This series deals with the literature of wargaming as a recreational activity, leaving aside professional writings intended for Kriegspiel and those works strictly for collectors of military figure models. Of course, the question arises as to where each of these subsets of material is exclusive and where they overlap. This article looks at some examples to show the overlap between military miniature collectors and hobbyist wargamers from the 1930s to the early 1960s.

Perhaps a good place to begin is with Bob Bard's book Making and Collecting Military Miniatures (1957) and his periodical Military Miniature Collector (1959-1962 in my collection). If one was looking for an introduction to wargaming in the late '50s Bard's book was a good place to begin. Its chapter on gaming is only 24 pages out of 196, however, as we've seen in this series, there wasn't a whole lot else, other than H. G. Wells' Little Wars, out there and readily available. Bard reviews the contributions of Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson and also brings the subject up to date discussing some of the activities of contemporary gamers and modelers, like Jack Scruby and Herbert Sherlock. He makes no attempt to provide a complete rule set, merely touching on different principles of such rules, commenting that, "there are no set rules and much depends on the decisions of local groups and enthusiasts." (74)

He also suggests that the principles he's presented will allow the reader to develop a satisfactory game. Anyone familiar with Wells' book will recognize much of what Bard covers, but we've also obviously reached a point where wargaming was beginning to develop more quickly. His coverage is an interesting look at the stage wargaming had reached, and, within a few years, would be followed by a series of volumes setting out rules for play which built upon the principles which he'd reported.

The bulk of Bard's book, and nearly all of his periodical, deals with various elements of collecting and manufacturing military miniatures. He discusses the history of toy soldiers, concentrating on those which were probably used for play, rather than grave goods. The text moves on from there to look at the various types of figures which were available to collectors, including flats, semiround and full round models, made in plastic and metal. There are extensive descriptions of photographic techniques, diorama building, scenery construction, and model conversion. The last third of the volume describes the methods used in creating an original model from the design process through the final manufacturing of a painted figure. And, remember, this is in the context of hobbyist literature, not showing how the "big guys" did it. Anyone interested in the state of the art for miniature making in 1957 will find this the place to go!

Military Miniature Collector offers a good example of a hobbyist publication, including articles mostly written by members of the collector population. A quick perusal shows it to be devoted largely to descriptions of uniforms, mixed in with some short historical pieces, and little biographical items about "personalities" who were military miniature collectors. One contributor, whose own miniature creation left something to be desired, at least in his own mind, wrote about the creation of a Table of Organization for his 4,300 figures. He found that creating a "T/0" was a welcome and amusing break from the sometimes frustrating activities of the hands-on aspects of miniature collecting. There are a number of articles describing painting and modeling techniques, especially conversion of figures, that we hope were helpful to the T/ 0 author's further efforts, but nary a wargaming article in sight.

Obviously, collectors are interested in some things many wargamers also care about. I've seen many collectible quality miniatures on wargames tables at Advance the Colors and Cold Wars. Our painting competitions certainly overlap into the collector's reahri~ as uniform details often add that last bit of perfection the wargaming painter is striving for. I don't know too many wargamers these days who spend a lot of time on conversion; we've got so many commercial figures to choose from it isn't usually necessary. However, the occasional command figure or obscure period still demand some creative manipulation.

I have noted a lot of creative energy going into terrain and camp creation, areas that Bard's reflections on diorama and scenery building relate to. In any case, it's important to note that the collecting literature was about the only place for wargarners to write before the late 1950s. While Bard's periodical had little to offer regarding wargaming per se, other collectors' publications occasionally provided a bit of space for it.

A short booklet published by the British Model Soldier Society is an example of a collector's group supporting what was generally considered a minor, and a bit aberrant, part of the broader collecting hobby.

They even went so far as to adopt Capt. J. C. Sachs' rules as their "official" rule set. Unfortunately, my access to these rules is limited to an article first published in The Wargame Digest and reproduced in MWAN 97. Author Jack Scruby published it, along with his own parenthetical comments, in order to give his 1971 readers a chance to see "that there is nothing really new in rules--someone was always using them before!"

Captain Sachs' 8-page rule set dated from the 1930s, at least conceptually, I'm not sure about the actual publication date, so perhaps it was one Robin and his opponent' s used in A Green Field for Courage (see The Herald #38). As with other pieces we've looked at, it had Wellsian roots, but there was a lot that was new. A few items caught my eye:

Rule 2-- 'No counter-acting move may be made until an interval of two moves has elapsed." This effort to avoid instantaneous responses to opponent's moves is an interesting one, though Scruby comments that, after many arguments, his gaming group gave up trying to implement it.

Rule 5-- "Dead must be removed from the table and not used as cover." Now, anybody whose ever seen a Schwarzenegger film know that bodies, dead or alive, provide perfectly decent cover, so Captain Sachs obviously dropped the ball with this one!

Rule 13-- Mandates written orders, and, upon the death of the brigade signaler, prohibits any deviation from previous orders until a new signaler has arrived from divisional headquarters with new written orders. I've found written orders, which seem anachronistic to many these days, to be entertaining additions to the games, especially multi player games with one commander trying to communicate with several subordinates. Entertaining to watch, anyway!

Rule 17--This rule deals with melees and makes them less a bloodbath than Wells' formulation. Scruby comments that this, "for the first time in our games made a hand to hand fight something more than a suicide mission."

Rule 18--This also adds an element not found in Wells as ranged small arms fire is provided for. It goes on to establish guidelines for using defensive terrain advantageously.

Rule 25-- "Cavalry may lie down and fire." Ah, hah! So you can use horses for cover?

Rule 32-- "It is permissible to fire at the enemy artillery when it is firing at you [movement and combat are simultaneous]; a smart rap on the knuckles is likely to spoil the aim, and the author, after playing this game for over 20 years, has never found an opponent so foolish as to put his face near a gun when the enemy artillery has been firing at it." Ouch!

Scruby edited Sachs' rules, so the whole set isn't available in my collection yet, and one misses the rule that had planes hanging from strings over the battlefield and the player physically dropping bombs from them to try to do some damage. Nonetheless, one can see how wargamers would have been excited to see the ideas he presented with the assistance of the collectors' society.

A further example of a wargamer in a collector's world, also using the British Model Soldier Society as background, is that of Tony Bath, one of the great names in recent wargaming history, and, sadly, recently deceased. Bob Beattie's obituary in The Cowier relates that Bath joined the BMSS in 1955 and had medieval period rules published in the Society's Bulletin in June-July and August-September of 1956. He added to these rules in The War Games Digest in 1957, which takes us into the next phase of wargaming's literary history.

Wargamers and collectors are, indeed, two distinct subgroups of people who love military history and the military arts and sciences. Their histories are inevitably interwoven, and it is not really until the 1960's that wargamers emancipated themselves from the collecting fraternity. We see this reflected in the popular, as well as the hobbyist, press where articles published up to 1958 show only the collector's view. Finally, in a Mechanix Illustrated article, Jack Scruby gets as many lines as Bob Bard. The New Age was dawning.

Bibliography

Bard, Bob. Making and Collecting Military Miniatures. New York. Robert M. McBride, 1957.
Beattie, Bob. "Wargaming Pioneer Tony Bath Dead at 74." The Courier, no. 80, [20001, p. 45-6.
"Don't Say 'Toy Soldier'". Time, 19 Jan. 1953, p. 64.
Idione, Helen Camp. Just Name Your Battle: He Can Stage It for You! Hobbies, May 1947, p. 148.
Military Miniature Collector. January 1959-October 1962. [Bob Bard].
Morris, Ed. "Little Soldiers-Big Hobby" Mechanix Illustrated, Sept. 1958, pp. 76+.
[Sachs, J. C.] Scruby, Jack. "Captain Sach's War Game" Wargame Digest, Fall 1971. Reprinted in MWAN 97. Reprinted at: http://www.magweb.com/premium/mwan/97/mw97sach.htm.

More Roots of Wargaming

Robert Louis Stevenson
H.G. Wells
Shambattle
Children and Toy Soldiers
Links Between Military Miniature Collecting and Gaming
Jack Scruby
1962
Table Top Talk Magazine
Naval Wargames Part 1
Naval Wargames Part 2
Air Wargames
Horse and Musket I
Napoleon Rides Again
Featherstone Again