealer areas.
The food court had a 24-hour Dunkin Donuts that was indeed open on Saturday morning while the other
stands were closed. Yeah, it sported a 50% price premium over my neighborhood DD, but it proved quite convenient
while looking over the events booklet.
Alas, my Fall In time was limited to only Saturday, which is far better than no days, but sufficient to talk to
some folks, do a little shopping, a little chatting, and a little gawking.
Dick Bryant
Dick Bryant, of Courier fame, made a celebrity
appearance at the show with a posse of fellow Courier-ites all
named Joe Miceli. Once I shoved my way past the paparazzi ...
oh wait, I'm the guy who took the photo, so I must be the
paparazzi.
In any case, he looked good for his mid-80s, proving
that either lead soldiers are a great preservative or wargaming
aids longevity. Maybe both. You choose.
Anyway, Little Wars TV started the Little Wars FM
podcast and Greg interviewed Dick.
Dick Bryant on right.
Russ Lockwood
Wait! That's me. I, too, was interviewed by Greg for the
LWFM (Little Wars FM podcast) as the designer of Snappy
Nappy, the Napoleonics rule set. Alas, my entourage consisted of me, myself, and I, and quite
frankly, me lads, one of them might be on the outs with the other two.
In any case, I rambled for 47 minutes about SN design elements, influences, and
objectives, citing other rules experiences both good and bad, and some of the future Snappy
versions I'm working on. I'm looking forward to this podcast, too, especially to hear if I made
as much sense on air as I did in my head.
Dealer Hall
Admittedly, my dealer area purchases were rather modest -- I'm still absorbing my Historicon buys. For the
first time in recent memory, I didn't make a single flea market purchase. Oh, I was tempted, but I had also taken stock
of the Historicon goodies prior to the show and resisted.
Against the Odds
I did sit down for a pow-wow
with Steve, the brains behind Against
the Odds magazine and Turning Point
Simulations. Full disclosure: I'm a
Game Developer for his wargame
company. As you can imagine, this
gets me a corner office, private jet,
and bodyguard -- er, really? Wow,
you have an active imagination.
Actually, I walked away with
a 2-inch thick stack of U-boat
documents and other background
material for the upcoming game XXI:
U-Boat Wunderwaffen 1943-1945.
You take the role of Reich Minister of
Armaments Albert Speer to research
and produce the Type XXI U-Boat
and also the role of Admiral Doenitz
to battle convoys. Clever design but it
still needs more playtesting.
ATO production is slowly
getting back on track, especially on
the 'Annual' special issues. Steve
showed me the production counter
sheet for the 2017 Annual (Six-Day
War), which also included some
counters for the 2018 Annual (Sea
Monsters -- quartet of naval-themed
games).
Vince on the left.
Winged Hussar
Also talked a bit with Vince
of Winged Hussar Publishing. He's
been busy adding to his titles,
including a lot of Polish history. I
noticed that he had many copies of the
Fire & Sword rules, a slick, colorful hardcover produced by a Polish gaming company.
Schiffer Publishing
As I wandered around,
stopping here and there to look at
this or that, I made my way to the
Schiffer Publishing booth. I had
met its marketing guru John at the
Historicon show, so it was nice to
chat him up about various book
sale trends. I also met his co-
worker Justin, who also manned
the booth.
John (left) and Justin.
World War II sales
remained strong and John was
seeing a positive shift into more
modern topics. I suppose I
shouldn't think of late 20th century
wars as 'modern' because we're in
the middle of the 50th anniversary
of Vietnam and even the Gulf War
(Desert Shield and Desert Storm)
are pushing 30 years, but to me, post-WWII, or maybe post-Korean War, are modern and anything this side of 2000 is
ultra-modern. I'll let pundits with a higher pay grade figure out the exact match of nomenclature to dates. Maybe
there's already an app for that.
Casemate
Sadly, I kept missing my contacts at Casemate Publishing and missed
taking a photo of its booth, too. I talked to Larry for a bit, returned, talked to
him again, returned to see him manning the fort alone, and then my attention
drifted to friends and acquaintances roaming the hall.
Fear not, the book review section at the end of my AARs are filled with
reviews of Casemate and Schiffer books among others.
Flea Market
The usual cornucopia of gaming
goodies were scattered around the flea market,
which sat between dealer area and tournament
area -- you couldn't miss it. Unlike the theater
at the Host, this was well lit and all on one
level. Like the dealer hall, crowds ebbed and
flowed during the times I walked through.
Although well-tempted, and I even
picked up a few things to mull over in my head
(hmmmm...this could be used for....after I
do....), I resisted.
A blur of activity at the flea market.
Tournament Area
Lots of
space! You can
really stretch out
here, so it looked
a little lean in
terms of bodies.
Tourney area at
2:36pm on Saturday
sez my timestamp.
If you
think of a room
the size of the
Host's Lampeter
Room, but
holding only the tournament gamers, that's what you got
here. The gaming went on and on and on throughout the day,
with cheers and jeers at die rolls and decisions.
La Art de la Guerre tournament.
Gaming Area
A series of ballrooms, nicely segmented to reduce
noise, held many of the games at the one end of the show. I
was able to wander around a bit, watching some games for a
time, then moving on to another great-looking game. I took a
few photos.
Hobby University
Well, I passed by on the way here and there,
but never stopped in. One day, I'm going to sign up
for one of its classes so I will have a date and time to
stop and smell the paint fumes.
Fred (left) pondering a move in the Warrior tournament as Dan
(red jacket) looks on.
War College
I wanted to catch the 2pm lecture by author
Steven Zaloga, but alas, discovered that had been on
Friday. He repeated it on Saturday, but sadly, that was
also not to be. This is the second show in a row I
didn't attend a lecture and there were some good ones.
Cold Wars, for certain!
Big scale American Civil War game in the gaming area.
HMGS Topics
I did not attend any official HMGS meetings
at the show although I said hello and sat down with
some of the board
members. They continue to
investigate a few ideas, but
nothing concrete. You'll
have to visit the
HMGS.org website for any
upcoming news.
Too Soon to Go
Alas, the road
called and I had to head
out. With the ginormous
King of Prussia mall and
multiple big shopping
plazas surrounding the
convention center, you can
certainly find all sort of
nearby restaurants and
hotels. The downside is the
impressive traffic where
multi-lane highways all
converge on all these
centers of shopping and
dining. I wove my way
through well enough for an
uneventful drive home.
I'm looking
forward to Cold Wars
2020.
Lou and Pat’s big Battle of the
Bulge extravaganza. And this is
only one of their two tables.
Sadly, I had to leave instead of
stay and game. Next time!