Many people look on us miniature wargamers as being an anachronism from the prehistoric past. While there are many sites on the internet about miniatures gaming and some wonderful pictures of figures, we can't play our games on line. Role players play. Well they say they do, but from what I've seen RPGs are not well suited for on line play. Certainly computer games are done on line. And aren't they the guys who say they will do away with miniatures. What is the line I've heard? "All the pretty soldiers and none of the painting time." Yea right! So I've been thinking about this. Wanting to find a way that miniatures can find a niche on the net. I think I've found a way. All you need is a digital camera and a web page. What do miniature games need? TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE MINIATURES To date we have not been able to easily put little men on line because getting pictures up was onerous work. The digital camera changes all this. One can rapidly take and retake picture in a format perfect for web pages. So set up a web page. Put a picture of the battle field on it with a list of forces. Add in your email address to receive orders from players. As orders come in, the referee moves figures and rolls dice. The results are then posted on the web page along with a new picture. Step by step the game is played in an international forum! If the page is set up right, it can even act as a record of a game played. Something that can remain on line to act as an advertisement to all the prospective gamers out there. I think one could do a turn a week (or even quicker if you wanted). WHY IS THIS BETTER THAN COMPUTER ANIMATED GAMES? I'll answer with an analogy. We have had animated cartoons for a hundred years. My wife does puppetry. When ever she goes out, little computer savvy, jaded kids can't get enough of them. Simply put, animation is not superior to puppets. And computer animation is not superior to toy soldiers (or should we call them sculptures!) Computer games can be very pretty, no doubt. But what they lack is the wonder of a diorama. Think of the fascination people have for model railroading. The layouts are the thing. People love to look at miniatures (be they doll houses or toy cars). And what do we gamers have in abundance if it's not miniatures! The effect of a picture of a battle field game will electrify people. It will make them want to play. All we need is a web sight to act as a gathering place to advertise coming games and this will go off big. My feeling is that good figures should be accompanied by good terrain. It fleshes out the diorama so well. It doesn't have to be museum quality or anything, just not green felt on a table cloth! I'm hoping to try out these ideas some time in 2001. I'll naturally run Matrix Game and Matrix Game Hybrids, but I think the method could work for anyone. Back to MWAN #112 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 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