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SOUTHERN FRONT 2007-A GREAT LITTLE CONVENTION
Ed Mohrmann With a Scenario Similar To One He Brought To RECON 07
SOUTHERN FRONT was old when HMGS was young. This was the 37th, and probably best ever, fall gathering for Triangle Simulation Society. I met Ed and some of the guys (many of whom were at this year’s show) at Wally’s Basement in 1981.
As it was explained to me, TSS was a combination not-for-profit hobby shop, game club, and conspiracy for the promotion of the hobby. They claimed (I have my doubts) that to be a not-for-profit in North Carolina in those primitive times you had to zero out the bank accounts every year. This was accomplished by having a free game day at the Baptist Student Union at NC State.
Since then, they have been corrupted. Ed told me they now let themselves accumulate as much as $5,000 in the treasury. But I could tell it wore on his conscience.
During the 1980s I would carpool down to NC with Wally Simon, Bob Coggins, Jeff Wiltrout, and Bob Hurst. At first we stayed with a local contractor who had a huge wargame room and played Column Line and Square with 30mm figures. Then on to the Student Union for the weekend of exotic games. My grand tactical rifle and saber rules version of Marengo, in which Unca Wally actually failed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A role playing game based on German paratroopers who landed in rural England by mistake in 1940. I think it was near the town of Upton Snodgrass, the location for many of Ed Mohrmann’s historical role playing games at locales like ORIGINS 95.
Shortly after my retirement I made trips from FALL IN! by way of West Virginia to Raleigh on my way to Florida. But when FALL IN! drove SOUTHERN FRONT out of the November time slot into September I would skip FALL IN! and bounce Raleigh on my way from Crisfield to Florida. The last time was right before 9/ll. It was lively. Phil Viverito was there running an El Cid scenario. After that there was the year of great North Carolina hurricanes, and one fool thing and another. And at some point in time they moved SOUTHERN FRONT from right before to right after HURRICON.
Since then SOUTHERN FRONT and TSS have taken off. The back room held most of the games in 2001. In 2007 it was just one room of many. And the breakout rooms were full. One seemed to cater mainly to WWII actions. Another near the restaurant featured Robert Bryant’s FIRST BOER WAR game, and an eccentric grand tactical 1/32nd WWI affair, and finally a role playing game about a road column being ambushed by guerillas, protestors, etc. in an imaginary South American Country. The main room held Napoleonic, Mexican War, ACW, a Medieval Siege Game and lots of other action including the signature raffles with prize support from a strong cast of vendors. I took some tickets on painted 1/72nd Grant tanks to jump start my possible expansion to the Desert War o 1940-42, but lost.
The convention paused Saturday night for a raffle besides which the greatest Chucks Bucks raffles are dwarfed by comparison.
In the scene above, Ed Mohrmann is announcing the winners of one pile of loot after another. In the foreground, and beside Ed, are a host of not-yet-graying wargamers. Behind the cameraman, and next to the huge castle with arms folded is Leo Cronin, formerly of Old Colony Wargame Club in Massachusetts, business manager of The Courier, LOH. Now retired to South Carolina.
WWII was the most popular era. Above a 1/72nd Plastic Air Assault Scenario
This was a 28mm Western Desert Game. Above British Infantry Close Assault German Scout Cars. I don’t know how it turned out. Down the road there were what looked like Mark IIs, and I don’t remember seeing anything in the British inventory that could cope with them.
These Troopers are from Ed’s Napoleonic Game (see the first page of this article) They were, I think, at RECON this year. Ed is planning to bring a delegation to RECON 08, but with him you never know what will turn up. He’s quite versatile.
The other Napoleonic action was in the form of Sam Mustapha’s popular Grande Armee. We see that at our conventions. Napoleonics have lost ground to WWII and other periods in comparison to the dominance they enjoyed in the heyday of EMPIRE and Napoleon’s Battles. But I see more of Grande Armee than of any other rule set.
Reminiscent of Bill Moreno’s Chuck’s Challenge II Buena Vista game, the colorful Mexican War era was represented.
This is the lively Road in The Jungle Role Playing Game. It would appear that a secret weapon has pinned down the Greyhound Armored car in this scene. It was probably not the first time for this scenario when I saw it at a small SOUTHERN FRONT in 1996 or 97. At that time a young couple in the game were expecting their first child. This year the child was also playing.
One of numerous amphibious landing games. This one is in 28mm. There was the Normandy airborne operation shown on a previous page. There was also an invasion game in 1/285th scale.
TSS had flyers at the desk for hobby shop educational game days in the area. Also, their growth (over 150 attendance) has encouraged them to hold a Spring convention SPRING FEVER, 16-18 May at the Crabtree Valley, and to support another, TANK SHOCK at the AAF Tank Museum in Danville VA. (If I recall correctly, the site of the last Confederate Cabinet Meeting. For details see UPCOMING EVENTS.
We are also hoping for a return visit from Ed and some of his friends to RECON 08, though it seems rather close to their own new convention.
To summarize: The good news is, SOUTHERN FRONT is a great little convention. The bad news is, SOUTHERN FRONT is ten hours from me, and at least seven from the Jax Garrison.
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