Postal gaming has certain features that make it an excellent choice for the lone warrior. Postal play confronts the gamer with a very dense fog of war. Often you don’t even know the rules. It seems silly to me that we pretend to be commanders and yet we can look up the required die roll and the combat results table and see how an action can turn out. I have trouble picturing Napoleon calculating the list of modifiers before ordering his troops into battle. Knowing the rules is a major departure from reality. The way historic commanders found out how fast troops could move was to move them. Maybe they were in time, maybe not. The effectiveness of fire or the strength in melee was also uncertain. Also when you know the rules, you aren’t faced with the possibilities that the rules have changed. Think of the Spanish sailing out in the Armada. They get a nasty shock because of changes in the effectiveness of their ships. Real commanders have to cope with uncertainty.
Postal play has often made me guess and guess wrong. Can my cruisers outrun the enemy fleet? The answer was no. Scratch one cruiser. Can my forces smash through the enemy’s front? No, again. I had to back off and rethink. Will a position on the line of hills help my weaker force hold off the enemy? Not even close. We were destroyed.
In postal play there are so many unknowns. Sometimes there isn’t even a map. Often the map is incomplete. You rarely know what forces the other side has. There is none of this look across the table and identifying units stuff. You have to take incomplete information and make your best guess, like real commanders. It can go either way. Once I was advancing on a town a scouting report indicated had few enemy troop in sight. I delayed my attack and brought up more troops. Only later did I find out the town was undefended when I scouted it. Another time I was blithely marching up a road only to run head on into a superior enemy force.
Postal play also puts you in touch with an expert on the period. Often the umpire or game master has a special interest in the period and has designed the game. I have learned a lot from the various SWA members I have gamed with. Some have patiently tutored me in the style of the period. Others have exchanged sly inside jokes with me. My opponents have often been experts and taught me by inflicting defeats. I could never design a programmed opponent who was as deceptive and clever as my postal opponents. It helps keep me humble or is it less egotistical?
You also get to work with some neat illustrations. When maps are provided, some of them are quite artistic. Some game masters send reports featuring neat drawings. I once played a Russo-Japanese War 1904-06 game. The battle reports included drawings of the battles that looked like they came from the newspapers of the time. One game involved a mythical ancient world. The game master decorated his dispatches with a dark menacing series of drawings that had a medieval look. In turn, I draw my maps with colored pencil and decorate a bit. The visual styles of games vary, but it’s always interesting.
There is plenty of time between moves to think. I have played games that ran for two years. A move can take two weeks to a month. During the period between moves, imagination takes over. In one game the map had a long valley as the obvious route to invade the enemy. I sent my cavalry in. One night I dreamed of a small group of cavalry men gathered around a camp fire. In the Russo-Japanese War game I had time to write the memoirs of the commanding admiral. I also prepared intelligence reports estimating enemy strength etc. Over a long game there is plenty of time to read more on the period.
Sometimes I pick a game because I have already read a bit about the period. In other cases I commit to the game, then I start research. As you might expect, the first method is more likely to produce a victory, but I can lose either way.
It’s possible to play postal games in about any period. I have played the following: Ace of Aces [World War I air combat], Flying Tigers [World War II air combat], Russo-Japanese War [naval war circa 1905], the struggle for Bohemia [Seven Years War], Shenandoah [American Civil War - I have played both sides], the SWA tournament [Italy 1500s]. The list is incomplete, but the point is clear. There is variety. These days players use e-mail. It does speed things up a bit. While I recognize that it’s convenient, I consider it a bad thing. I don’t mind the wait and e-mail usually is just text. All the artistic flourishes get left out. I like opening those fat envelopes. Either way you can play postal games with people anywhere in the world. Most of my game masters have been in Britain. One game master was in Venezuela. A few have been in the U.S.A., and a couple have been in Scandinavia.
While I play solos at home, postal play is my favorite. My thanks to all the game masters who have run the games. To those SWA members who have not played postal: go ahead; give it a try.
SHENANDOAH!!!!!
Speaking of postal gaming, gamemaster Dick Burns is always looking for a few new recruits for his exciting American Civil War campaign game. Contact Dick at: RICHB888@aol.com
Note: Sorry Magwebbers, you must be a member of the SWA in order to participate--one of the benefits of membership in the SWA!-RL
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