Growing the Hobby

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:47 am

Hi Andrew

Thanks for the info on what's happening in Taiwan. Do you have anyone you game with over there? I just got back from a short trip to California for business so have been out of the loop for a couple days. Next week I will be gone for about 2 to 3 weeks.

Pete - Binpicker, Out1

atiff · Post by **atiff** » Sun May 07, 2006 3:50 pm

Not yet. There are a few people here who know what wargaming is, but no-one else I know has any gear here.

I've been hear almost three years and just this year decided to start getting back into painting and collecting again (all my old stuff - 15's - is back in New Zealand with my mate and his shop). I find the painting suits me as I'm quit a hands-on person, and the gaming is just fun.

I just about finished a respectable amount of figures. I play Command Decision mostly (i.e., platoon scale) and have about two battalions of early-war Soviets done up, plus a battalion of tanks, and about 2/3 that of Germans. I'm starting to investigate terrain now - I'll probably make my own from polystyrene sheet.

Everything here is just that little bit harder due to the language barrier - my Chinese is survival-level only, and I don't want to bug my wife too much to get stuff for me.

Pitfall · Post by **Pitfall** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:45 pm

Concerning a gathering/con for microarmor in the midwest, I happen to be the President of the gaming club at Indiana University in South Bend and we're planning a beginning of semester party/games day for September 9th this year.

We've already got some guys from the HMGS Great Lakes chapter coming over to run some Aerodrome events, and we're looking for more stuff like that. I'm sure that minitures events would appeal more to newcomers than a bunch of folks sitting around a table rolling dice. Like it had been mentioned before in this thread, visibility and aesthetics is the biggest draw for "non-gamers."

Most of us are RPGers, but quite a few of us have "seen the light" and migrated over to the Historical wargaming side of things. Anyway, if people are looking for an open venue to gather in the Midwest for a day, we've got a fairly large cafeteria and adjacent classroom to use.

Thunder · Post by **Thunder** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:57 am

Lots of game cons coming up. I'll be running an event at ConGames in Phoenix in July. Pmskaar's going to be at Historicon and hopefully will have his beautiful work with him. San Francisco is getting KublaCon in a week or so, and I'm sure there are many more events out there. Cons are always fun and a good way to show off micro armor. Also, lots of game shops are allowing you to use their space for free. Hat's games here in Tuscon has tons of space and sells a Coke AND a candy bar for a buck! Now there's no excuse to not game every day.

Sam · Post by **Sam** » Wed May 10, 2006 4:12 am

I'm in Auckland Andrew, where is your buddy's shop? Next question; does he (or will he be) stocking GHQ stuff? I'm trying to build a modern Chinese army, and ordering from the states can get costly. Actually there are quite a few 6mm gamers here, so the market exists ...

Fulcrum · Post by **Fulcrum** » Wed May 10, 2006 7:26 am

Thunder

I just checked out the new look of your site !!! Very nice and clean. I just updated my own but now I think I need to go back to the drawing board

Thunder · Post by **Thunder** » Wed May 10, 2006 7:58 am

Thanks for checking out my site. I see you have put in a lot of time on yours too. It only gets better...

The shops around here don't really carry much of anything instock at all. Basically I go out on the web, find what I want, and ask the shop to see if they can order it. In most cases, I get 5% off of retail (+ tax). Fair by my standards unless I manage to find a good sale out there. --cb

fullmetaljacket · Post by **fullmetaljacket** » Wed May 10, 2006 11:46 am

Just to say a few things i know pitfall here on the forums real well and they are a good bunch of gamers in the south bend area of northern indiana. I along with a few others are to blame for his migration to historical gaming. Which he and a few others really enjoy i also plan on putting on a game that day with micro armor. I also plan on maybe trying to get JB to join us for the day also on the 9th of september. Like pitfall says it is a very spacious area. It does help to have little terrian and pieces moving around on the board rather than just people rolling dice to catch their attention. Also Pitfall it is suppose to rain all weekend you need to come down and play our game this weekend at my place you can camp anytime!!! Your girlfriend can hang out with mine at my place this saturday!!!!

FMJ

Pitfall · Post by **Pitfall** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:53 pm

Don't rub it in FMJ! We've already got the time off of work and I already reserved the spot. I'm not a quitter!

Speaking of cons, are there going to be any microarmor events running at Gencon or Origins this year. There are a lot of Flames of War games going on (I'm playing in two at Gencon), and several 144th scale stuff, nut no microarmor. What gives?

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:52 pm

I just wanted to let those that are reading this post that I will be out of town on a business trip for a bit. I don't know when I will be running a game again - maybe July. Does anyone know if the War Room in Norcross, Georgia(Atlanta area) moved or did they shut down their operation entirely.
For those that don't know they were a pretty decent game and hobby shop in the N.E. Atlanta area but when I went there to visit last year the store was closed. They did carry GHQ micro armor and actually had a decent selection of both tanks and ships. I'm just curious what happened.

Pete

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Fri May 12, 2006 1:03 am

Thanks for the info AU Cav. If you can get the info today that would be great but if not then I will check the phone book when I'm in Atlanta.

Pete

tanker · Post by **tanker** » Fri May 12, 2006 2:43 am

Hi Folks,

Im new to this forum, but not to wargaming. I was first introduced to it in the early 70s when some friends had me over to play Panzer Blitz. The mind boggled. I played on and off for a bit until the early 80s when I got involved with a regular group. We played mostly the Yaquinto games, Panzer, Armor and 88 with 1/285th minis. I have a modest collection of C-in-C minis all painted in Humbrol paints. I then moved to the DC area in the mid 80s where my gaming fell by the wayside. And now I am living near a good friend who is also a wargamer and into painting miniatures a lot (has a huge collection of Warhammer minitures but doesn't play the game, just like painting the figs).

So anyway I've pulled out my old copies of the aforementioned Yaquinto games, scanned all those tiny cards my aged eyes can no longer read and am preparing to print them out really large on 8.5x11 paper (both sides to one side for convenience) and I started looking for tank minis again. I discovered C-In-C is still (or back?) in business, but what I was really excited about was the major improvement in GHQ minis. You see, back in the 80s the minis were a bit clunky and not well detailed, not in comparison to C-in-C. But I found this site and looked at the nice pics on the catalog page and was very impressed. So I bought some of the same vehicles from both companies for comparison (each company has some vehicels the other doesn't make). The order just arrived today and I'm about to open up the packages to start the comparison. I'll report backmy findings if anyone is interested.

So then, enough introduction. What rules sets are you all using for WWII? Are any of you familiar with the Yaquinto rules? Have any of you ever painted the C-in-C minis? And most importantly, what is your favorite terrain building product. I saw what GHQ has to offer and it looks pretty good. I was going to look into Geo Hex, but they're out of business. My old group, the Colby Street Irregulars, used to play on a table slightly larger than a ping pong table made of small sheets of plywood covered in either green or sand colored 2" hex paper. Then we'd use terrain hexes one of the guys had made up with some HO lichen for scrub and trees and such. Nothing fancy, but certainly functional.

Nice to meet you all. Hope to chat with you anon.

Tanker

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Fri May 12, 2006 4:12 am

@ Tanker:

Hi Folks,

Howdy! Wlecome to our happy pewter-hermitage.

I was first introduced to it in the early 70s when some friends had me over to play Panzer Blitz.

He he he.

I started in about 1973 or 74. I received Panzer Blitz as a gift for my birthday. I was REALLY excited, I had really wanted that game, and then I opened up the box and ... all it contained were a bunch of cardboard squares!

About 3 months later I found GHQ micros at a local hobby shop, and I started buying them to replace the chits on my Panzer Blitz board.

30 years later, I still have some of those tanks in my "active forces" box.

The KV-2s in this picture from a game last year are among my 30+ year-old veterans!

I moved up to rules specifically for micros with the first version of WRG's Armor and Infantry, 1925 - 1950, in about 1975. Added WRG's modern rules when they first came out in 1976. I've got a pretty thick stack of rule sets -- maybe 8 or 10 WW2 sets, and about 6 or 8 modern sets.

What rules sets are you all using for WWII?

We have had a couple threads on rules recently. Here is one:
http://www.ghqmodels.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=734

The big first question is whether you like to play 1-to-1 unit scale, or you prefer 1-to-5 / 1-to-platoon. GHQ has a reasonable set for 1-to-platoon. There is a free intro version available on this website.

I much prefer 1-to-1 unit scale myself. I've now settled on Mein Panzer ... for the moment. All through last year I, and my gaming mates, ran with PanzerWar, which is provided online for free by Mobius (a fellow on this forum). His rules are very good. But they are also very detailed. You should be an advanced gamer to play them, and you should limit your unit sizes to no more than a company of troops per player (maybe a platoon per player when first starting out with the rules). As much as we all enjoyed the details (and the exceptional level of historical data) in the rules, we have moved on to Mein Panzer because we wanted to be able to game with as much as a battalion per player.

Another forum member who offers a ruleset is Troy Ritter. I've bought and read through his Schwere Kompanie rules, although I've not played them. He has a little less detail on the vehicles compared to Mobius' rules, but a little more complexity in the game mechanics. Again, I would recommend you consider his rules for playing a platoon, up to maybe a company of troops per gamer.

I was really excited about ... the major improvement in GHQ minis.

GHQ figures did indeed go through a major improvement over the last 10 or 12 years. No doubt about it. The line has also been broadened significantly, to the point were it is now about the widest line available (where it used to be one of the most limited lines).

Have any of you ever painted the C-in-C minis?

While I am always dis-inclined to mention competitors on this board, I will say that I have dozens to hundreds of micros from each of four other vendors (other than GHQ).

Just last night I finished painting up some WW2 Italian AB40 and AB41 armored cars. As you may know, GHQ doesn't make an AB40, so it must have come from another vendor. Since the hulls are the same (only the turret differed between these two models), it provided an interesting opportunity to compare between two "premium" vendors. As in every case were I have so compared, GHQ won hands-down.

In this case both vendors had identical sized hulls, so there was no getting out the micrometer and the calculator to cross-reference with published dimensional specs. But the GHQ hulls has better wheel hubs, better rivetting on the plates (something that gives Italian armor a very distinctive character), AND tools strapped down on the engine deck. The other guy's model had no such tools -- the AFVs were (and always ARE) absolutely clean of any external clutter.

I happen to like the look of a shovel or pic or hammer or fuel tank or tow-cable strung across my vehicles. GHQ has even taken to putting models with 2 different hull or turret details in each of its boxes for several models (like T-34s or KVs). I really like that.

And most importantly, what is your favorite terrain building product.

Check out the "Show us yer Stuff!" thread. There is a LOT of excellent information on terrain in there. Also lots of absolutely inspiring models!

Nice to meet you all. Hope to chat with you anon.

Hope to get you to post pictures anon.

We love pictures 'round hereabouts!

pmskaar · Post by **pmskaar** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:01 am

Hi Tanker

Welcome back to the hobby and the GHQ Forum. I hope you find your visits here to be exciting and informative.

Pete - Binpicker, Out! (Also a former tanker - M60's)