KUDOS FROM DOWN UNDER I have read your editorial in Volume IX, No. 4 of The Courier and in particular your comments on keeping The Courier going. I believe it would bean irreplaceable loss to the hobby if The Courierwere notto be published. I am writing to you to show my appreciation for the work you and your co-ed itors do in putting together such a fine magazine. I get both The Courier and some of the English wargaming magazines. I find The Courier is far superior. The Courier feels like it is written by practicing wargamers. The other magazines while having colour photographs seem closerto history books than a gaming magazine. (Every article seems to have a final afterthought for wargamers which begins "Use your favourite set of rules and try this out). It is a great pity that I cannot obtain more back issues of The Courier. My collection peters out about Volume VI. If only I had discovered The Courier earlier! I frequently reread my back issues and invariably find something of interest. You might be interested to know that many of my figures have been bought mail order from the USA and Canada and I have ordered on the strength of your reviews and via your advertising pages. --AN AUSTRALIAN READER THE TROUBLE WITH RULES After seventeen years of historical miniatures gaming I have finally arrived at the conclusion that the problems and frustrations some of us had with our hobby then have not changed one bit over the course of a generation of gamers. For those of you that don't go back that far, wargaming in 1974 was growing fast. Some guy named Bowden had just published a rules booklet of 54 pages called "Empire". Twenty-five mm was the accepted scale and most gamers used Airfix figures. The biggest problem was keeping the paint on them. Hinchliffe was marketing a new line of 12mm figures called "System 12" and 15mm was available only from a fellow in England by the name of Peter Lang. Today rule books are bigger, figures are better, and everything is more expensive ' However, our basic plague has not changed. As a group we simply do not know what we want -- or we want it all. Take rules for example. We all would like a set of historically accurate and playable rules which our army can win with. The idea set of rules would have the following characteristics: Historically accurate: includes every nation's characteristics and has been researched in all the archives of the known world. Playable: fight Leipzig or Guagamela in an afternoon. Simulation resolution: Simulate all battlefield functions and levelsofcommand from atankcom- mander's nosebleed and company level fires to decisions by Napoleon. Figure scale and mounting: Use myscale and mountingwhich I used seventeen years ago. Also be adaptable to 6mm and 54mm figures. Price: Be cheap and provide free updates. Point System: Have a point system which ensures equally balanced games. So, Scotty and Phil, did you get all that? Are you listening? Most of us are adult enough to realize that no set of rules could ever meet all the requirements which wargamers placeon them; compromises mustbe made. Any set of rules falls somewhere in a spectrum which at one end lies "simulations" and at the other is "games". Games are best defined by example such as Chess or Monopoly. Simulations are exact recreations of historical events. In a game the participants have an equal chance of success. With a simulation, history should recreate itself if the participants do the same things as their historical counterparts did. Most of us do not wish to play at either end of the spectrum. A pure "game" would not be able to be historically accurate. Most wargamers would die rather than field an ahistorical army. My God -- you might as well get into fantasy. On the other side of the coin why play a game which is so historical you know the winner before you start? Recently I lost my temper in a game. Something none of you have ever done I hope. Slamming the dice down and saying things I hope my daughter did not hear I accused the rules of historical inaccuracy and that they werejust a game. One of the other players quite justly agreed with me that indeed it was a game and was meant to be one. I was really mad that the rules did not innately recognize my tactical genius and award my brow with the victory laurel. Yet when the rules are too historical and we lose we often blame the rules as being pro-French or pro-Pike. A good simulation of Napoleonic warfare will and should be pro-French. And the Macedonians should in most cases beat their historical opponents. In this case the loser will say "so what, I lost, the rules don't let my army win". Whether we win or lose hinges on two things: our understanding of the game's mechanics and luck. Luck will make your Divisions run in Empire and cause you to fail to make those important counters in WRG. Butwithout Chance in rules then there is no excitement or fun. Some "Rules Lawyers" have made an an of learning the odds in every tactical situation. They must think that Caesar carried a copy of WRG and knew that if he rolled even and charged downhill he could beat Pompeii. As long as Pompeii did not roll up. For those of you who insist on playing with the Old Guard or riding in Tiger tanks you should consider that real war is exciting because there is a chance of death. Play war is more exciting if there is a chance of defeat. Rule designers should consider this when building in too many sure win situations. The rule's mechanics are the procedures bywhich maneuver and combat are accomplished. The better we understand them the better we will be. The problem that too often occurs is that rules expertise replaces good generalship. There are few sets of rules that can truly claim to reward the correct application of the Principles of War over the knowledge of the rules. Rules can also be divided into those which emphasize the firepower effects of combat and those which emphasize morale. One seeks to achieve combat resolution through destruction of units while the other is heavy on morale effects. This situation reflects a similar discussion between military historiansfor decades. I think a good set of rules will be balanced but each gamer will have his own opinion. The bottom line of all this is: rules are imperfect and there will always be someone whi dislikes any given set. Our biggest problem is not poor quality rules, but poor quality scenarios. Most of the time we try to fight too large a battle with too little time and too many players with too little experience. Besides that our scenarios are great. We also do a poor job of balancing the scenario so that it is fair. Sometimes the historical refights so severely limit the flexibility of the players that there is little to do but watch events take place. If we would match our scenarios to the time available and number of participants as well as the capabilities of the rules, then we could achieve satisfying games that are decisive. It is more likely that we will keep on blaming the rules designers for our own mistakes. Another problem is a few wargamers never learn more about an historical period of war than what is in the rules. This is sad since all the table top experience in the world will only make us expens in "Empire" or "WRG". Only by studying the period can we gain a depth of knowledge to make us historically accurate players. Many arguments stem from some player making a move that is totally beyond the historical realm of reason. When confronted he usually stands on the fact that the rules did not cover that anomaly. We demand realistic rules and we should become realistic players. In almost two decades we have made quantum improvements in the rules we play with. We owe those people with the energy, intelligence, and financial courage to write and publish rules a vote of thanks. -- MICHAEL KELLEY Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #55 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com