As we move to the 100th Anniversary of the Hobby, we should make an accounting of who got us here, what helped us enjoy and expand our gaming, and where might we be going. As a start our editor, Dick Bryant, and I will begin the Wargaming Hall of Fame, but in the cyber age, and because this will be on The Courier website, we will call it the Wargaming Site of Fame. Here we hope to have biographies and contributions of those who have shaped and moved and sustained the hobby of the past 90 years and on into the 100-year celebration we will have in 2013. We will cover important people, innovations, and events that have shaped our gaming lives. We start first with the Pioneers of the hobby. While we may rank order the folks as is the wont of Americans, we do not mean indicate major differences.
Given the important role of Wells in creating and sustaining the hobby for the past 90 years, I think we can place him without question as the number one in this list. But who else do we put in this accounting. Our editor, Dick Bryant, and I will start the Wargaming Hall of Fame, but in the cyber age, and because this will be on The Courier website, we will call it the Wargaming Site of Fame. Here we hope to have biographies and contributions of those who have shaped and moved and sustained the hobby of the past 90 years and on into the 100 year celebration we will have in 2013. While we may rank order the folks as is the wont of Americans, we do not mean to indicate major differences.
In the number 2 spot we must put Jack Scruby. His contributions have been well documented in past issues of The Courier and in other places. What sets him apart from others is his multifaceted contribution. He brought together gamers around the world to forma critical mass to keep the hobby growing. He kept them together with a magazine, he ran conventions, created war game figures, wrote rules, brought many new garners into the fold. He did it all.
If you read many UK histories you are led to believe that Jack Scruby had little or no impact on the hobby. They typically put Don Featherstone in that second spot. Even the eudite scholar of the hobby Stuart Asquith says, "If H. G. Wells was the grandfather of the hobby, then Don Featherstone is the father." Without question Don ranks up there among the top few who have had a major impact. He certainly was the master of promoting the hobby. With some 20 books and many constant years of publishing Wargamers Newsletter, founding the first Convention in the UK, appearing on the telly, making appearances at public events sometimes with royalty. All to the end of getting people involved in the life. He managed to also maintain a full time carrier as a physiotherapist. So the top three lights of the hobby are easy to identify.
Who would we put into the rest of the 10 ten. I will offer some names of those who got us to where we are, they will occupy the first places in the Site of Fame. Readers must also submit their nominations. We will establish a committee to make the choices. Send your nominees with reasons. Send via mail to the Magazine or to me at beattie@umich.edu.
Now to the other initial 7. Capatin Sachs means little to us modem, even post-WW2 gamers. I have not even been able to find a full set of his rules. Jack did publish part of the system in one of his newsletters. Nonetheless, he seems to have held the English gaming community together for the inter-war period. Quite a number of post War notables came from his table. For these reasons I nominate him as one of our initial top 10.
At this time we are limiting ourselves to the pre-1979 period. There were two major developments in that year that began what I like to call the modem era of historical miniatures war gaming. Dick Bryant brought out The Courier in its glossy cover, 8 1 /2 by 11 format as the first professional all historical miniatures magazine. In that same year was PennCon . This was the first national all historical minatures gaming convention. It was organized by Jay Hadley. Penn Con was a blast on the hobby. Before there were only regional events. How many remember those MFCA wargames conventions at Wormwrath Hall in the late 60's and 70's of Jack Scruby's Visalia Cons? Much like the UK cons, people did demos and others watched. PennCon was the gamers convention. Game masters put on games and you actually played in them. So many games in one place, so many figures, dealers, rules, other gamers. This did begin a new era.
So we will be looking for members of the hobby whose contributions preceed 1979. They can certainly continue with their work into the modem time. One person who fits this category is Phil Barker. As a young player interested in modem war, he ran into Tony Bath who introduced him to ancients. Phil was into gaming to the extent that he took it on full time. With Bob O'Brian, he set up a company to produce rules and guidebooks. Thus Wargames Research Group was founded. This company gained immortality when Phil's ancients rules got to be known as WRG Ancients. These ranged from the first edition in the late 60's to the final 7th Edition of the late 80's. These rules were the most played of any historical set and began the tradition of tournaments at Conventions. Then came DBA. Out of our time but a paradigm change for ancients. Out of our time but a paradyme change for ancients and in fact miniatures in general. Phil had a range of figures named for him and was writing all sorts of rules for WRG. Certainly one of the top 10 contributors to the hobby.
Phil and Don both had the same personas their mentor, the person who got them into gaming and supported them along the way. This man is Tony Bath. He passed a way just a couple of years ago and his obituary in The Courier then covered his wide range of activities. Suffice to say here that he almost single handedly invented ancients games. His chapter in Don first book, his own books and articles gave the basic concepts for this genre of gaming as we know it. He founded the Society of Ancients, the first topical gaming (and literary) group for the hobby. There was the Wellsian Society in the late 50's out of St. Louis run by Newell Chamberlin but this was focused on 54mm gaming ala Wells and short lived. Who has the archives? Thus for getting Don and Phil into the life as well as the SOA and other gaming developments, Tony Bath joins the top 10.
Duke Seifried is a master showman of gaming. He puts on terrific mass participation games at conventions. He has been doing this since at least 1963 when he did the second "Big" wargame in Dayton, Ohio with 15 players and 8,000 figures on four 6' by 12' tables. Forty years and going strong. What a huge display gme he had at Historicon in 2003. He also pretty much single handedly got wargaming figures into stores. Prior Duke's making wargaming commercial, garners had to resort to mail order to obtain figures from manufacturers such as Scruby, Hinton-Hunt, Miniature Figurines, Douglas, Greenwood and Ball, Douglas, Warrior, CinC, Hinchliffe, Command Post, Stadden, and the classic Suren. The latter two were 30mm, the popular scale with 20mm before the advent of 15mm and 25mm. The figure makers in the hobby deserve of an article of their own and a special section in the Site of Fame. Can we make a complete list of all companies making historical figures for gaming. Or maybe I should say used for gaming because some, like Ted Suren, did not consider his little gems to be Wargame Figures.
Anyway, Duke brought the hobby to the people. He gave us mass produced figures in stores with all the impedidmentia needed to carry out the hobby. Besides rules he offered hex square sheet iron-ons to make your tabletop a playing area for those games. He had a line of paints and went to shows with a demo of his fast painting method - stain painting. Anyone remember "Adventure Gaming?" Truly a man for the initial top ten.
If 1 were not leaving the figure makers to their own section we would certainly add Peter Laing in the top 10 as the inventor of the 15mm figure. This one innovation pretty much set the hobby going again when it got bogged down with the pricy-ness of the 25mm figure. If we were not being limited to historical miniatures we would surely include Gary Gygax who did write the historical Chainmail, is perhaps better known for inventing a whole new genre of gaming- role playing. First applied to the a mileau of medieval fantasy, this has spread from cave dwellers to star ships. I suggest that we have a special section on the biggest innovators in the hobby. People who gave some something that has made the hobby different. Please send suggestions. Joe Morschauser derserves a place in that list. If his 1962 book had not been over shadowed by Don's in the same year it would have made a bigger impact. Nevertheless, Joe gave us the idea of mounting figures on bases and having a roster system. Who introduced the d10, by the way?
Let's get hack to the initial top ten and include a man who played a transitional role for the hobby. As Jack took less interest in keeping the community together and more on making figures for them, Pat Condray took up the slack. In 1965 he translated Le Kreigspiel into English. He was doing articles for magazines and putting on games at eastern events like the MFCA Wargame Con where I first saw him in 1968. Here he did a Franco-Prussian battle with flats. A large and impressive layout. Earlier that year he published the first "over the counter' U.S. wargame magazine: The Armchair General. He had began an important hobby newsletter that filled the gap between Jack's efforts and The Courier. You could get this publication in a hobby shop. Indeed, I picked up a copy in a store in Boston and noticed a letter to the editor asking if any one was doing this wargame thing in the Boston area, signed Dick Bryant. Thus TAG brought Dick and I together and it has a special place in my heart It had articles on a wide variety of topics and was a terrific boon to U.S. garners. Later (and currently) Pat took an active rule in organizing hobby activites on the east coast and being its conscience.
In the main article I discussed the impact of Charlie Sweet on the hobby, as the man who brought us out of the closet. In 1965,Sports Illustrated published article on wargaming - "A Little War Can Be a Lot of Fun." Here we saw bank president Charlie in a flannel shirt presiding over a table covered with toy soldiers in a large battle of the American Revolution. With his brother Bob he explained the game to the writers who did a remarkable job of getting it in print and not sounding weird! How many of us have given interviews that ended in pieces that made us all sound pretty far out. Charlie also wrote many articles for Jack Scruby and Don Featherstone, he carried on a voluminous correspondence with garners around the world. He worked on a international association of"Model Generals." He designed and made figures some of which ended up in the Scruby catalog. In 1969 he spent an afternoon gaming with a bunch of rag tag newcomers from Boston, not too great a gentleman in the hobby to work with newbies.
That gives us the three luminaries and 6 more top contributors: H.G. Wells, Jack Scruby, Don Featherstone, Captain Sachs, Tony Bath, Phil Barker, Duke Seifried, Pat Condray, and Charlie Sweet. Who should he that 10 entry in our list. Let's hear from our readers an English writer such as Peter Young, Charles Grant, or Terry Wise or someone from the U.S. - Fred Vietmeyer or Scotty Bowden or some other. Write to us with your recommendations
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