The other night at the Wargamers Of Ripon (WOR) club I was deeply involved in a 15mm ancient battle using WHAB rules when two teenage members came over, Paul and Robby, having finished their game of Warhammer in about an hour and sat down to watch ours. This became a real distraction factor as they browsed through the Armies of Antiquity and then the Chariot Wars supplements to WHAB. Their knowledge of history was appalling, and these lads are quite bright academically, so it must be the education system. Every time they turned a page and came across a new army I was quizzed on it and believe me I had to be on the ball because other of the 'mature' wargaming fraternity were paying close attention, Fortunately for me I had read through the supplements and so was able to field their questions, play the game and direct them to armies that they had heard of and would probably like to buy. The lads really put me through the mill and at the end of it all were all fired up to go to Vapnartak, in York the next weekend and buy some figures. Being familiar with the Warhammer rules made them understand the mechanisms of WHAB but their knowledge of anything of an historical nature meant that the supplements were worth their weight in gold to them (and to me on the night). The chart at the back of Armies of Antiquity, which shows, who fought whom historically plus the listings of the ages the armies fought in on the second page, finally allowed them to decide on Saxons or Normans or Nomads. Well they are wargamers and you didn't really expect them to make an instant decision on one army and stick to it did you? Having decided on which 15mm army they would start creating, they had a look in Chariot Wars and the questions started all over again. I admit to not being so informed on the armies in this supplement, but I don't have to be because the information is all there for anyone to read and understand, which was great job done by Nigel Stillman. When the lads came across the colour pages showing the dress of the various troops, they decided on Assyrians because they looked 'groovy'. (Yes, the '60's word appears to be making a come tack!) Well, one of the other club members who was deep in a Warhammer practise match prior to this year's tournament, stopped his game and started to wax lyrical on the benefits of the Assyrians. A general discussion then took place, all the five games in the room came to a halt and the various reasons for getting and using a particular army or armies was put forward by those present. The lads were now totally confused by the variety of armies available to them and I was losing my Left Wing, so we got back to the game. These guys have only ever played Warhammer and were amazed that there are so many other types of games about and the cheapness of the figures and rules came as a shock to them. In a short time there will be two more ancient players in our club and undoubtedly more will follow, and how did this 'recruiting' come about? WOR is a club that is open to all games, ages and genders where we make newc omers welcome. They can play their own games or get dragged protesting into ours. There is no 'policy' of friendly wargaming, it just seems we have a bunch of guys who genuinely enjoy wargaming and like to pass the fun on. We do have the occasional disagreement but with the wealth of knowledge and Life experience in the club the disputes are always short lived. It is not uncommon to be in the middle of a game and someone will ask for a ruling in their game, it is given and both games proceed. I have been to clubs where the 'clichs' rules and they are not very friendly and therefore to my mind, not fun places. I suppose the youngsters see us having fun and want to get involved, so if you have a club where Warhammer is frowned upon, shame on you (says he with three WH games under his belt, having war gamed for more years than I care to remember). The old chestnut about the hobby is dying does not ring true in Ripon, in that we fun game. On the night of the 'Awakening' of Paul and Robby there were fives games in progress, two were Warhammer Tournament practise ones, the lads Warhammer battle and two Ancient battles using WHAB. Stop that thought! We are not Games Workshop based club, although in truth the majority of our members are into Warhammer, but next week there is a huge ACW game planned using Fire and Fury, plus a 1/76th scale WWII battle along with The Tournament practise games. So the diverse nature of wargaming raises its head again and who knows the week after we could be using space ships or ancient galleys, there is nothing to stop us having fun. From personal experience, distracting at times though it was, I can testify of two young wargamers being introduce to Ancient gaming through WHAB, Armies of Antiquity and Chariot Wars, 'The Trilogy'. If you want to recruit new members then open up your clubs and open up your games. The majority of people game for fun and human beings being the creatures they are if they see someone having fun then they become attracted and maybe hooked into a new type of game. As an indication of the effect of The Trilogy as had on the members of WOR the new 15mm armies raised since the introduction of WHAB include: New Kingdom Egyptians (x 2), Assyrians (again x 2), Normans, Spartans (9k points worth), Imperial Romans, Nomadic Hordes and a 4.5k Crusader army that Josh got for Christmas (painted by his dad, Steve). Others maybe in the pipeline but that would come under the classification of 'Top Secret' and we will just have to wait and see. Because we use 15mm and the figures are usually based in groups, for notification of casualties we use the excellent range of dead and wounded produced by Donnington Miniatures. Looks good, gives a 'feel' to the tabletop, shows the amount of troops still effective and cuts out paperwork. For elephant and 4 horse chariots, use fallen figures for the crew and either very small die for the animals or even 'dead' horses, to instantly show the situation concerning that huge grey beasts or battle-wagon. Kenn says: "Never leave a game after a narrow defeat, feeling bad. Fight to the last man and go down in style!" Back to MWAN #104 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum 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