In his book "Battle: Practical Wargaming" published by Model Allied Publications in 1972 the author Charles Grant advocated using a make believe army for one's wargaming partly so one could use whatever information on infantry organisation that was available to the player and likewise use those figures and models the player could obtain. Charles Grant's own army comprised Airfix Russian infantry and tanks and German half tracks.

I wondered as to the reaction I would receive from players at a club were I to apply this to Napoleonics or Ancients. Fairly hostile I should think as I'm of the opinion that wargamers on the whole do not like make believe armies though like make believe scenarios. Thus a reason that Fantasy armies of Elves and Goblins may be disliked is that the Elves and Goblins therein are named after creatures in children's fairy stories. An elf is a make believe creature that in the imagination of little children lives with the fairies at the bottom of the garden. And is not a 6 foot tall humanoid warrior.

Yet the same concern with fact doesn't apply in Ancient gaming. In that Alexander the Great may fight Boudicea on the grounds that Alexander did fight the Thracians whose troop types were similar in weaponry and basic fighting method to the Ancient Britons. And Alexanders army contained some troop types (Peltasts) similar to the Auxlia in the Roman army though one could argue that there would be differences experience of which the generals of Alexander and Boudicea would just not have had.

Of Portuguese

In Napoleonics, Napoleonic Portuguese can quite correctly be fielded against Russians as they fought each other during Napoleon's 1812 campaign against Russia, the Portuguese forming part of the Third Corps of the French army. The Third Corps was part French and part Portuguese but when a wargame is played using the above as justification to do so I strongly doubt if the Portuguese would be fielded with French. Instead a Portuguese army complete with line dragoons and British supplied artillery would be used against the Russians.

Also when Wellington's army of the Peninsular is used you won't see any Portuguese troops therein despite the Portuguese forming a large part of Wellington's army. Nor are we obliged to represent the German and Italian contingents within a French Napoleonic army. Napoleon commanded French armies therefore we field only French troops.

But were I to collect an army conforming exactly to Wellington's Peninsula army, paint it in Yellow and name it the Army of Ruritania thereby creating a make believe army I'd expect most wargamers to regard me as being daft and someone one doesn't 'play with'.

I do not intend the above as a complaint it is only to show the make believe scenarios that we are happy to have whilst being iffy about armies that are make believe. CWhy bother having a make believe army anyway. To save money is one reasonable argument in its favour. I would like to wargame modern infantry action. The armoured personnel carriers available in 15mm only cost £ 3.50 - 4.50 odd! Spending £ 35 for ten models is not easily justified. Instead I could scour the toy shops selling the Matchbox toy cars for model vehicles suitable for use as armoured personnel carriers. It means in effect buying petrol tankers using them as a make believe "internal security" vehicle and wargaming anti guerrilla/partisan operations. The cost of ten of these toy cars would be £ 18 odd compared with the £ 35 cost of the 'made for wargaming' armoured vehicles.

Also instead of buying three companies of say British infantry and three of Russian I could buy five of American and employ the five in a fictional army coup in Latin America varying the numbers on each side however I wish as they're all in the same uniform.

I have a late 17th century army unwisely purchased in a moment of passion. On taking it to my old wargame club it was viewed by the members with total disinterest. Not because it wasn't their period but because they regarded it as an "Oh, so boring" a period to play. The army does need more time and money spent on it and whilst the view of my old club at Watford is hardly a typical viewpoint I have wondered if it would be better to spend any further money on a Napoleonic army which I know will get used.

Now by rights I should buy two Napoleonic armies for when my opponent doesn't have an army or for solo playing. Rather than do so I could employ my late seventeenth century army as the foe of the Napoleonic army pretending for the occasion that the seventeenth century host is a army of Swiss citizen militia or American militia. Or if I opted to have an army in both Ancients and Napoleonics why not choose an Ancient army whose costume is similar to that of a nineteenth century "native" army so that the ancients might be fielded in that role against the Napoleonic.

Well this is all well and good for solo play but I'm not sure it would be agreed with by the members of a club. Though in that respect I only need one or two people to accept the notion and give me a game. The problem I'm wary of is when a club is cursed by that individual who on observing the game being played complains loudly and sneeringly about it to the clique that he belongs to. Whilst the above make-believe armies/scenarios may not be liked at a club, the use of make believe armies and countries in postal wargaming appears to be quite accepted and condoned. One of those peculiar things I guess.

Acceptable?

It's odd that some make believe scenarios are so acceptable and others not. The games I have watched that wargame American Civil War naval battles have the Confederates fielding more than one "Merrimac" style ironclad and both sides have their ironclads sunk by gunfire. A scenario that is not historically accurate. Ironclads were not sunk by gunfire. A direct hit on the turret of a Union monitor class ship could jam the turning mechanism that rotated the turret or knock a cannon off it's mounting.

Whilst the Confederates single Merrimac style ship at the battle of Mobile Bay was defeated not by sinking the ship but the crew surrendering after being subjected to half an hours bombardment. The ship's loosing it's ability to steer being usually given as the final straw that decided the commanding officer to surrender the vessel. The next day the Unions were using the vessel as a floating gun battery to bombard a Confederate fort so the damage to the ship was presumably not regarded as fatal.

Now I reckon that if I pointed this out to people playing a American Civil War naval game I would be regarded quite rightly as making a fuss over nowt. Does it matter if the ships are allowed to sink during the game?

Yet if I fielded a British army of the 1830's with lancers against a Sioux Indian army of the same period I'd expect to excite the displeasure of several of the horse and musket players at the club for everyone knows that Sioux Indians are only fought by the US 7th cavalry in the later nineteenth century. A historical parallel to justify the game would be that the Apache Indians were most definitely raiding Spanish and later Mexican settlements during the 'smooth bore musket' period. Yet would that be accepted for though true it doesn't fit the accepted image of when and who the Apaches fought.

I've wondered whether the most popular wargame periods and the most popular armies therein are with a few exceptions also the periods we were taught about at primary and junior school and saw featured in books, television and on film.

[Appears to be a justification for soloing. A solo wargamer can use any troops to represent any troops. I have in the past, due to the lack of the correct amount of pikemen, recruited my Ancient Greek and Macedonians to boost the numbers in a Renassance game. Ignore the shields and stick them in the 2nd or 3rd ranks, turned a blind eye and no problem. My Chinese DBM Army was short of chariots, in truth they had them but they were not painted, so Indian and Persian ones were incorporated for that game. It was solo and I wanted to know how the Chinese worked; very well in fact.]