GenCon East 1981
This was a smaller sized convention held in NJ in the overcrowded region of Cherry Hill at a small hotel. Not too much to see or do and I did drift off midway through though the convention crowd was lively and pleasant. Part of the pleasure of these kind of broader conventions is that the crowd is more diverse and less people who already know each other. The small size also lent an intimacy to the proceedings though I am not sure this is necessarily what people are looking for in a convention.
I was lucky enough to go to three of these. The focus was heavily on SPI and Avalon Hill including a softball event between the two companies. The conventions were large and a lot of fun with a more diverse range of interests in evidence. Miniatures definitely take a back seat here but are still present. At the time, I was a thin tall guy in my twenties. I went to a talk on 16th and 17th century warfare and found myself in a roomful of thin tall guys in their twenties.
One memorable thing about these conventions was the opportunity to meet with game designers. These are fun conventions and as far as I can tell still being held somewhere in Ohio.
So what miniatures rules were popular in 1979?
Johnny Reb
Fighter by Lou Zocchi
Bushido
Chivalry and Sorcery
Dragonlord
Dungeon Adventure
Dungeons and Dragons
Empire Napoleonics
Fields of Terror
Gladiatorial Combat
Lord of the Rings ( Heritage Models )
Melee/Wizard
Seapower
Siege and Assault
Space Patrol
Starships and Spacemen
Star Trek
Stars n Bars
Strike Team Alpha
Superhero
Swords and Spells
Tunnels and Trolls
Universal Soldier
Whiff of Grapeshot
The Wizard’s Tower Strikes Again
Wizard’s War
WRG Armor
WRG Ancients
All of these had tournaments. D&D was clearly the winner. WRG was a consistent presence.
By the 1990s, Ral Partha presented an enormous range of fantasy figures in 25mm as well as some in 15mm. The figures were meticulously sculpted and offered a dainty appearance when viewed next to most other figures of the time. Their D&D range was huge. The dragons were especially striking. But take a look at some of the other offerings like the Mimics. They also had several historical ranges including a beautiful but limited Renaissance range as well as an interesting colonial range.
Figures based on the celebrated Empire of the Petal Throne RPG created by M.A.R. Barker.Some early figures from Tom Meier as the fantasy range quickly outpaces the historical range.In its earliest days, Ral Partha focused on its historical range. Here, they show their own line of 15mm Napoleonic figures.
Ral Partha always had a soft spot for historical miniatures. In fact, for the historical miniatures player, their need for miniatures outstrips even the most avid RPG player. Here we see some of Ral Partha’s ranges including the crossover Bushido range.A nice view of some of the early and now difficult to find Ral Partha figures that followed too closely designs used in Japanese cartoons.This appears to be a second version of Ogre miniatures. While the PE heavy tank is the same, the PE Howitzer is much improved.
The stuff of empires. Here are the original 3 books that began the whole thing as well as the first supplement. For those who do not know, players would take the part of a fantasy adventurer and enter dungeons in search of treasure while battling all sorts of foul creatures. One player, the dungeon master, would moderate the game and perhaps even craft his own dungeons and fantasy worlds. At the time I bought this, the game was not too well known but it sure caught on quickly.
Perhaps one of the things that binds the most popular games is introduced here. Players craft their characters, building a little game-playing avatar who goes for a romp in an imaginary world, not unlike the point-based armies created for games like Warhammer and WRG Ancients. By creating these imaginary persons or armies, one invests in it and is anxious to see how it fares.
It is surprising that a game shaped by miniatures rules in this case Chainmail should neglect that side of the hobby. TSR and Gary Gygax did provide Swords and Spells as a kind of Chainmail ver 2.0. But it was not enough to satisfy and the niche left open allowed all sorts of modules for single and massed combat to be concocted by other companies. Eventually, there was an effort to generate a more compelling set of rules but by then most gamers had found other approaches.
There was a time when Alnavco and the line of ships put out by Superior were a major source for naval miniatures. The line is still available with additional 1/2400 ships and the monster sized 1/1200 ships.
In the days before the ubiquitous shopping mall with its generic range of stores, any major city could be counted on to offer a dazzling range of toy and hobby shops. Likely one of the most dazzling was the multi-story hobby palace Polk’s Hobbies on 5th Avenue in New York City about a block south of the Empire State Building. Each floor was devoted to a particular hobby with one floor set aside for model soldiers. You could set your sights on plastic models or toy trains or working models. Of course, they had a wonderful collection of miniatures though mostly for those sort of people who enjoyed putting them under glass jars on curio shelves. Even so, this is where I went to purchase copies of the Wargaming Newsletter and The Dragon.
A trip to Polk’s was always an experience. The store clerks were generally rude or at best indifferent but at first it hardly seemed to matter. During the 60s, a weekend would see floors crowded with hobbyists in search of that elusive bit of detail. By the 70s though interest dwindled. 45th Street had multiple model railroad shops while 33rd and 57th boasted The Complete Strategist. Even the soldier-in-a-jar crowd could go to the plush Soldier Shop. Eventually, the upper floors were sold off and Polk’s was reduced to crowded quarters in the basement. In 2013, Polk’s finally closed its doors. While it was there, it was worth seeing.
Polk’s offered different catalogs for different hobbies. The figures catalog shown offers display figures and a handful of very early wargames. Below, an attempt to explain figure scale.
Here are some old figures from the Rogue Trader era. The Space Orcs had a curious Nazi biker quality to them. Citadel’s earlier use of metal figures as opposed to plastic seemed to allow a scope to added personality that seems lost now. The newer plastic figures draw variety from interchangeable heads and arms.
Perhaps even more interesting are the Squats. There used to be a nice range of these figures, cleverly sculpted with lots of personality. However, Games Workshop decided to shelve the Squats apparently because they did not mesh with the 40K world and possibly because they gave the game the appearance of a light work-over of the original Warhammer universe now simply dressed up in spacesuits.
Milton Bradley Toys and Games Workshop meet and create a game that was unfortunately far from epic. The simplistic rules might appeal to children, but for adults, the game components were the main draw. Dozens of plastic Warhammer miniatures were included, enough to sate even the most avid collector. If only MB spent a little more time on the game.
