Well, it took me a while but after my niece's wedding across the country in New Jersey and arguably the greatest World Series in baseball history (Hey, I may be from Brooklyn but I've lived in Los Angeles for almost 30 years!) I'm back with a Convention Report for HMGS-Pacific Southwest's Mini-Wars 2025…
(Mammoth fossil on glorious display in the lobby of the convention venue)
The convention was held on Saturday October 11th and Sunday October 12th at the Portola Pavilion of the Titan Student Union building on the campus of Cal State University Fullerton, in the city of Fullerton, located in Orange County, California, about 30 miles South-East of Los Angeles
We had about 100 attendees enjoying just over 40 events, mostly tabletop miniature wargames and RPGs, with a few boardgames, 2 hobby classes (one on figure painting & one on terrain making), a painting competition and one seminar thrown in for good measure -- plus the society's annual membership meeting first thing on Sunday morning.
We were very happy to have some vendors present on both days: FIST FULL DESIGNS (FIST and FULL are supposed to be combined into just one word but that somehow triggers parental control like it's foul language -- which I kinda understand but still counts as a glitch in my book), FORAGE AHEAD, & NERDPOOL INDUSTRIES -- selling figures, dice, dice-towers, games, etc. And of course we also held the traditional Mini-Wars Flea-Market.
I'm also very happy to report that this year we gave out awards to GMs for the most outstanding games. Here's the complete list and congrats to all the winners:
BEST OF SHOW: Game #14 THE BATTLE OF FREEMAN'S FARM Dana Munson
BEST THEME GAME ("Send In The Marines!"): Game #17 TARAWA St. Crispin's Wargames Club
YOUNG GUARD AWARD: Game #25 ESCAPE FROK THE GOBLIN CAVERNS Chloe Selby
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES* Game #34 D&D 5E Mark Dormitori
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #6 F.O.W. RACE TO BERLIN (TOURNAMENT) Richard Aldrete
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #24 BATTLE OF MONOCASY John Cobello
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #20 F.O.W. EAST AFRICA Michael & Daniel Verity
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #35 APES VICTORIOUS Chris Lundgren
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #26 SHORES OF TRIPOLI Nick Stern
POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES Game #8 GASLANDS Frank Perkins
*As many reading this on TMP will already know, "Pour Encourage Les Autres" translates roughly as "to encourage the others" in French and in keeping with similar awards given by the original HMGS (sometimes known as "HMGS East") signifies a game that embodies the best aspects of our hobby and serves as an inspiration to others. One such award was given to a GM in each schedule block of games.
At the Sunday morning membership meeting enthusiasm was expressed for Saturday's game offerings, which was nice to hear. Right now all signs point to Mini-Wars 2026 being back at the same venue and probably being held on the same Columbus Day holiday weekend. There is also talk of possibly adding Friday afternoon & evening to the event, so some GMs can set up their more elaborate games for an early starts and start on Saturday morning, and GMs & players can have more time to play whatever they want -- but the convention will still end on Sunday and not stretch into the actual Monday holiday.
As usual, when the schedule for next year becomes official I will return to spread the word. For this coming MINI-WARS 2026 that should happen early enough on the calendar to make it much easier for people who would like to attend to plan ahead and fit it into their schedules.
I will also mention that on the convention Sunday I ran my first ever terrain-making workshop, which was a lot of fun. I only had 4 participants but I'm happy to report they all seemed to enjoy themselves and of course each got to take home approximately one dozen pieces of rocky terrain, built Mad Guru style, ready for use in future games of any/all kinds on their own tabletops, where they will look pretty cool -- at least IMHO!
That's about it -- except for a handful of pics from the convention, as seen below. If you'd like to see a ton-and-a-half more such pics, feel free to click on the link below and visit my blog, where I've got about 150 of them:
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