Dedicated To LVB If yer shaded with oils and washed with a brush, If yer de-tail's all crisp and yer parting-line's flush, Remember it don't mean a tittle or tush To the Man Who Writes The Rules If yer coat's painted red when it ought to be blue An yer 'at's an off-color, yer skin's a sick hue It don't matter a bit 'ow some fool painted you For you lives an you dies by the Rules. If yer paint is all chinky from years o' hard use An yer bayonet's gone an one arm's hangin loose, Yer as good as the next 'un an' just as much use, To The Man Who Writes The Rules. Oh he knows all the hist'ry, he thinks an' he reads, And what 'e don't know 'e can fake if he needs, 'E can tell you the pace of men, camels or steeds, An' the 2D morale o' the mules. He's a Solomon wise with a sceptre an' crown He's historian, mathematician and clown, An he don't care a whit (which is good!) for renown. He's The Man Who Writes The Rules. If yer lined with a marker, or lined with a pen Painted double-ought sable or camel-hair ten, It's one an' the same when the dice roll again For you lives an' you dies by the Rules. If yer base is magnetic, or coinage or card, If yer pose is high port, or reloading, or guard, If yer bought by the casting or bought by the yard, It don't mean a toss if yer plastic or hard To The Man Who Writes The Rules. On styrofoam hill or vermiculite plain When the tape-measures whirr and the dice roll again, An' the pizza-smell's thick, so's to rattle yer brain, It's the Rules that permit, an' the Rules that restrain, And you lives an you dies by the Rules. For the painter's a grind and the gamer's a plod; The collector, 'es just an obsessive old sod, But I tell you, 'es bloody well near to a God Is The Man Who Writes The Rules. Oh the rules they are fresh, or the rules they are stale, An' they favour the dusky or favour the pale, An' they're overly broad or 'ave too much detail, An' they don't know the difference 'twixt Congreve and Hale, And they finish too quick or they plod on too long, An' they figure the spears or machine-guns too strong, An' their cavalry movement is simply all wrong But when the dice sing o' their rattley song, It's all just the prattle of fools, For you lives and you dies, Mind, you lives and you dies, Yes, you lives and you dies, By the Rules. Back to Dispatch Sep. 99 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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