LIKED THE OLD COVERS I much preferred The Courier's old covers with historical subjects, which reflected the historical underpinnings of the hobby. I sincerely hope that copying the English magazines with their glossy figure photos will not be followed by emulation of their vapid content as well. The lights are on but nobody's home approach is fun to look at and has its place, but the strength of The Courier has always been the thoughtfulness of its articles. --GERALD J. PROKOPOWICZ, Franklin MA I always felt that content was the much more important part of the magazine and have always resisted such remedies as reducing the number of pages so as to provide color pictures. The Courier intends to maintain the high level of content it has in the past, whatever conpromise it may have to make to the marketplace. --DICK BRYANT ANCIENTS ONLY PERIOD THAT HAS UNHISTORICAL OPPONENTS I first became interested in TACTICA bemuse the reviews said that it was written so that battles would be fought between historical opponents and not some utter fantasy with ancient Egyptians vs Hundred Years' War English. This lead me to look for a set. The packaging and the presentation led me to buy them The fact that I enjoy looking through the book and actually reading parts. By the same token, I subscribe to and read THE COURIER and HISTORICAL WARGAMER among others, first for the content and secondly for the presentation. I cancelled my subscription to EAGLES, EMPIRES, and LIONS because it just wasn't worth the price to me any more. While it had a lot of good information, it was poorly edited (some articles were almost unreadable) and just did not look interesting. Why not run a survey on why it is that it is only in the realm of Ancients gamers that we see this strange fixation about games between unhistorical opponents? I've never seen a game with Napoleonic; vs American Civil War (Mexican American War? - ED), or Marlburian vs American Revolution (Late French & Indiam War? ED). It does rather remind me of an April Fools issue you did several years ago with a set of universal wargames -rules from 30,000BC to the far future. --DAVID A. STEWART, Griffin GA. OK Readers. Let us hear your thoughts on this topic. DICK BRYANT NAPOLEONICS RULES NEED A STANDARD LIKE ANCIENTS HAVE In 58 Jim Birdseys, our Napoleonic editor asked why the Napoleonic period did not have a national organization like Anicents, and why Napoleonic events at shows have dwindled over the years. The following is more or less typical of the responses we received. --DB I'm 40 years old, I've been wargaming since I was 12, and doing Napoleonic miniatures since I was 16. It's my Period. I love it I research, I paint castings, I buy rules, But even I rarely play Napoleonic battles at conventions. In fact, I rarely even watch for very long. Two simple reasons: commonality (or the lack thereof) and complexity (of which we have a surplus). I have a few DBA armies. I can use them in my apartment on a card table. I can take them to a convention and be confident that I can find an opponent whose basing is compatible, and who is familiar with the rules. I can show a novice player the rules, and expect him to play in a matter of minutes, If I tire of an army or period, I can sell off those castings, confident that purchasers will find them properly organized and based. A friend of mine, who has been in Napoleonics even longer, says many of the same things about TACTICA. WRG and how many others in the ancients/medieval range use the same basing? I don't game in ACW, but I understand the same basing can be used for JOHNNY REB and FIRE AND FURY (and ON TO RICHMOND - ED). Most of the 16th Century seems to follow WRG ancients basing. Like to contrast this with Napoleonics? Consider the charming 6mm Adler figures. I understand a number of gamess am using standard NAPOLEON'S BATTLES basing, but using 8 or 9 Adler 6mm instead of the recommended 15mm Stone Mountain published a guideline recommending 4 casting bases to scale down the tabletop. A few weeks ago they published MARSHAL'S BATON specifically designed for the Adler 6mm. It called for 6 castings to a base of infantry and had it to worked into the rules that you cannot use units based on fours even though both are 1:120 representations without doing severe violence to the rules. I know other players who keep one Napoleonic Army based for EMPIRE (Lord knows why) and another for NAPOLEON'S BATTLES. Some sort of award should go to GARDES DU CORPS, which says I should base my French he one way for Borodino, and another way for Lutzers. I hope the author isn't holding his breath. Is there any point to this multiplicity? Was the basing for MARSHAL'S BATON so critical that the author couldn't have used either of the existing systems? Was there no way the authors of NAPOLEON'S BATTLES could have worked with EMPIRE basing? This sort of self-indulgence does the period no good (Not that we are unique). Note that though both are 1:50/60 KOENIG KRIEG and AGE OF REASON are based so that you cannot use KK based troops for AOR without upsetting the tactical balance. Why, for the love of Tells? So much for commonality, how about complexity? Find me a set of Napoleonic rules you could hand to a novice at a convention. It's hard enough finding something the poor kid could lift. I watched two dealers at NOVAG amusing themselves in slow periods counting the tables in NAPOLEONIQUE ENCORE. I was rereading part of Clausewitz last week, know how many woods he talks about? Two! Three, if you count swamps. I can find you rules with 6. Check the Napoleonic games in a convention flyer. Note the table designation. Then try to find something scheduled later that day for the same table. Doesn't happen. The organizers know that even should the Napoleonics players actually finish, they'll be all day and part of the night. I did a COLUMN, LINE, & SQUARE game at a convention in South Bend last summer. I've played CLS for 24 years -- learned under Baron Vietmeyer himself -- and trust me, that game just wasn't just unwinable, it wasn't even playable in the four hours the hall would still be open. My opponent and I had to strip down the rules and browbeat the host to make it any sort of game. A friend played at the convention's only other Napoleonic game, and reported that the activation and sequencing system in the rules made it nearly physically impossible to launch a regimental assault: he couldn't make three battalions of French in good morale go forward at the same time! Napoleonics, let's face it, has shot itself in the foot. We don't need a single set of rules and basing, and there is room for fairly complex rules, but if we are going to go to a convention and recruit we need simple and fast-moving rules using existing basing systems, and convention games that can be finished while the huckster tables are still open. Phil Barker took a terrible hiding in The Courier #58, but I saw a lot more ancient play hereabouts following the introduction of DBA. I'm looking forward to seeing his horse and musket system. Meantime, when I work on my own sets, I've sworn off any new basing systems, and any activation system which leaves players with nothing to do until they roll the right number. If more of us do that, and if convention host follow Jim Purky's advice from HISTORICAL GAMER #13, we night start seeing some fiamliar units at conventions. --ROBERT PIEPENBRINK, Fort Meyer VA. A lot of food for thought. Ancient rules authors were forced to follow WRG basing as it was such a popular set of rules and they wanted gamer; to try their rules with existing armies. Unfortunately the same has now occurred in Napoleonics, Some authors do put in sections showing how to play their rules with alternate basing that should probably be standard in all rules. As for complexity, even the most complex rules can be played at conventions if the host keeps the scenario simple in relationship to the rule complexity.--DB Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 59 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com