Having often given thought to perceptions of our hobby I have been quite intrigued by the spate of articles on this topic in MWAN and will offer my own perspective on this issue. To write this article I had to clear space on my desk for a key board, mouse, and mouse pad. What was in their place? The stuff that makes historical miniature battles such an appealing hobby and one that needs no apologies. Numerous paint bottles, brushes, and some thirty odd 28mm figures in various states of readiness: from painted but for their bases, to "final touch up stage" needed, to primed and ready to start. An Osprey book on the period next to a large history book with lavish illustrations by nineteenth century artists and war correspondents. A rule book with post-it notes on the front with my handwritten questions and answers about inconsistencies (does presence of an officer affect melee strength?) and my own innovations added from other rule books (morale declines if enemy cuts supply line). A rough sketch of a map across which my army in progressing will make its imaginary summer campaign. Notes from last year's summer campaign on weather, supply lines, troop attrition, and possible scenarios. And the remains of some pink insulation foam used to make baggage for a pair of camels that once had riders but will now serve in an army's supply column (tough decision on whether to add pots and pans from an unused Wild West campfire purchase some years back). Collecting, painting, converting, reading, note taking, and planning. And then at some point playing. These are what make up the core activities of our hobby and I for one don't see much point in trying to justify their fascination to people who view battles with historical miniatures as bizarre or even reprehensible. The fact is, we are an eccentric lot and are part of a subculture that forms around any distinctive hobby. If you are part of the subculture the activities appear normal and intuitively appealing. If you are an outsider the behavior seems weird. I first came to this realization about a year ago when perusing my copy of the classic War Games by Donald Featherstone. Published in 1962, the dust jacket lists other hobby books by the publisher, including The Coin Collector's Encyclopedia, Shellcraft, and Talking Budgerigars. And then comes other books by Featherstone, including Naval War Games. Pushing little boats around on the floor is only slightly more appealing to me than teaching a parrot to talk, but that's the point. The fascination of a particular hobby really can't be explained to nondevotees and it certainly doesn't need to be justified. As a final point, let me note that just last week my ten-year-old son showed me a photograph in the current issue of the miniature fantasy gaming magazine White Dwarf (June 2003, page 2). It showed five men (not boys) under a tent standing around a table in the midst of battle between Space Marines and Eldar (the latter are, in my son's words, "futuristic evil elves"). Who are these men? U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan! Case closed. ARTS AND CRAFTS Having stated the case for accepting our eccentricity as it is, let me attempt my own explanation for what makes the hobby so fascinating. As the title indicates, I think that it's the experience of visualization in multiple forms. This insight came to me last year as my family returned by air from a vacation. As the plane descended I asked my son at the window seat to help me figure out when we had a 6mm, 15mm, 28mm, and 54mm view of the terrain below. Whether it is moving counters on a campaign map or simply gazing at the artistic sculpting of a new miniature (and some figures are so statuesque in their portrayal of the human body in motion that they certainly qualify as art), I have always found the "bird's eye view" one of the instinctive appeals of the hobby. I'm sure this form of visualization is obvious to readers (and here we have much in common with our rail road model brethren). Thus if someone asked me how an adult male could possibly play with toy soldiers I would hold up an exquisite figure by Mark Copplestone and say: "What do you think of this?" If the answer isn't "Wow!" no amount of words about war being a fact of life or learning about history will be worth the effort. Needless to say, the bare figure is just the start of the visualization process with painting the damn things and creating accessories and terrain all feeding in. It is with these latter that we really can see the eccentric nature of the hobby since each collector seems to have his or her own peculiar obsession with getting "it" just right. For some "it" is the right color patterns on horses (I'm not concerned with this issue but some gamers obviously are since Mike Siggins recommended a book about horse breeds in a recent issue of Wargames Illustrated). For others it is making flags look right (I recently used actual fabric and colored markers with good results). Basing seems to be a particularly interesting test of a gamer's approach to visualization. One of my very few real innovations is apply watered down light weight spackling with a brush. It produces a marvelous earth texture when painted first with a yellow-tan and when dry a dark brown wash that fills in tiny holes created by air bubbles to give a real three dimensional look. The trips to craft stores that so many of us make is really a chance to imagine how objects created for one purpose will look when modified and used for another (fabric stores earned my respect after I found a large scrap of "green fur" which now has pride of place as forest patches on my gaming table). CHESS WITH A THOUSAND PIECES One step up in the visualization process is the "chess with a thousand pieces" dimension of the hobby. Strategy and tactics strike me as a form of visualization akin to football play diagrams showing players' positions and moves. Even if one has little interest in the figure and painting aspect of the hobby concepts such as troop formation (column, line, square), flank attack, and lines of communication are inherently about geometry. That means the gamer either has a genius level "left brain" and can "see" all of this in his or her head, or actually uses pen and paper to sketch plans. I have always found that the much needed inspiration to move from the arts and crafts aspect of the hobby to actual table top play requires drawing a map of a terrain and then filling in the position and movements of units. As Donald Featherstone states on page 3 of his wonderful book War Game Campaigns: "Poor-spirited is the war-gamer who cannot find his spine tingling as he surveys a map of the Waterloo Campaign and does not wish, with hindsight, to initiate strategic and tactical moves of his own that will reverse history. HISTORY Recent articles in MWAN "defending" the hobby have focused on its historical merits and I don't have much more to add on that topic. Those serious about historical miniature battles will certainly read about their chosen period(s) and event(s). Indeed, even the rule books published by Games Workshop on armies such as Lizardmen, Dwarves, and Skavens (bipedal rats) include detailed histories and intricate maps. Thus even fantasy gaming requires background information and "facts." Whether it be history or fantasy, creating the mental world in which real or imagined events happen is inherently about visualization. This is obviously not news to anyone (such as myself) whose idea of a good time is being left alone with a book. Reading requires creating a mental picture of a narrative plot leading from a beginning to an end with some complexity and uncertainty in between. That is a good description of a militay campaign or battle. All of the background work that goes into a table top battle with miniatures-from orders of battle to the rules on the affect of terrain--is in one way or another a form of visualization. CONCLUSION I think Richard Heath makes an excellent point in his article "More About Perceptions of Wargaming" (MWAN 122 page 62) when he notes that names are very powerful and "wargames" probably sends the wrong message about the hobby. War is not a game and nothing done in the hobby remotely represents war for two reasons. First, at the level of miniatures and terrain on tables, we do not care about the actual political origins or outcomes of the conflict, and according to the famous quote from von Clauswitz "war is an extension of politics by other means." While some may try to recreate a particular historical event, I do not think that wargamers are so eccentric that any of us actually wish we to alter history by defeating a rival army. The second reason war is not a game for the hobby is that no wargamer can really believe that he or she is actually acquiring combat experience or even strategic and tactical skills to use in some actual military conflict. Donald Featherstone, a World War Two veteran as most of us know, has always insisted on this point and proved it by pointing out that wargames usually ignore weather and rarely include the impact of supply lines (two of the biggest factors in real military campaigns). For all the references to kriegspiel in the 1860s and the contemporary simulation games run by the U.S. military, I hope there are no wargamers so eccentric as to actually engage in the hobby with the goal of being better warriors (learn a martial art if that is your goal or just enlist). On this point I think it is quite interesting that the above mentioned U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan were playing a fantasy game and not British versus Pathans on the Northwest Frontier circa 1890! For these reasons I use the name historical miniature battles to describe the hobby and for me at least these three words are in the right order to describe what I do. A huge portion of my "hobby time" is spent reading books and wargame magazine articles to learn about people and events of the past from many factual perspectives: where things happened, why they happened, what people wore and carried with them, and how they responded to conflict and stress. A large but unfortunately not huge amount of my hobby time is taken up with the miniature figures that when accurately painted provide a fairly realistic representation of these people, as well as creating from scratch fairly realistic miniature terrain of the land on which they acted. Finally, as I'm sure most readers can empathize with, once in a while I get around to actually moving these miniatures about on the terrain and rolling dice and turning cards to simulate the ebb and flow of battle. Well, its Saturday afternoon and I have to decide whether to add pots and pans to my supply camels or examine those historical illustrations for the nth time or plan my next unit with the help of the figure catalogue that just came in the mail. Some how none of this seems to have much in common with war. Back to MWAN # 125 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com