HMGS to Host Another Cyber Wars - November 12-15

In lieu of the previously cancelled Fall-In!, HMGS will be hosting another Cyber-Wars online, November 12-15.

While not filling up convention centers and tennis barns of previous conventions, the Cyber-Wars for Historicon was deemed a success by the organizers, particularly given the short notice (six weeks) to organize it.

From the message sent to membership:

We had four days of virtual gaming across a variety of platforms. We had twenty games, all of which had enough players to run through the games.

We had a virtual club room in which we were able to highlight nine different clubs.

We had a virtual painting competition with 26 entrants, who submitted 66 entries between 6 different categories. Our vendors provided excellent prize support for this competition.

We had a virtual Hobby Room in which we posted 7 videos. Greg Zuniga ran a live Twitch stream on Friday night, and James Wappel live streamed on Twitch for over 15 hours for us.

No Dice No Glory coordinated the HMGS Round Table for us. These live events ran from Thursday evening, all the way through Sunday evening. We had a total of 18 different presentations from podcasters, historians, game designers and presidents of major gaming companies. Over four hundred people watched the videos live. No Dice No Glory uploaded all the presentations within 30 minutes of the evening’s presentations ending on their YouTube channel. As of July 26, 628 people had watched videos from the event.

We had a virtual vendor hall with 105 vendors listed, 24 of which offered either a show discount, prize support for our painting competition, or both.

We created a CYBËR WÅRS Facebook page which gathered 243 likes, and a CYBËR WÅRS Lounge group for people to talk about CYBËR WÅRS which gathered 130 members.

We created a webpage on the HMGS website which had our virtual games, Round Table events, and vendors so those members who don’t use Facebook could access CYBËR WÅRS.

I am still amazed at how much we managed to get done together as a team in only six weeks. 

It appears the listing for the Historicon Cyber Wars is still up.  It should be replaced with the Fall-In! version as material and events are confirmed.  

HMGS Announces CYBËR WÅRS

With all the disappointment from HGMS doing the responsible thing and canceling both this year's Historicon and Fall-In!, those good folks are trying to placate the masses with a quarantine-friendly online wargaming experience, CYBËR WÅRS

From the announcement I received in my e-mail:

The majority of this online convention will be hosted on Facebook, with a link being provided shortly. The convention will be held July 23-26, 2020.

We are planning several events which we hope you will enjoy. The following is a brief preview of the events, and also ways you, the members, can help make them even better:

1. Virtual Vendor Hall. We will be posting links to all the great vendors who have come to our conventions in the past. We are also hoping to include some event special promotions.
2. Virtual Wally’s Basement. This will be an open page where you can post your eBay or other third-party auction links.
3. Virtual Hobby Night. Our volunteers will be posting painting and hobby videos for you to watch. There may be a few live streams as well. If you are interested in making a video or two, please let us know.
4. Club Page. We would like to include a page dedicated to the clubs that have attended the HMGS conventions over the years. Each club will have the opportunity to showcase their club, and some projects they have worked on over the years. If your club has not already received an e-mail, please reach out to us at the email contact address below. We would love to highlight as many clubs as possible.
5. Virtual Merchandise Store. What better way to say “I wasn’t there” than to get some CYBËR WÅRS merchandise?
6. Virtual War College. We will be posting links to some of our past War College lectures, as well as our favorite historical YouTube videos.
7. Virtual Painting Competition. Participants would submit photos of their entries. We will have five categories. Best Historical Unit, Best Historical Figure, Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Unit, Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Single Figure, and Best Open Category. Additionally, there will be a Best in Show and a Fan Favorite. The first six categories will be judged by Mr. Dave Taylor, and the Fan Favorite category will be selected by convention participants based on the pictures that receive the most “likes”. We are working on prize support at this time.
8. Virtual Gaming. We have a number of game masters who have volunteered to run their games on a number of different platforms. If you are also interested in running a virtual game, please reach out to us!

With the modest success of a local convention like Mepacon turning online, to the full-blown implosion of everything related to Origins, I have faith that HMGS will pull off a good first attempt and learn a lot about the process for other functions.