Arthur is the editor of THE NUGGET -- the publication of the WARGAMES DEVELOPMENT group in England, and has published a number of articles on wargaming in MINIATURE WARGAMES.
MWAN: Please give us some background information on yourself.
I was born in 1954, and one of my favourite memories is of sitting with my father looking at his photographs of his National Service in REME during the Malayan Campaign. His father had served in the Tank Corps in the Great War, and my maternal great-grandfather, a regular soldier, had been a bandsman during the South African War at the turn of this century, so I was perhaps predestined to develop an interest in military history. Both my parents were enthusiastic members of amateur theatrical societies; thus I was introduced at an early age to a confusing world of pretence in which my mother appeared to be involved in several affaires, whilst my father fought numerous terrifying duels, which may have given me an affection for escapism and fantasy.
Inspired by Captain W.E. Johns 'Biggles' stories, I was determined to become a pilot (unaware that the Sopwith Camel was no longer Britain's ultimate deterrent) until, at the age of eight, it was discovered that my eyesight precluded my grandiose ambitions.
I had, henceforth, to fulfil my dreams of glory in a world of my own imagining. Turning my back on modern technology, I retreated towards an age in which men who were less than perfect physically, lacking an eye or an arm, or suffering from romantically obsolete and obscure diseases, could yet perform daring deeds. 'Hornblower' became one of my favourite fictional characters -- I had no time for invincible 'superheroes' who pranced about in their underwear!
As a boy, I spent hours constructing 'Airfixl models, and painting and converting their 20mm plastic soldiers. It was through these that I discovered wargaming; during my teens I founded a wargame society at my school and began the first of many never-to-be-completed armies. In my first year at university I joined a reenactment unit portraying the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot during the Napoleonic Wars, and began collecting uniform books and British soldiers' memoirs to increase my knowledge of life in the ranks.
Temporarily I abandoned wargaming, which I found failed to recreate history as entertainingly as charging across country parks with bayonet fixed, and firing off blank charges until my chin was black with gunpowder. During term time I scoured bookshops for reprint editions of Napoleonic memoirs - I can fix the point when it became clear I was not destined for a legal career (I read Law at university) to the day wheng short of money, I traded one of my legal textbooks in a second-hand bookshop for a copy of John Green's 'The Vicissitudes of a Soldier's Life', a memoir of service in the 68th Foot in the Peninsula. If I was not to be a lawyer, I had to find another job - preferably with long holidays - which would leave my mind free to contemplate things military.
I decided on teaching, and bluffed my way through training college by writing an esssay on 'The Tactical Significance of Musketry in the Peninsula' to demonstrate my command of the English language, wearing my reenactment uniform as a 'visual aid' and presenting my own wargame rules in the guise of an 'educational simulation game'. I now teach general subjects, including history (the syllabus is English Civil War to Waterloo!) at a boys' preparatory school in Wimbledon. For several years I did little wargaming, but kept in touch by taking Don Featherstone's 'Wargamer's Newsletter'.
It was in the pages of that journal that I first encountered Paddy Griffith's thought-provoking articles, and when, shortly after I moved to London, I discovered that he was running an adult education course in Woking I enlisted at once. As a result, my almost dormant interest in historical wargaming was revived.
MWAN: How did you become involved in WARGAMES DEVELOPMENT (WD) and assume editorialship of THE NUGGET? Please give us some background on WD/THE NUGGET.
Wargame Developments was founded in May 1980 after Paddy's two-day conference on the theme of 'New Directions in Wargaming', to which I had been invited after meeting Paddy through his wargame course in Woking mentioned earlier. WD began as a group of wargamers who were dissatisfied with the 'Mainstream' of the hobby, which might loosely be described as 'orthodox' wargaming involving competition games, equal points armies and rigid commercial rules. The society has no clearly defined 'policy', since its members tend to be rugged individualists united more by the type of wargame they reject than by shared views on gaming and military history, and does not seek to impose its members' ideas on anyone or establish a new orthodoxy on rules or game formats. What its members do have in common is their overall attitude to the hobby; they endeavour to boldly go where few wargamers have gone before, seek out new mechanisms and game structures and experiment with them, incorporate good ideas whatever their origin, and remain open to constructive criticism of their ideas.
WD is not restricted to any particular period or style of wargaming, and it is willing to consider game structures other than the 'traditional' face to face, tabletop, divisional level game using toy soldiers that has raised the hackles of some 'Mainstream' gamers, whilst occasional forays into the Heath-Robinson technology of the 'Cardboard Simulator' have been the subject of ridicule. The society's journal, 'The Nugget', published bi-monthly, is a forum where members can communicate the results of their experiments, float new ideas for consideration, discuss issues such as the morality of wargaming that are never aired in 'Mainstream' magazines, and simply keep in touch.
'The Nugget' also contains news of forthcoming WD games such as the series of 'Megagames' - wargames with 40-50 participants and the annual conference. A typical issue consists of 28-36 pages in a physical format almost identical to MWAN. Paddy Griffith edited 'The Nugget' for the first three years of its existence, after which I took over the editorship for - coincidentally - another three years.
This summer Chris Kemp, alias 'Dormouse' the WD cartoonist, will become the new editor. The organisation of WD was, and remains, pretty anarchic, so the appointment of a new 'Nugget' editor is primarily determined by the incumbent - assuming he can find a volunteer! - with the approval of the Committee (Chairman, Treasurer and COW Secretary). The highlight of the WD year is the annual 'Conference of Wargamers' (COW), a residential weekend gathering of 50-60 WD members, where new mechanisms and games are demonstrated, workshops or discussion sessions held on a variety of topics connected with wargames and military history, and members from different parts of the country are able to meet old friends and make new ones.
The evenings are traditionally devoted to 'After Dinner Games' (ADG's) whose purpose is light relief and entertainment with few pretensions to seriousness, but frequently have original and exciting structures that later appear in more formal wargames. if you are interested in joining WD (you've guessed it - this is the commercial!) write to the Secretary, Bob Cordery, 50 Booth Close, Thamesmead, London SE28, Great Britain.
MWAN: what effect has WD had on your own wargaming and do you game in other areas of the hobby besides figures?
Belonging to WD has both revitalised and expanded my wargaming. My own interests, as you may have gathered, are the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns, but I also dabble in the American Revolution and 18th century colonial campaigns. Stimulated by the 'brainstorming' of WD and COW, I have developed ideas for gaming a wide variety of aspects of my chosen period other than the usual division-level battle, such as the Commissariat in the Peninsular War, and officer careerism in the Regency British Army, and experimented with all sorts of mechanisms and game structures: toy soldier games, roleplay, simulators, committee games and kriegsspiels.
In addition, I have participated in numerous wargames set in other periods that I would not have set up myself. These days I spend most of my time in devising and writing about games, rather than playing, often thumbing idly through figure catalogues, but rarely getting around to actually purchasing more than a few samples. Personally, 1 feel that only the smaller scales - 15mm and below - have any future, and I have played so many vastly enjoyable games involving toy soldiers that were not models of the particular troops they represented that I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the most sensible thing to do would be to paint up two hypothetical Red and Blue Armies after the fashion of the Prussian Kriegsspiel which could be used for any scenario within my favourite period. I tend to regard toy soldiers in army-level games as easily recognisable counters that are more aesthetically pleasing than those cardboard squares employed in boardgames, but I do believe that, where possible, wargames should be structured so that players can make tactical deductions from the visual display before them. If I end up spending most of a game admiring the casting or painting of the figures rather than concentrating on generalship the game has failed'.
MWAN: Please describe what is involved in editing THE NUGGET. Do you look actively to expanding readership; would expansion serve a need/purpose? Also, I have read several so-called "black wargames" in THE NUGGET and found them to be, in my opinion, inappropriate in the sense that they seem to serve no purpose and could only serve to give the wrong impression of wargaming to non-wargamers and the wrong inpression of WD to others. Any thoughts on this?
Editing 'The Nugget' can be summarised as reading articles and letters submitted by members, selecting a suitable mixture of topics for the current issue, retyping where necessary and pasting up the master copy for Xeroxing. If an article raises a controversial point I may contact other members for their comments on it, or add a rider of my own that may provoke others to write in. Usually articles reach me at least a month before they are printed, so there is time to contact 'Dormouse' to ask for or suggest ideas for cartoons. Obviously I have to liaise with the Treasurer to ensure that WD can afford to print the number of pages I would like to have in each issue.
As COW approaches, the supply of articles sometimes dries up for the most active WD members are busy creating games for the conference, and I have to beg for contributions and write 'fillers' myself. WD has never adopted an aggressive policy of self-promotion, preferring to rely on personal contacts and word of mouth. The number of members has remained fairly constant at somewhere around the 170 mark, and it may be that if the society expanded considerably much of the friendly atmosphere, the result of the majority of members being personally known to each other, would be lost.
My own editorial policy has been to publish any article that appeared to have an interesting point to make, whether I personally agreed with it or not, so long as it was not libellous. Thus, I printed pieces criticising toy soldiers, or advocating 'Black' wargames, even at the risk of offending the less open-minded readers and laying WD open to ridicule from the 'Mainstream', believing that the whole raison d'etre of WD was to discuss the very matters that other journals might not feel able to tackle. Unless 'The Nugget' does this, its contributors might as well write articles for other magazines!
What I would not publish, but have never received, are battle reports, re-hashes of published works of military history, or 'Competition' or 'Points System' Army Lists; all of which are, by definition, outside WD's terms of reference. Although I do not wholeheartedly agree with all that has been written in favour of 'Black' wargames, I feel the subject of games which deliberately try to show that war is not all glory is worthy of serious consideration, and was shocked when a few WD members suggested I should have censored such articles.
MWAN: What has been the general wargames public response to WD? What have been the benefits that have cone out of WD for (A) it's own members and (B) the hobby as a whole? The response of the wargaming public to WD (I don't suppose non-gamers are aware of our existence) has been a mixture of total indifference, active hostility that anyone should have the temerity to question the validity of the traditional toy soldier game, discuss the morality of wargaming or invent other types of wargame, and amused tolerance together with a willingness to accept our less controversial ideas.
WD has acted as a catalyst to make individuals rethink their approach to wargaming and communicate their ideas to a wider audience via the pages of magazines such as 'Miniature Wargames' and 'The Courier'. Through their efforts, concepts such as umpire-controlled games, multi-player games, solo games, free kriegsspiel and committee games do seem to have become more acceptable within the wargaming world than they had been hitherto. I believe this may have had an effect on wargamers who play non-competitively, but has not even dented the complacency of the diehard 'Mainstreamer' whose horizons are the latest edition of a commercial set of rules and an Army List, and whose aim is to win competitions rather than try to recreate history. WD members have gained the encouragement and friendship of like-minded wargamers, and been inspired to further experiments and development in their chosen fields, whilst profiting from other members' work.
MWAN: Has what has happened with WD been what you would have expected it to be as far as the response/result has been? What do you see happening/coming out of WD in the next five years or so?
The rate of progress (for want of a better word) within WD has, I think, exceeded the expectations of the original members; I am certainly surprised at the rapidity with which the society has advanced beyond the better realism and playability objective of the first conference, to the diversity of game structures and purposes found in WD today.
At first, I suspect, most members, myself included, foresaw that WD would concentrate on developing and improving a structure that would still be recognisable as deriving from the traditional game. Some of the founder members gradually left the society when it became clear that WD was not going to be confined to toy soldier games, and that many of its most innovative individuals had all but rejected that particular form as inherently unsuitable for their purposes.
Whether the same rate of development can be maintained, or whether the pace-setters will burn themselves out or progress to such extremes that they leave the rest of WD behind, remains to be seen... I see the next few years as a period when WD may consolidate its existing achievements and perhaps spend more time communicating its ideas -- by stealth if necessary! -- to a wider audience.
However, I would hate to see any decline in the more radical experiments with alternative wargames. There are some members who believe that the increasing sophistication of home computers will produce the next great leap forward -- for those who can afford them and have the programming skills, or are prepared to purchase a commercial package -- but I deprecate a tendency to reduce us all to VDU operators, hunched over keyboards ruining our eyes peering at cathode ray tubes, isolated from the human contact and companionship that is one of the pleasures of the hobby.
MWAN: It is my opinion that many wargamers, even if they don't like to admit it, have been greatly influenced by Paddy Griffith's writings and thoughts. What do you think of his contention that 'toy soldiers' get in the way of wargaming? Even though I agree with Paddy on many points, I tend to agree with Howard Whitehouse's view that he considers Paddy's contention as a challenge to further work on his rules so as to improve his games without dropping the 'toy solders' from them.
I have to agree with Paddy that insisting upon using toy soldiers for wargames, even when there are more suitable alternatives, has tended to impede the development of realistic and playable games. Unlike him, I don't believe that the toy soldier game "was essentially perfect, in itself, at least twenty years ago", since I'm convinced that Robert Louis Stevenson and H.G. Wells invented the ultimate toy soldier game (but not a historical wargame!) in 'Little Wars'. The game was easy to learn (unlike so many sets of wargame rules since), but capable of infinite varietyt and employed lead soldiers in the role ideally suited to them - standing up and falling over -- all subsequent rules that have tried to use the models as part of the combat calculation have had to resolve the problem of the toy soldiers appearing to be individuals, whilst being used to represent large numbers of men.
This has resulted in some convoluted reasoning, and complex, slow- moving games. There is, however, no reason why toy soldiers should not be used instead of less easily recognisable counters in games where some form of visual display of the battlefield is necessary, together with simple rules or umpire control.
I have played in a megagame where large numbers of models were maneuvered by an umpire team, the players simply choosing which orders to issue to the troops under their command instead of operating the rules, and feel this sort of structure offers the toy soldier a useful role, since the players had to rely on their visual appreciation of their, and the enemy's, units to 'read' the battle.
At one point the confusion often occurring when troops could not be identified in the smoke was admirably recreated without complex rules: a strange unit suddenly appeared on our left flank (both sides in this game expected reinforcements from another 'off-table' engagement), whose uniforms were so nondescript that we could do nothing but wait for its actions to indicate which side it was on! On this occasion, playing with toy models of the troops they soldiers which were anything but accurate represented was actually an aid to realism. I believe that historical gaming can continue to employ miniatures, so long as they are confined to the situation where the participants would have had a clear view of their troops, and used in conjunction with a back-to-back or umpire controlled opposition structure.
Perhaps it has been the tendency to force unsuitable scenarios into the strait-jacket of the two player, face-to-face, tabletop format that has made the toy soldier appear to be at fault? It strikes me as strange that fantasy roleplaying games like D&D accepted umpire control right from the start, whereas historical wargames for recreation, rather than military training, are only now beginning to consider it. The other funny thing is that the fantasy players don't seem to have realised that they could dispense with those thick expensive rulebooks and use free kriegsspiel!
MWAN: Any other items you would like to bring up or discuss your opinion on?
One of the aspects of wargaming I find most attractive is that the hobby has somehow resisted any attempts to organise or professionalise it; I hope never to see the day when wargaming is bedevilled by the governing bodies, acrimony and politicking that afflicts so many sports today. Wargamers remain free to experiment with alternative games, historical interpretations and methodology -- there is no orthodoxy or doctrine to which they must conform. I like the eccentric, amateur, do-it-yourself atmosphere of wargaming, whose participants aren't, like so many today, passive spectators but create their own entertainment, and the harmless yet extremely stimulating escapism I find through the hobby.
MWAN: Thanks to Arthur for a most interesting interview, I should add that I have belonged to WD for the last several years and have greatly enjoyed THE NUGGET and appreciate Arthur's work on it.
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© Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum
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