Back in early February, I attended the 2026 HMGS Cold Wars convention in Lancaster, PA. The theme was “Wild, Wild, West”. this is not one of my usual game themes, but as you’ll see shortly I adapted for one game anyways. As I write this now it is already mid-March, so I thought it was about time to finally got around to sharing some of the games I played in and ran in the H.A.W.K.’s room.
The H.A.W.K.’s are a great club from Harford County, Maryland. Two of my good West Point buddies (Buck Surdu USMA ’85 and Dave Wood fellow USMA ’84) have been members for years, and I have been fortunate enough to be their New England carpetbagging GM for a few years now.
Prelude to Austerlitz (Wars of Eagles and Empires)
Thursday night I jumped into a Napoleonic 28mm game run by Buck, “Prelude to Austerlitz”. It used his Wars of Eagles and Empires rules.
It was a fun game and I was on the Austrian side with two other young players (they were young anyways). The French players were not as aggressive as they probably had wanted to be, which allowed us to successfully defend the town.
The Wicked Witch is Still Trying to Get Dorothy’s Slippers (Feudal Patrol using Wars of Ozz figures)
This was a fun opportunity to jump in a Feudal Patrol game with my old USMA roommate Dave. Dave does a great job as a GM and even won a PELA award at Cold Wars for his Zulu game. Dave uses 28mm Wars of Ozz figures in a skirmish game using Feudal Patrol rules. I played on the Winkie side and we were able to take Dorothy down and get those valuable slippers!
After this game, I hit the vendors hall and got some lunch. Then I took the rest of the afternoon time to set up my Friday evening Wars of Ozz game. – “The Great Munchkin Heist“.
The Great Munchkin Heist (Wars of Ozz)
This was an epic back and forth Wars of Ozz battle, which really was great to see! Three brigades were on the attack (two Munchkin, one allied brigade, and an army reserve). The allied brigade was composed of two regiments of Jinjur female pirates, an Impkin slingshot battery, and a regiment of Frost Ogres (that Dave Stone will recognize!). The reserve came from the Land of Harvest – Great Pumpkinheads and regiments of eagles and owls. these allies hoped to share the loot with the Munchkins. Technological “secrets” were hidden in buildings throughout.
Three small but potent Nitpik mechanical men brigades and a small reserve force defended the formidable rusty steel walls of the Robotic Sanctum – a.k.a. the Industrial City. A small infantry reserve remained in the city, and there were rumors of a Nitpik relief force coming…
The Munchkins searched in vain for any technological secrets. They did manage to inflict slightly more casualties on Professor Nitpik’s forces, resulting in a narrow 18-15 point victory.
Little Wars TV actually showed a snippet this game on their Cold Wars video – you can see it at minute mark 12:31. My players look happy!
That wrapped up Friday – and Saturday I had two games scheduled. The first was a What a Tanker “what if” scenario between Vichy French and Italian armor. I had to cancel it due to lack of players. That allowed me more time to set up my evening game and to play in another Feudal Patrol game run by Buck. It was a scenario based on a William Tell TV show from the ’60’s that I have no memory of! It was fun, we freed the good guys from the Austrians, and had a good time.
Tell Me the Truth! (Feudal Patrol/William Tell)
At last it was time for Saturday night’s game.
High Noon at the Cyber Ruins (Combat Patrol:WWII – modified for retro Sci-fi)
This was my “western-themed” game.
I was really looking forward to this one as I got to use all of my rusty wreckage and ruined buildings that I have posted about here in this blog. It did not disappoint. The battle was full of action, with jet-packing cowboys (Texican Space Rangers) and Space ‘Roos engaging the Retrovians (Roger’s own). (More about Roger here.) Ancient robots were found and lost, some even getting violent when found. Buck got to play and channeled his inner paratrooper in the attack.
In the end, the Space Cowboys and Space ‘Roos alliance found 3/4 robots and successfully held on to them. All casualties mounted. But the victory was clearly in the hands of the Space Cowboys and Space ‘Roos!
After the game, with help, I was able to pack the car for a Sunday morning drive home. The temperature was well below zero Fahrenheit! With the wind chill it was -13 degrees Fahrenheit (or -25 Celsius for you metric types!).
Thank you to all at HMGS who made Cold Wars possible!
That wraps up this post – I still have a few that are in the queue , and I hope they are of interest.
I will be running these games again so see you at the next convention!
Next up? Some more terrain I think!
References:
Check these out!
For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous convention/club/game battle report blog posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/club-convention-games/
For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous Wars of Ozz posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/miniatures/wars-of-ozz/
For a consolidated list of links for any of my previous sci-fi/retro sci-fi posts, please see this page: https://markamorin.com/sci-fi-retro-sci-fi-projects/
Mark A. Morin 