Little Wars 2016 & Purchases

    The 1st game I played in at Little Wars 2026 - Marty's 'Pulp Alley' Chaos in Cairo game was a blast!

Little Wars in Chicago, HMGS Midwest's flagship convention, is usually not on my itinerary. Spring is such a busy time for cons here in Ohio that most years I can't squeeze it in. However, I had been telling myself since I retired that I wanted to attend more shows, and Little Wars is not that far away -- just under six hours driving (depending on traffic). We had attended a couple times in the past and had a fun time. So, when I saw how reasonably priced the hotel rooms were, I decided to make 2026 the third time!

    My 'haul' from Little Wars -- I kept my spending under control, for the most part

The next decision was whether I would run games or simply just shop and play. I went back and forth for a couple weeks, and finally decided I would go just as an attendee. When the event list was published, I sat down and picked out five games that I wanted to play in. When registration opened, I was ready, waiting on Tabletop Events with five tabs open -- ready to pounce! I successfully registered for all five of the games I wanted, and Jenny was able to get in most of them, too. 

    My 2nd favorite game at Little Wars was the 1970s IRA raid on British operations on Saturday

The drive to Chicago went much smoother than I expected. We got there earlier on Thursday afternoon than we had planned -- even before registration opened up. After checking in, we went to a local brewpub for a beer and stayed for another (and to get something to eat). We were joined by our "Michiana" (Michigan & Indiana) friends -- Steve S, Greg, Steve B, Tim, and his son Pat. It was good to see them. Since they stopped coming to Advance the Colors, sadly, we are lucky to see them once a year. Despite all of the good games I played in, hanging out with good friends and sharing laughs was truly my personal highlight of Little Wars. We doubled down on that Saturday evening, going out to dinner with Rich and his wife Gwen from RRB Minis & More. Vendors are always so busy at conventions that it was nice to spend a couple hours with them, too!

    My Pulp Alley league surveys the street -- spotting the first plot point that we needed to investigate

My first game Thursday evening was Pulp Alley -- a very fun system that we played about 10 years ago but hadn't in awhile. In 2014, I ran an Indiana Jones-themed series of games for the Sunday Evening Gaming Group called, Dakota Smith's Oriental Adventures. Not wanting to be "that player" who doesn't know or understand the rules, I downloaded Pulp Alley's free Quick Start guide and read through it the night before. I was glad that I did, though GM Marty Devine did an excellent job going over the rules before the game. In fact, this would prove to be my favorite game of the entire convention. My "League" (as a player's group of figures is called) consisted of three miniatures trying to beat the other three factions to finding clues to the location of a secret map. We had a blast, attacking each other in this free-for-all, playing "Peril" cards on each other, and in general, trying to outfox the others.

    The center of the board with traffic, soldiers, and pedestrians making it a 'perilous place' to be

It was a thrilling finish to the game, too. On my last figure's activation, she charged into the player holding the major plot point and knocked them out, sending the prized possession flying. With no figure technically in possession of it at game end, the my league ended up in a three-way tie for first. The Little Wars staff give a medal to the GM of each game to hand out to the winner or player who performed best. I won my first of two for the weekend, but more importantly, had a great time. Marty ran Pulp Alley throughout the weekend, and Jenny went back for a second game of it, having an equally good time.

    I eyeballed this 3-D printed building RRB Minis had in their booth all weekend before buying it

Friday morning was a bit of a disappointment, as I screwed up the time my event started. I had utilized the "My Schedule" feature of Tabletop Events to pull up a spreadsheet of the games I had booked. What I didn't realize was that by saving the tab in my phone's browser, and not refreshing it when we arrived in town, my times were all off by one hour. For some reason, TTE has a "time zone" feature and adjusts your schedule to show your own local time when you pull it up -- not the scheduled actual start time for the game. So, if you were on the West Coast and pulled up your "My Schedule," game start times would be two hours off from Chicago's Central Time and three from my Eastern Time. Mine was one hour off, and Jenny and I showed up about 45 minutes after it had started. I felt awful for the GM in being a no-show, and bummed that I didn't get to play in his pirate game. 

    The Bad Squiddo figs that I picked up -- I kept in under control as their range tends to be very pricey

It did give me a LOT more time to shop, though! One of my favorite stops at Historicon was there, Badger Games, and I spent time looking through their extensive line of miniatures they brought to the show. They carry a HUGE number of figure lines, and curious, I asked the owner who'd attended about what percentage they were able to bring to the show. She estimated 10% -- the remaining 90% was sitting in their warehouse. I picked out five packs that I wanted from Bad Squiddo Games line, including a pack of "May Queens" that I think will make good female wizards for my Elven army for Dragon Rampant. That had been one of my shopping goals, as I hadn't bought any wizards with my Warhost army (which I got from Badger Games, by the way). 

    Phalanx Games was there with their MDF bases - $5 for as many as you can stuff & seal in a ziploc

Friday night's game (which I DID make it to on time!) was a hit and miss. It was using The Men Who Would be Kings from Daniel Mersey's "Rampant" stable. However, the GM wasn't very familiar with the rules, and I had to step in a number of times and help him figure out how the system worked. He was also a bit brain fried, he said, as this was his third game in a row. He also admitted he had yet to the play test the scenario, which quickly became evident when the Mahdists wiped our British and Egyptian forces off the table in half the time the game was scheduled for! Jenny was even less happy than I was, because the GM was clearly getting frustrated with players who weren't picking up the rules. The fact that it was his own two friends who were the most clueless of the bunch didn't make his badgering the players any better. Chalk that one up as a "miss," and hope the rest of the games are better. Unfortunately, bad games, bad scenarios, and bad GMs are all part of attending a convention. You have to accept your losses with your wins.

    Another of the lovely buildings that were part of the very fun IRA game I played in on Saturday

Saturday morning was much better. I played in a 1970s IRA vs. British scenario. The GM's board was beautiful! He had 3-D printed all of the buildings and it was definitely immersive. He explained we had two missions we needed to complete -- ambushing a Laundry Delivery Service van (a front for British counter-intelligence) and taking out a massage parlor, which was another intelligence effort trying to extract information from the "loose lips" of its customers. He let us plan every detail of our mission, whether to complete the missions simultaneously or consecutively, how many of our eight operatives to assign to each, and exactly how we would carry each out.

    Rich Brown of RRB gave me a good 'package deal' on these 2 smaller buildings & boulders

So, instead of 30 minutes explaining the rules to us, he kept that part of the game relatively secret. He wanted the preliminaries to be us hashing out our mission plan amongst ourselves. There was one of the five players who was a bit of a holdout, but we eventually brought him around to the group consensus. Once the missions themselves got under way, the system moved very quickly. In fact, the three of us players (and four operatives) ambushing the van completed it in record time, the GM said. We took no casualties and eliminated all four of the British agents quickly. He mentioned it was the best any group had done. The other team was having a bit rougher of a time, and ended up clearing only two of the three floors of the massage parlor. They lost one operative and had two others wounded, I believe. The other three IRA agents were able to exfiltrate, though, and soon joined us as we melted away into the pro-IRA neighborhood, with the sounds of British sirens drawing nearer.

    Lion Rampant, a very fun system, recreating the Battle of Enna in Sicily between Arabs & Normans

My final game Saturday afternoon was a Lion Rampant game between Arabs and Normans in Sicily. It was a four-player game with two commands on each side. Interestingly, the GM had us alternate activating one of our commands (one Arab, one Norman, etc.). We also re-rolled for Initiative each turn, so the possibility of a "double move" -- going last one turn and first the next -- existed, and actually happened. Personally, I think the game would have been better and faster moving if both commands on one side went and then the other side, and kept up that order throughout the game. Still, it was a fun game. My shooting and combat dice were pretty bad in the beginning, but eventually came around at the end. On one amazing charge, my "Bloodthirsty" general and his bodyguard cavalry rolled 13 hits on 12 dice against a Norman light cavalry unit. With his trait, each roll of a "6" caused two hits, and I rolled six of them on 12 dice!

    Last purchase of the con, an interesting looking 3-D printed medieval building from Phalanx Games

I wrapped up my shopping after that session of games, because Jenny and I would be leaving right away Sunday morning. In addition to the Bad Squiddo minis, I picked up two small medieval buildings and another larger one from RRB Minis & More. I also snagged a ziploc full of MDF bases of various sizes and another very cool looking 3-D printed medieval building from Phalanx Games & Sundry. My last purchase was a can of Howard Hues paint from Dayton Painting Consortium -- one of my favorite colors that I had run out of, recently. After dinner with Rich & Gwen, we closed out the evening like we had the other three -- sitting around swapping stories and laughing with our Michiana friends. It had definitely been a good weekend.

    My prizes (and the figs that won them for me) from two of the fun games at Little Wars 2026

Will I come back? Well...actually, I'm not 100% sure. The Little wars registration fee was a bit of sticker shock. Sixty dollars is a lot for a convention -- at least compared to the ones I attend. I know $60 is not Gencon pricing, but it is more than the much larger Historicon was in 2025 ($50), and four times what we charge for a weekend member badge at Advance the Colors. Also, I'm not exactly crazy about the way HMGS Midwest bundles a year's membership in their chapter into the convention price. Long ago, all HMGS chapters across the country agreed to give members of other chapters the discounted admission rate that their own members received. What's the point of that if members of other chapters HAVE to buy your membership? Yes, I understand Chicago may be an expensive city, so the venue could be pricey. Still, the Sheraton, where the convention was held, was a suburban hotel -- not downtown in the high rent zone. And honestly, it is getting a little worn on the edges and needing renovation. For example, when we arrived, only one of its three elevators was working. So, Little Wars' convention price could certainly factor into my future decisions on whether to attend or not. Seeing all of my buddies is priceless, of course, but these two things probably take it out of the "must go" for me.

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Miniatures acquired in 2026: 176
  
• Miniatures painted in 2026: 91

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Terrain acquired in 2026: 7
  
• Terrain painted in 2026: 23

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2026

• Scatter acquired in 2026: 17
  
• Scatter painted in 2026: 56