Letters on War Toys, VLB mechanics, Renaissance, and more.
COMMENTS FROM PHIL BARKER
The European Parliament has no power to make laws, so its vote on War Toys can safely be disregarded. In any case, we might make a case for playing with toy soldiers "in private, between consenting adults."
On the McLeod/Jeffrey discussion, I have some sympathy with the former's point of view. George Jeffrey's big contribution has been to show that the time scale problem can be solved, but other ways of doing it are beginning to emerge, one at the latest WD conference at Pendrell Hall this weekend.
To my mind, the main disadvanatge of George's system is that it gives an overall impression that battle is a continuous purposeful process, though I know he does not intend this. I agree that it is probably no longer satisfactory to split a battle into arbitrary segments based only on the passage of time, but the possibility also exists of splitting it into segments that correspond to discrete real life events without these being of infinitely variable length.
My own analysis seems to show that a battle can be split into major identifiable phases grouping around 30 minutes duration, and that this can be split into discrete minor actions of around five minutes. The latter seem to follow an alternative action and response pattern rather than a continuous flow.
As for 5mm figures, I have to reluctantly admit that they often look better than 15mm on the table. For some reason, 15mm. seem to merge into an unrecognizable mass at a little distance, while 5mm and 25mm retain their individuality. It may be due to the shadow effect of unduly close 15mm basing. My only reservation is that there is currently only one competent 5mm designer, and what do we do it he falls under a bus? -
FROM THE AUTHOR OF 'HEART OF OAK'
Just thought I'd write to thank you for the plug for the new edition of HEART OF OAK in the latest COURIER. I think the level of thought and research in the current run of COURIER articles is superior to any other gaming mag in the country. I also thought I'd write to resolve a small problem about my first name.
The problem is, I have two of them. My given name is Walter Jon Williams, and I use both first names. When HEART OF OAK and its companion volumes were first released in 1979, 1 released them under "Walter Williams," which is how the gaming community knew me up till then. When I sold the PRIVATEERS & GENTLEMEN novels to Dell in 1980, Dell decided to release them under "Jon Williams, " because they thought my middle name was more suave, sophisticated, and Continental. [nis is typical, by the way, of how mainstream publishers think.]
Anyway, when I decided to sell the game rights to someone else and use the game to promote the novels and vice versa, I decided to use "Jon Williams" on the games as well, since reprogramming the ten thousand-odd gamers who had seen the game was a lot easier than adjusting the hundreds of thousands of people who read the books.
So it's "Jon Williams" from now on. If you think it would make things clearer, you can mention all this somewhere in the COURIER.
As for the novels, they're continuing to sell, albeit slowly. Two more will be out in early '84 (they have two-year lead times in modern publishing these days).
UNEASY ABOUT VLB MECHANICS
I am pleased and heartened to see Mr. McLeod's letter and Mr. Jeffrey's response in this issue of The Courier, Jeffrey's formalization of the VLB concept. But I've also had some uneasiness about the mechanics of how the VLB will be used.
I think that Mr. McLeod has brought out some very good points that really do need to be clarified. I am particularly troubled by the use of "clialoging" to sync each bound. If one takes the understanding that the two players will take turns describing what their units are doing (which is what seems to be the case in Mr. Jeffrey's article on VLB), the the player who goes second has a distinct advantage over the first, even if he is very self-honest. It is impossible for him not to be irfluenced by what he has heard. If they are top write down what each unit is to do, then the problem of a great deal of paper work raises its head. In either case, the rules lawyers will have a field day!
The other problem not really answered (at least, not clearly to me) is the problem of the 'race condition' when more than two players are involved. At least half of all the Napoleonic games I've been involved in had three or more players to a side I am still not clear on how each player is to keep in sync with the other players, on both sides. All I can see is that the "clialoging" solution, with its inherent problems, being compounded.
In CODE NAPOLEON both players would write orders and prepare sketches forall movingunits, or forces. Once started, movement goes straight ahead until ordered to halt or change direction. Dialog describes the action that took place, and is given in short stages that stop short of the next change in the action. A player may therefore react to whatever action has just occured. If he does not, the dialog goes to the next stage (an action differing from the one described in the previous stage). He may now react to the new action, but not to any in a previous stage.
For example, if my opponent is holding a hill and has no movement orders, while my force has orders (and a sketch) to advance 100 yards, face left, march 400 yards, face again to now aim for the enemy hill, change formation and charge, my 1st dialog stage would be "At 10AM you see my force moving forward, what is your force doing at 10AM?' He would say "Nothing, just standing still."
Having been told my force is going forward he has the option of 1) continuing the dialog knowing that with no other change my force will go straight for him, or 2) reacting to my forward movement and trying to change his orders. If we continue the dialog I'd state that at this point 100 yards from my start position you see my men face left and move that way. Again he has the option of doing nothing, knowing my men will walk in that direction until a change takes place (which he'll be notified of in the dialog), or he can react, AT THIS POINT IN TIME, to the change of direction he just saws. The next NATURAL break in the stages would occur 400 yards later, where he'll see my men face towards him, and then another break when he sees my men charge towards him from that position.
UNFAIR AND UNCOURTEOUS
Reading the article on Origins '82, I noticed that in the list of painting awards, no mention was made of winners in science fiction and fantasy categories. If as it seems, you feel these categories are not worthy of your notice, you ought to be courteous enough to point out this omission to your readers. As written, the article implies there were no winners in these categories which is unfair and untrue.
When we are limited in space we limit announcements to those we feel will be of interest to Historical Miniature gamers (on other occasions we have printed the fantasy and SF catagory winners). If you check the fantasy, science fiction and boardgame magazines you will see that they, for the most part do the same and make no mention of the historical miniature winners. -Dick Bryant
WE HAVE A RIGHT TO QUALITY
Bill Osbourne, in his letter re Bob Coggins and Minifigs, (Vol. IV, No. 1) says that he is grateful to Minifigs for giving him figures that are 90% accurate, and for that matter for giving him figures with any historical connection at ail. Standard bearers for troops that never carried them ( i e. Russian jagers in 1812), and which are therefore totally useless to the purchaser without conversion, do not shake his gratitude.
I have two comments for Mr. Osbourne: First, if Minifigs were not making some sort of a profit on these figures, however small, I can assure you that they would not be available to you, and that they would certainly not be upgraded for your gaming enjoyment. You do have a right, Mr. Osbourne, to expect quality in a product that you purchase. 1, for one, would not be humbly grateful that my automobile engine was 90% accurate in its design just because I didn't like riding a bicycle. For that matter, I doubt if even you would enjoy purchasing a uniform guide for your painting where "only 10%" of the information was inaccurate. The information does exist, and if we can find the errors in the figures without too much trouble, there is no reason the designers would not spend a little time on them, too.
WRG RENAISSANCE RULE HISTORY
With reference to Pat Condray's article in III/5 on the WRG Renaissance rules, maybe I can clear up the relationship between WRG, Dave Millward and George Gush. The sequence was this. I started writing a set of pike and shot rules based on our ancient set. These were delayed when more urgent work intervened. Dave Millward needed a set for the National Convention he was organizing, and asked permission to complete and use my set, which was done, in return, Dave gave me permission to use the new material he had incorporated.
He then later published a modified version, "Musketeer" which had drifted away from my concepts in some respects. George Gush had a private set, based on Dave's, which he did not intend to publish because of the close relationship between the two sets, but which was used by his local club. Other imitators were less scrupulous.
I was still intending to produce my own set, but on coming across George's, I realized that he had modified Dave's back in the direction I was intending to go. The simplest way to go seemed to be to publish George's. He is totally responsible for it, and gets paid the normal royalty. We are still all good friends, swap ideas, and disagree about them!
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