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!