Repeat after me - we play with toy soldiers. Little tiny miniatures that are meant to represent units that may have existed in the real world. We paint them in full dress and glory, because the reality of ugly, sodden, and non-colorfast faded and stained colors are not what we want to present.

We all have some feelings about the honor and courage of the units and men we wish to represent, so we arrange them in neat little rows, with perfect little musters-no stragglers, no cowards, no wounded.

We use rules that merely remove troops, no blood, no anguish, no widows. We all love the history of men of courage; men who lived by an ho norable code, and men that fought for causes that ranged from mercenary to possibly the survival of civilized societies.

We honor history,and men that in extremis did the right thing-by their tribe, their regiment, their country, their city state, their leader, or their culture. We do this by playing games that commemorate their actions and the history they made.

Some need more specificity, some less, some pursue "simple" illustrations of these things; some require extremely involved models.

But in the end, it is toy soldiers on a green baize cloth, that we invest with our imaginations, using whatever rule mechanism allows our imaginations to soar.

No two imaginations will seek the same catalyst. But most of what occurs is not on the tabletop, but in our minds.

We should allow the widest latitude in this regard, and encourage those that may find new ways of inspiring the mind's eye. Because, to quote Shakespeare, "We are all spirits are melted into air, into thin air: And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like all the insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff that dreams are made on......

In short, the creatures of imagination and play-the best of man's nature, and not anything to make too many restrictions or rules as to what is proper...