(Editor's Note: After the seriousness of Tony's article, I thought it would be a good idea to follow it up with something a little more light-hearted. I now give you, straight from the vaudeville stage, by way of England, that crazy and wild guy, Howard Whitehouse!) It's often fairly hard for a group of wargamers to empathize with the physical situation that their little lead men are supposed to be in. A hot summer evening on the Georgia coast does not put us easily into the right frame of mind for gaming the Retreat from Moscow/Dark Age Norway/Finahd 1940 or whatever, and likewise I imagine that it's hard to conjure up thoughts of heatstroke and blistering thirst on a January weekend in the Windy City. Here are a few ideas, none of which are too serious (and some downright silly), which may serve to add a colourful glimpse of parts foreagn; they will certainly serve to keep the game from getting too dull! 1) Food Soldiers on campaign get to eat some pretty terrible things. Our comrades in the reenacting societies indulge in "period food", and there is no reason we shouldn't. "Empires, Eagles & Lions" occasionally features rather attractive Napoleonic recipes, while I'm told that a Belgian diplomacy-zinc used to have a cooking page. Most of us would be "in" for a good plate of Poulet Marengo, but what about other things? A menu for British officers in the Sudan featured such delights as "Beef curry, Jam tart, watery soup, champagne punch, and sardines on toast!. Recently my group was advancing up the Nile and "captured" some cattle from the Mahdists; shortly after they were served small bowls of curried beef (leftovers from supper), much to the surprise and the consternation of one particularly conservative Gastronome, who kept asking if it really was "stringy-ox stew" before he would eat it. A worse fate awaited a group of intrepid Norsemen in search of Vinland the Good, who were given a chocolate for each "night" they spent on land, to represent freshly hunted game, and a cracker spread with a very dubious mixture of chopped pickles and heavily slated tuna, to represent "sea rations" of appropriate type. Our mariners were appropriately concerned to spend as few nights at sea as possible! I've also heard of Vietnam games in which the most appalling things were served to players. Check with your health department first... At the very least, dates and warm water represent the desert. Weevils are optional in ship's biscuits. 2) Drink British soldiers and sailors drink rum, preferably cheap stuff, with sugar, lime juice or water added to make grog. Sailors should have lime juice separately. Officers may have brandy, port and claret. French and Latin types get to drink red wine, pretty rough stuff for the other ranks. Arabs and Turks get small cups of black coffee strong enough to wake the dead. Medieval characters drink mead or ale. Players will enjoy this. 3) Fatigue Players called upon to run or ride fast in the, course of a game should perform some form of vigorous activity - jogging around the block or doing push-ups. You'll be surprised how many "couriers" forget bits of: their orders after a 100 yard dash! 4) Physical Discomfort Ask yourself, gentlemen, are you entitled to stay warm and dry when your troops are cold and wet? My Vinland explorers were treated to cupfuls of water being thrown over them in a darken room to simulate "storms at night". I'm sure a fire extinguisher would do very well for a monsoon I hope these little tips will help MWAN readers bring a little cultural brightness into our wargames. Its surprising how easy it is to recreate the appalling military blunders of the past when one is drenched, tired and sick of the food. Part II, in which ways of simulating wounds and tropical diseases can be found, will appear at a later date. Back to MWAN # 20 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1986 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