From Brian Carroll
I have large batch of Foundry ECW 25's. I love them. I think 25mm is a fine scale for the period because the set piece battles are not that large really. And the Warhammer ECW set is very well suited to small scale affairs - like house stormings or small brawls in hedges. I just bought the Piquet supplement for the ECW and that may be fun too. Have you seen the Renegade figures for ECW? Very nice. Huge. But nice. They will not fit in with anything out there except perhaps Redoubt. And the Renegades are stocky too. The Redoubts are kind of thin-ish. All great fun.
(Editor's Note: I like the "larger" figures as well! Haven't seen the Renegade figures. Anxious to see the Warhammer ECW rules)
From Larry Freeman
The Web site (http://www.ldtgameworks.com) has been updated with all of the Fragos and Sit reps you've been passing around. There is also a new map showing the current placement of all US and known Japanese positions right before the landing. As the game moves on, new maps will be posted. The first game to see how the Marines will fare against a hostile beachhead will be on June 29th at Dragon King. The ramps drop at 12:30 PM. As the campaign develops, I will post after action reports just like normal battle reports. We also have a Big Muddy weekend coming up in July at DK. I wouldn't mind pushing to get the second turn or battle to be ready by then. LMK if it looks feasible as I know some of you have real lives and / or families and we'll adjust from there. I will be pretty busy the rest of the month until the 20th, so we may not be able to get another campaign battle in until late July if we don't take advantage of the Big Muddy day. Just in case things go real sour on Red Beach 1, I will plan to possibly get mapped or gamed the next bit of movement on the map while we're there. Just in case...
From Mark Brown
I picked up a new rules set called Warhammer English Civil War. Yes, it is by the fantasy crowd at Games Workshop. Seems many if not most of the employees are historical games. The rules seem simple and fun. Does have that element of fantasy with roleplaying type saving throws, The units are huge. With suggestions of up to 50 figures per unit with 3 units to a regt. 1 pikeblock and 2 shot blocks. 150 figures at the suggest 28mm scale. Of course not for big armies. Mostly brigade size with 3- 4 units foot, 1-2 cavalry, 1 dragoon, couple of batteries and your general. I am studying the rules right now. Will keep you updated on them. I do not know about 1644, 1 have not seen the rules. But Rick Priestley is a contributing author.
The main author appears to be John Stallard. From his forward he has been playing ECW since he was a boy. Appears even the Perry twins are involved. I am going to assume by organizational you mead the wargaming units. So here goes. The figure scale is 1 to 10. The infantry is based upon the regiment the regiment is broken down into the pike block and two shot units or sometimes called sleeves. The ratio of pike to block can be any, but 1 shot to 1 pike is recommended per the photos. The command stand is with the pike block. the number of figures for a regt can go up to 50 figures. That would be a 500 man unit. I misread this part originally. Cavalry unit is the regiment. It also can reach 50 figures. Artillery piece represent 1 gun. Light guns get up to 3 figures and medium up to 4 and hvy/mortars up to 5 figures.
Basing is simple. Base the cav 2 to a base, but leave some one to a base each up to 25mm wide, depth is of no concern. Infantry gets 20mm and they are based 4 to a stand with some on single stands. The ratio of multiple to single stands does not appear standard. The reason for the single figure stands is that casualties are removed from the unit; command being the last. So if a unit takes one casualty one fig is removed.
From watching Warhammer this weekend appears the gamers hate casualty caps and rosters. Artillery is based how you want to base them. Now this is all for 28mm. I have not found the conversion to 15mm etc. If the con is any guide, then these rules are meant for 28mm. I will continue my research. lust what you need, to get into the ECW in 28mm! Command stands are based singularly. With command stands the role playing aspect of the game comes out with leader challenges to each other etc. Each unit has a card that list is move, morale, hand held weapons, missile weapons and about 4-5 other attributes. Each has a particular aspect of the game.
Again the influence of roleplaying games can be seen. All armies are build on a point system. you know a 1000 pt army for skirmish to 2000 PTAs for small ECW battles. Each unit also has a morale (rash etc) and training (raw) level. These also cost points. I really do not see how that will affect a historical gamer. Most of us do not use points. Though the Warhammer crowd is big on the point system. At the con and in this book constant reference to "fair" battles. The Warhammer crowd could not understand how a gamer would want the disadvantaged army as to size etc. They are mostly tourney players like the DBA/M/R crowd.
That is about it for organization. Ask away on the questions. It may take me awhile to get the answer as I am learning the rules and the period. This book is also the way the historical side should do it. The ECW is present in a snapshot. All the armies are covered with sample armies. Tactics and Organization are given. A basic painting guide, terrain making, references for both, list of figure suppliers, how to base you figures and even how to conduct a campaign. All in about 100 pages, with glossy color pictures, rules etc. You really do not have to buy any other reference material if this is not a main period for you. $29 got me this.
From my talks with some of the Warhammer crowd, all of their books are like this. Yes some additional books, but only if you want them. I already have a couple of them emailing me wanting to know if I will put on a WH ECW game this Sept. at Hubcon. Some of them are interested in historicals, if they can get past the historical gamers. They told me I was one of the few historical gamers that would really talk with them and take time to answer their questions. Got that from young historical gamers also. they were grateful as they knew I was running games and a dealer stable at the same time. I gave some of them my email, told them to send any questions so I can help them out.
As a gamer for the last 25 years, I have forgot how overwhelming it can be to start in Historical gaming. The amount of information etc is staggering. Unfortunately I did not see too many historical gamers willing to take the time to help the newbies along. It was fun and exciting to have them around the table with my son during painting tips, rules reviews and tactics/uniforms. Some of them walked away with figures books etc. I gave a couple local clubs in their area. Just hope the guys can get past the metal piercings. It did take some getting use to. Looking a young man with a bone through his nose trying to not notice it and believe he can have a serious conversation. I am becoming my Father. Let me know how else I can help.
Editor's Note: Thanks, Mark, for the Information on Warhammer ECW,, they do seem to be scamming up some Interest In the states apparently. I'm going to pIck up a copy soon, I hope. I like the "1644" rules as to the way they were set up)
From Mike Matthews
I am blessed with both an established gaming group that shares similar interests and a wife that not only tolerates gaming but buys me stuff! ;-) We do WWII in micro scale with Command Decision, and 15mm skirmish with Battleground. Also have a horde of 1/2400 warships for WWI and WWII, but as a group have never warmed to the gaming. We fly WWI and WWII in 1/144th with Red Baron and a heavily modified form of Wings of Fire. We play Johnny Reb III in 15mm and dabble with ironclads in 1/1200(1/1100).
We do a goodly amount of Napoleonics with Empire in 15mm and skirmish in 20mm (plastics) with the skirmish rules I wrote and you published some years ago. We have done some skirmish games in 15mm too that have been fun. We have a few of the Limeys and Slimeys ships around that we drag out once a year. Usually combine a land and see action when we play that. A heavily modified Wooden Ships and Iron Men provides us with sailing rules, though I'd like to find something a -bit- more detailed. We do that in 1/1200 also.
I'm questing for good AWI and 1812 rules that give a flavor for the period and could be used to campaign purposes. I've been collecting and slowly painting some figures from eBay for the project. We've had several basically satisfactory games, but nothing that made people say, "ya, this is the one." We went through a SYW phase using Final Argument of Kings. We really enjoyed the games and built up decent forces, but somehow drifted away. We tend to have a short attention span as a group. Two or three games in a period and some of us (ahem) are ready to play something else. Since I host the vast majority of the games it tends to run that way.
In the last few years we have had a wonderful Napoleonic campaign played to a conclusion in the 1809 war against Austria; a three (game) day invasion campaign set in Italy during WWII; a WWI air campaign where each session advanced the clock one month; and a fairly successful ACW campaign set in 1862. Also several failures where people got "too busy" once the campaign started to go against them. So in short we do most everything in 15mm except for my skirmish project where I want to use the hundreds of figures from my youth.
Although most of us really enjoy Napoleonics our games have gotten kind of stale with the "same old, same old" so I would imagine that our number one game right now is Command Decision in micro scale. For some reason ancient gaming and colonials never caught on here. I have a bunch of 25mm Romans sitting idle and I sold off my Carthaginians. There is always talk of fantasy or Sci Fi battles, but the guys expressing interest never orchestrate anything even though we say we'd play anything that's put together.
(Editor's Note: Enjoyed your account of your gaming, Mike, thanks much!)
From Tom McBraver
I read with particular interest your most recent editorial concerning where and why do you go from here. This week I will turn 50 years old and have experienced many of the same feelings and experiences you all have. I always gobble up the musings of the guys who tell their gaming history but particularly stunning was your commentary on the effect of our gaming on the family.
Over the last several years, I have met more than one person divorced from gaming because of the time they lavished on the additive hobby. Another situation I have encountered is people who only live to game and drift from one gaming area to another keeping menial jobs to provide the basics and meet their gaming desires. And yet even seeing this, I too have been pulled out the local gaming establishments by an unhappy spouse and counseled for my lack of attention to home issues.
To compensate, I hosted more games to remain at home and even got into running long term mail campaigns to get my gaming fix. These PBM games were loads of fun, involved over 30 people, ran for a couple of years at a time and took on the average of 20 hours per week to run.... all of which were at the expense of my family. Through this period little was said by wife and two sons but since they have told me how all this gaming made them feel. I know now, that with my sons gone from home, much invaluable time was lost with them and thank the Lord my wife has put up with and stayed with me.... as with you my spouse frequently helped with the campaigns and mailouts - we are truly blessed. The old rule of 'all things in moderation' applies to gaming and the time invested in any hobby should reflect the right priorities as you pointed out.
(Editor's Note: Thanks for your thoughts in response to MWAN #116, Tom; always good to hear from you, Happy Blrthday!)
From Jerry Lannigan
Many congratulations on successfully completing 20 years turning out "The Newsletter That's Really a Wargames Book!" The amount of effort that your avocation takes must be monumental at times and it is truly a blessing for the rest of us that you have stayed so dedicated to this aspect of your hobby.
It's often been a source of great curiosity to me how a person like yourself can be so passionate about the value of playing with toy soldiers yet actually game so little. There are two anecdotes from about twenty years ago that resemble what you do. Both were set in England.
The first was about a gamer who collected hundreds and hundreds of Vikings over a ten to twelve year period. Each figure was carefully painted with oils and each became a small work of art. In more than ten years his figures were gamed with exactly three times. People who watched him swore that he was far more concerned with his treasures being scratched or banged than he was in actually fighting a battle.
The second story shares a similar thread. It is about a person who lived in the country and was able to turn his backyard into a "world" in which ships constructed of metal and concrete, O- gauge train tracks and 54 MM troops engaged in quite "civilized" toy warfare. His energies were spent on creating and maintaining this "world." The design of English channel port towns or figuring out how to design a concrete destroyer for the fleet were far more important than any "battles" that might occur.
In several critical ways they resemble the way you have related that you see your hobby. Besides the monumental effort to create MWAN anew every two months, you seem fascinated with collecting articles and ideas about a period, perusing figure lists, making up army lists - and rules - for your new interests. You actually seem to be painting less but your love of the hobby has actually seemed to mature and mellow. Your story about driving through a snow storm to put on a public relations show a number of years ago and your subsequent thoughts about that decision are both very understandable. Wargamers change as their lives change. At least we can hope they do....
Now, how have I changed over time? Well, for one thing, while I am still impulsive about buying new periods and projects, things tend to get finished now and brought to a successful conclusion. Funny though, I find that painting larger figures is important, something to do with eye sight getting a bit weaker when you hit 55.
Right now a small collection of 25mm W.W.II figures occupies the painting table. They are mainly Icon figures which I picked up about a year ago and put aside. While the Friday night group has moved on and plays a lot of this scale, it hasn't been until recently that they were of any real interest. My long term loves in military history have been W.W.II, the AWI and the ACW, in that order. The collection of 20MM W.W.II figures got so large that I have begun to sell off figures that are truly just collecting dust. This includes at least 700 Germans, a similar number of American, Russian, & British figures. And of course, the Brits had to be represented in both 1940, Western desert, and NW European kit. My focus has narrowed and now I am merely looking to collect figures to allow me to run a series of related hypothetical games at next year's Historicon. They will be centered on what might have happened if Sea Lion had been attempted. There will be a surprise German landing at a small British port, a parachute drop on an RAF fighter field, and a set to involving British infantry attempting to repel a glider born assault on a vital river crossing. All this will be done on a skirmish level. Most of the terrain, troops and aircraft are done. Now I need to think about what type of rules I want to use.
The American Revolution has caused a collecting spree as well. The 25mm figures from Old Glory have become the corner stone of the effort supported by smaller collections of Dixon, Wargames Foundry, Front Rank and RSM figures. The figures are mostly advancing or march attack figures for both sides. The Continentals are fun because so many of the units are uniformed in browns, grays, and varieties of blue. When you mix in figures in hunting shirts you get a real visual feel for the period. I made the decision to resurrect the old Charge! rules but have allowed for the use of a d-10.
My units are all "big" units of from 30 to 36 infantry figures, two guns per battery and three mounted figures per squadron of cavalry being the rule.
(Interestingly a part of this revived Interest comes from watchIng Mel Gibson in The Patriot. My original feeling of distaste for this fllm was based on the composite nature of the movle's characters and battles. Yet it has grown on me as a statement about the mythology surroundIng this segment of the nation's history. I can live with the attistic license taken.)
I will attempt to do one more unit, perhaps the Rhode Island artillery, before venturing to the wilds of Lancaster on Thursday morning. This project is 90% complete and will be done before school sta rts on September 3rd. Smaller tasks remain. A small collection of a hundred or so F&I War figures - mainly RAFM with some Dixons thrown in, the completion of thirty or so infantry figures for my Essex figures Norman army, and a current repaint of some old Ral Partha British colonials all require some attention. It's great to have the summer off ... will this be what retirement is like? And if they aren't all finished, that's OK, too.
After all there are all those wonderful books by Edward Longacre on the US Civil War to read. Heartily recommended are his two books on the cavalry arms of the army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. Great stuff. And lastly, I wish to express a collective thanks from all the readership for your efforts. The hours of pleasure that can be derived from MWAN is unique and appreciated.
The landscape of our hobby is slowly changing with the passing of good friends such as Chuck Vadun, changes in activity from such stalwarts as Father Aelred and Wally Simon, and the decision to tone down his gaming by the Grand Seigneur of the hobby, Don Featherstone, i is very comforting to have MWAN to look forward to every couple of months.
(Edltor's Note: I very much appreciate your kind thoughts, Terry! I am pleased you contlnue to enjoy MWANI)
From Terry Berminciham
Funny how periods come and go and then come again. A lot of the time it is definitely down to a new set of rules which appear. Warhammer ECW seems to be having a renaissance over here lately.. A lot of new ranges from the 28mm boys have gone hand in hand with this. This follows the Ancients revival over the last couple of years. Love them or loathe them Games Workshop has a lot to answer for.
I went to a small show in Tunbridge Wells recently, which is a fairly small affair, but very friendly. I picked up a load of back issues which were being sold on the bring and buy. What a wealth of information packed into them. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, especially with my wife looking over my shoulder from time to time at this email, both my brain and my appetite have gone into overdrive. First a rekindled interest in the Franco/Prussian War has crippled my credit card expenditure and an article on a participation game of the Alamo has got my juices flowing.
Could I ask a favor of you and your readers. I would really appreciate it.
There was an article on the above game in about 1988, by a wargamer named Michael Pierce detailing the rules and scenario. He credited the game to Ron Prillman and Rich Hasenauer. Our group would like to resurrect this game but there were a couple of things which we need to find out e.g., How many Mexicans were in each wave etc. I know this is probably a long shot, especially as it was so long ago, but does any one know of the whereabouts of the above people or any email addresses that they may have.
(Editor's Note: Thanks for email, Terry; hope someone can help you; I've forwarded Mike Pierces' e-mail address to you In the hopes he can provide the Information you need.
From James Seery
I have used the "drug store" reading glasses for both reading and painting for some time without problems (I'm 58). I found a pair of +7 at one of those vendors in a parking lot and they work very well (I've never seen them this powerful in stores). The biggest problem is they are so strong that they only work with the work about 6 to 8 inches from my eyes. There is no depth perception problems but when I'm wearing them I can't see anything over a foot away. Granny glasses are in order. I think the idea for an advertisers column is good. They should list how they want to be contacted, i.e. do they have an e-mail address &/or a catalog on the net, if so what's their e-mail address? If they're offering figures what is the real size of the figure, that is the measurement from the top of the stand to the eyes?
(Editor's Note: Thanks for the Idea, James; I just got two new pairs of glasses. One is a pair of prescription reading glasses which are 'balanced" this has resulted In me belng able to read much better. I haven't had time to try to paint with them but am looking forward to trying them out)
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© Copyright 2002 Hal Thinglum
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