Club Objectives

getting it off my chest

by Jeff Herbert

The main objective of the club is to promote war-gaming with figures and board games in Hong Kong and to provide a venue for club members to meet once a month and play or exchange ideas and modelling skills.  The idea being that new members see if they like war games, particularly those who have not played before, on their first attendance, join on their second and within 2-3 months have started their collections going.  It takes time to build a collection, especially if you paint your own figures, but with advent of E-bay ready painted and based armies are readily available.  Over the last few years an increasing number of members appear to have no interest in building their own armies or board game collections but seem not only content but expectant on turning up and having a game provided.  This is as if the one or two active members get some kind of benefit from this, which they do not.  The club relies on fresh blood otherwise it withers and dies but the real blood it needs are those members willing to fully participate.  It is very heartening when a new member joins, likes what he sees and a month or two later has his first army, like our most recent addition, but it is soul destroying to see members who have no such intent especially those that have been with the club for many years.  At the moment it can be said that without three to four members there would be no gaming as can be seen by two having commitments and only one large figure game being available for the last two months.   More gob smacking are comments like, “What time does the meeting start I arrived at 1pm and the game wasn’t ready to play.” Or “Why doesn’t somebody bring a board game along for those of us that cannot get a game”, or “Why is there only one game a month now”.

There are times when the four of us have to say, “Why do we bother?” The reason that we do is very occasionally a great war gamer comes along which gives you the encouragement to carry on.

Only Peter, Andrzej and I are left of what can be termed the original membership and the only founding member is Peter.  When we joined the collections in Hong Kong were quite small, you had to build your own or be content to watch, members fronting up with one or two units put many of the games together.  In this way an entire ACW campaign was put together fought on a monthly basis with whatever turned up, one player with a brigade of infantry another with a battery of guns or a regiment of cavalry.  This is what the club is about.  We tried to reintroduce this a year or so ago, Peter even brought along free figures.  We played Fire and Fury and those that took part enjoyed it but at the end of the day none wanted to paint up a few figures.  Peter and I went off and downed our sorrows over a few ales together.

On many occasions members paired off and played small separate games but this is now impossible. 

Being unable to book sandwiches for the last meeting, due to the mess night before, I drove to the venue at 11am, parked and took the figures in and then went to Pacific Place to buy food for those attending.  By 12.30pm I had set up the food and then waited for Peter so we could set up the game.  It has literary come to the point that if Peter cannot attend, due to duty commitments, I have to bring all the figures unless I can get somebody like Dick to bring some.  Bearing in mind that I am also on 24 hour operational call there may be a time when there will be no game available for those who just arrive on speck.  It is also becoming difficult for me to get car parking at the venue, if I cannot I will be unable to bring more than one bag so the time is coming when some may have to be content with watching.  The active involvement of all would be greatly appreciated.

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