Got this from Dick Bryant, Publisher of the Courier....thought you might enjoy it (or not!) Here is an excerpt of an article at a computer gaming review site I found. Clearly the guy has issues with miniatures players. Figures gaming is a little cult-like sect of the wargaming hobby. Its adherents are not necessarily smarter than the average gamer, but they tend to know more arcana about flags and uniforms from those Osprey books, and have more time on their hands. This is why they have thousands (many thousands) of lead (pewter now) guys in 15mm with mustaches and uniform facings painted on with 3-bristle brushes. A select handful read translations of 17th century manuals of drill and laugh at Roman Civil War jokes. These tend to be the leaders. The problem with figures gaming as a hobby is that the engagements tend to be very stilted indeed. Even WWII and modern microarmor fans (not considered true figures gamers by the horse, musket, and sword purists) stand around tables pushing little tanks around with all the verve of a quilting bee. This is turbo-charged action compared with the black-powder and ancients battles. Meanwhile the players fill the dizzying gaps in the action with arguments over rules and spouting facts to each other in the form of questions: "Did you know Prinz Eugen's cat was named Rudolf and accompanied him on campaign? He could always sniff out the Bavarian dragoons, that Rudy." What charm there is in this yawn-athon is found in admiring the little painted men on model train-like terrain and chit-chatting about stuff your wife or other friends mock you for. So, paradoxically, the social component -- cult-like though it is -- of the cloistered table figures gaming experience is what makes the occasions so attractive. And occasions they are because participants typically have sunk hundreds of hours painting all or part of the army they field. I remember a cartoon in a figures gaming magazine with distraught gamer yelling at a stand of grenadiers and a caption that went something like, "I spent months painting you guys and you still can't take Vienna?!?" The author of this atrocity is Michael Puttre and you can reach him at mputtre@world.std.com. Be nice, do not send him viruses. Well, unless you feel strongly about it. The complete URL is: http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdr.cgi?zones/reviews/pc/oct97/gboa2.html Back to Dispatch Apr 2000 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com