Pictures from Cold Wars -- Volume 1

Back on March 7 and 8, I made my way down to Amish country and attended the Cold Wars miniature wargaming convention held at the Lancaster Host hotel & convention center in downtown Lancaster, PA. I thoroughly enjoyed my two days at the convention, which is the first of three HMGS East conventions (Historical Miniatures Gaming Society) held throughout the year in central Pennsylvania.


I had the pleasure of hanging out at the con with my longtime friend and gaming pal Kevin Sarnowski on Friday the 7th. We had a great time shopping in the flea market and vendor hall, took some time out to stop by the Paint & Take to paint up some French Foreign Legion infantrymen, and wandered around observing lots of ongoing wargames in the scads of rooms that make up the meandering layout of the Host.


I also really enjoyed talking to lots of nice chaps in the Vendor Hall such as:

• David McBride from Splintered Light Miniatures, a young southern gentleman and all around nice guy. I'm a 28mm gamer, but I've gotta say that their 15mm fantasy minis are quite cool and very tempting. I encourage you to give them a look-see.


• Craig Acheson from Acheson's Creations, who is one of the most enthusiastic, creative, and downright friendly people I've ever met at an HMGS convention. I came away from Craig's booth with a painted celtic hut, a colorful painted mushroom piece, and an unpainted viking long house. Great stuff; great guy.


• The happy-go-lucky Soderquist brothers from Bronze Age Miniatures, who drove all the way from Utah to come to Cold Wars and sell their awesomely cool martians, norse gods, and skeletal pirates. Now there's dedication! I bought some of the Norse Gods and can't wait to paint them up -- they're full of character.


• Neal Catapano from The WarStore, a big-hearted Italian American whose online store has become my #1 stop on the internet when looking for gaming stuff. My wife, who bought me a batch of Christmas gifts from The WarStore sums it up nicely... Neal rocks! It's really great to see a WarStore booth overflowing with goodies at the HMGS cons. I hope they can make many more of these in the future.


• I was surprised to bump into the always friendly Igor Olshanky in the vendor hall (he's IGWARG for you TMP-ers out there). Igor paints some very nice minis, and I've had the pleasure of buying painted figures from him in the past. Hope you did well in your Warhammer tourney Igor!

Suffice it to say that there are some really great people in this hobby if you just take the time to stop by and chat with them.


Moving on... Kevin brought his camera and snapped quite a few pictures of the various participation games. There was plenty of gorgeous eye candy for wargamers here. With Kev's permission, I'm going to show off some of his pictures on this blog. This will be part-1 of 3-part series. I hope that you gather some inspiration from these photos. Enjoy!














More pictures to come in Part-2. See you soon!