I have known Todd Fisher for about two years, beginning with the formation of the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society-Midwest (HMGS-Midwest) and if I had to select one word to describe him, I would choose, energetic, as he does more for the hobby in the Midwest than anyone else I know of, although there are several who from time to time challenge him for this position.
MWAN: Please give us some background information on yourself.
TODD: I am 31 years old, married with no children. I have a B.A. in History at Westminster College in Fulton, M0. I also have taken post graduate work at Northwestern University. In addition to my wargaming activities I am active in Republican politics in the city of Chicago I suppose this makes me even more of a rouge elephant..har, har. I am principal and co-founder of Republic Securities, headquartered at the Board of Trade in Chicago.
MWAN: How did you become interested in wargaming with historical miniatures?
TODD: I began gaming with historical miniatures in the middle sixties. I started with those plastic flats available from the back of comic books and went on to Airfix figures. I was battling dioramas and writing simple rules before I ever realized anyone else had even thought of the idea. When I was fifteen, I discovered the Hobby Chest in Skokie and there found a copy of "Hard Tack" ACW rules. It was about this time that I also discovered Avalon Hills games. A whole new world of other games was opening up to me. I had gamed several ACW games with my younger brother when in 1972 I saw a notice of a challenge to all oponents on the Hobby Chest notice board. The weapons were ACW armies using hardtack rules. I called up Neil Zimmerer whose house the games were at and arranged'to meet. These were the Mayfair Gainers and I have been member ever since.
MWAN: What specific periods do you game in, what scales, etc.
TODD: As I said I have a degree in History and therefore approach the hobby from that direction. As a result there isn't much historically I don't game I own close to 30,000 miniatures in the major periods of ancients, dark ages, medieval, renaissance, pike and shot, lace wars, American Revolution, Napoleonies, ACW, colonial, Franco Prussian and WWI. I also have armies in the off periods of Pony Wars, pirates and Vietnam. As a general rule I own 25mm for skirmish games and 15 mm for the rest. One of the joys of wargames is researching a mew period. This includes everything from the campaigns and personalities, to the uniforms and equipment.
MWAN: You've been a "prime mover" in the Midwest area re putting together conventions (LITTLE WARS) for some time. Can you tell us how you became interested in this area?
TODD: I became interested quite by accident. I, like most of my friends had taken CWA-CWI conventions for granted. I began to notice however, that the quality from the judges standpoint was slipping. Most of these problems I subsequently learned were caused by outside factors, but not doubt "burn out" played no small role. The situation had gotten to the point that many judges had reached the point where they said they were no longer interested in running games at CWI Cons. This alarmed me enough that I called Tony Adams to help me organize a bid to take over the miniatures events at CWI-Con. Tony agreed that something had to be done. So with Ken Kaufman, a co-Mayfair member, we put together a bid. Then to our surprise CWI informed us they were no longer going to run there convention. This left us with the choice of going forward or dropping the whole thing. We closed our eyes, held our noses, and jumped. Little Wars was born.
MWAN: You are also involved in HMGS-Midwest as the Treasurer, Please give a little background on the organization, why you decided to get involved, your impression of what it has done thus far, etc.
TODD: I had been active in HMGS-East before the founding of HMGS-Midwest. I had thought it would be a good idea to form a chapter in the Midwest. I was starting to go about trying to find out what needed to be done, when I got a letter telling me that Hal Thingham, Rich Black and Tony Adams were having a meeting to organize virtually the same thing. We along with others met and tentatively decided to form a HMGS Midwest Chapter. At the next Little Wars this came to pass. The first year and on half has been primarily organizing the troops. We have put on demos at H.I.A. and ran Little Wars last year, but the main thing has been opening channels of communication.
This year we ran a number of games at Gen-Con and peeled away marry of the difficulties we have had with TSR in the past. We plan to do the same at Gen-Con next year. Undoubtedly the biggest thing we can point to is our landing of a Mid-West Origins in 1988. HI4GS-Midwest along with Game Masters Guild and the Parksid2 Garners will run the miniatures events at Origins/ Gen-Con, TSR has rolled back many requirements of the past, and has assured us of plenty of space to hold our events. Also, we are in negotiations to bring up various V.I.P.'s of our hobby to run seminars. While I'm sure this will come off its still too early to name names. I want to thank HMGS member and founder of Game Masters Guild, Bob Bigelow for handling many of the negotiations with T.S.R. It is obvious to me a era of cooperation is underway and it is for us to take advantage of it.
My experience with running "Little Wars" is a paradox. On one hand I had the impression that you had to be part wizard to pull it off. This is not true it is really nothing but elbow grease. On the other hand I thought the volunteers would be legion... Ken and I basically do 98% of the work. As for the future, Little Wars has been one of the two premier miniatures conventions in the country and this is all we aspire to. We don't feel we can keep up the quality of service to the judges, dealers and players if we expand any more. We now have over 100 events in two and Y, days and feel thats quite enough. Ibis is not to say that we can't improve. Next year and hopefully for years to come Kruse Smith will hold a Society of Ancient and Medieval games tournament. Also Scott Bowden will attend and supervise Empire III and Stars & Bars Games. Hopefully because of it's central location Little Wars will become the spot whore players, authors and manufacturers meet and exchange ideas.
MWAN: What motivates you to become so deeply involved in promotion of the hobby?
TODD: Purely selfish interest. On one hand it is a major goal of HMGS to expand the hobby and I am devoted to HMGS. Secondly one of the problems I see in the hobby is that product available is expanding much faster than the people entering the hobby. So if we want this splendiferous product line to continue then we must expand the second part of the equation. Thirdly, i admit I'd like to think of our hobby as a on-going concern.
MWAN: Can you draw any comparisons between the hobby in the midwest and the rest of the country as a whole?
TODD: The differences between the East and Midwest are becoming less and less every year as communication increases. The only areas of the country :till somewhat isolated from the infection of our dogma is parts of Texas and the West. There they play "antiquated rules" still and have bizarre rulings on widely circulated rules-sets. When I say this I hope they know I have tongue firmly in cheek; but they do do things differently.
MWAN: Has our portion of the hobby gone as you would have expected it to go since the time you became involved? Where do you see it going?
TODD: No, it has improved much faster than I would have thought. As for where it will end up, that depends clot on finding people to pass the torch ^n to. This is because the current cast will almost surely burn out.
MWAN: Are there any aspects of the hobby that you do not enjoy?
TODD: To state the obvious; abrasive players. It is the right as well as the obligation for he judge to control these people. It is probably best to take these people aside and tell them that that sore of behavior is unacceptable. Too many times I have seen blowhards berate some novice. Just how much flue do you think it is for the neophite, not to mention the other players. MWAN; What can the average wargamer do to increase interest in our hobby?
TODD: Bring along new friends to game and make sure they feel welcome. Encourage and use only soft constructive criticism.
MWAN: Can you tell us about your local wargaming group?
TODD: I am a member of two game clubs. The first is Mayfair gamers. (By the way several of us started Mayfair Games hence the similar names.) We submit game to the schedule and he publishes a two month schedule. This group is definitely the more vocal of the clubs. Therefore, the judge is the final word. If you don't like the ruling talk about it after the game. The second club is Wurrms. This club meets at my house on Saturdays and has existed in some form for 18 years. I joined five years ago at the invitation of a mutual Mayfair member. At this club every member votes on next weeks games but has the right to cast a ballet twice a year therefore insuring every guarantees his choice twice a year. (A bullet is an automatic win). This club is much more prone to play unballanced senarios and therefore is less "win" oriented.
MWAN: You have a set of rules for the Middle Ages which is in the process of being put together for publication. Can you talk about this?
TODD: This set has been developed over five years. Everytime I think I have it finished I find something I want to fine tune. I have reached the point however that publication is just around the corner. I started with the premise that a archery was primarily a disruptive feature on the field. This was deduced by reading many primary and secondary sources. Also that unit cohesian played a key role in its ability to fight. Therefore, disruption plays a major role in the rules. The second aspect in Medieval combat that seemed to be missing was that training not only affected the killing ability of units but significantly increased their close combat defense. So again this is reflected. When I write rules I look at final result and work backwards. I then try to discover what variables could change the final results. The Pkwy to this method is to have as large a data base as possible, and requires some digging. MWAN; How do you approach developing scenarios for cement ion games?
TODD: I think that when you host convention games you should totally go for a balanced scenario unless you are prepared to go through extensive debriefing. Try to give multiple choices to the players. The normal set-piece game can be pretty boring to experienced gamers. Pay attention to the game to be able to give good analysis. But the biggest key to making a good game is for the judge to be a skillful gamer. Too often objectives are given that would require full uninterrupted movement to achieve. Few things can be more frustrating to a gamer than to play in such a senario. If you are new the hobby, show your game to an experienced gamer to catch glaring mistakes. Understand that hosting an unsuccessful game is worse that playing in one.
MWAN: Do you feel there has been any type of a change in the people within the hobby over the last ten years or so?
TODD: They have gotten more mature. I think that this is because the younger gamers have role models now which did not exist years ago. With this maturity comes a less egotistical player.
MWAN: What effect do you think fantasy gaming has had, and presently has on our portion of the hobby?
TODD: The most obvious effect is the introduction of role playing to scenarios on a wider scale. This gives judges more lattitude in designing games. The thing I find a disturbing development over the past few years is a us versus them attitude among certain sectors of our hobby. This is unhealthy. The time was fantasy/role playing was a direct outgrowth from us and no camps were defined. But with the growth of TSR and the Dragon magazine a siege mentality developed. We should be careful not to slot people so that we all may move forward together.
Now let me say that I'm as annoyed as the next guy with the clown in the Darth Vader outfit who couldn't tell you the difference between a Napolearic Hussar and a Landshnecht. But it is our job to instruct him and win him over. Of course if all else fails we take him out into the alley and strangle him, for the good of the hobby. (Just Kidding) (I Think) If we don't start breaking sown these barriers then we can only expect to become more and more fractionalized.
MWAN: You are the Medieval Editor of The Courier magazine. What is your role?
TODD: It is my job to solicit and edit articles in my period. Also it is my job to review any figures and rules that come out. Hopefully I will bring to the job an awareness of the unique aspects of the period. Too often the Middle Ages is lumped together with ancients or renaissance.
MWAN: Who do you th#nk has had the most effect on historical miniatures wargame?
TODD: I thought about this for a while, and while the rules writers are an undeniable part pf the formula as were the early manufacturers such as Jack Scruby. The single entity whose name keeps coming up when you ask. how people got into the hobby is Airfix. The availability of cheap figures served as a easy way to have instant army. They were even color coded so you did not have to paint them. The modern equivalent to instant armies is the skirmish game. Here kids can again get into the hobby cheap by needing much less figures to hold a game. MWAN; Who has influenced you the most in the hobby?
TODD: Outside of my immediate friends I would say Jeff Ugrehart, the former owner of the Suttlers Wagon. He taught me that every game did not have to be perfectly balanced; and that playing on the losing side of a hopeless game could have rewarding moments. He also was the dearest example to me that you could continue to game into adulthood.
MWAN: It seems to me that individual wargamers have, as of late, been working much closer together than we used to. Why do you think this is, if you do think so?
TODD: It appears that this is the case. I would like to think that organizations such HMGS and Gamemasters Guild let people know that there are a number of like minded people working toward the same goal. And that people are just taking advantage of the opportunity to cooperate. MWAN; Do you think we have it better than ever before as regards the current availability of figures/accessories? Do you see this continuing in the future?
TODD: There is no question that this is a golden age for the historical miniaturist. Figures are available in periods as obscure as the Maori Wars and the Paraguayan Wars. I do not see any way that we can maintain this pace. As I said before we must expand our base or we will lose much of what we now have. If we are successful then we can again expand abbiet at a slower pace. MWAN; What projects are you currently working on?
TODD: The main thing that I am doing is trying to improve my terrain. I enjoy making my playing field as attractive as possible. This is, by the way, the area where much of the expanding of the product line available will occure. After all how many more French linemen do we need? We can always improve the attractiveness of our games. MWAN; You have a reputation as an excellent gamer, as witnessed by the fact that you were in the National Ancients Finals the last two years. Do you have any thoughts/opinions on the competiveness of wargaming? What qualities, in your opinion, are required to become a skillful player?
TODD: As for the first question; you don't play to lose. But I dislike as much as the next guy, the rules lawyers and prima donnas that take the win at any cost attitude. Winning should never be more important then honor! Manners should never take a back seat to victory. This is spoken by a guy who has been as loutish as the next bum; but hopefully have reformed.
The qualities needed to win a game are intuitiveness, luck and foresight. The best suggestion I can give to new players is to put yourself in the place of your opponent and try to figure out what he will do. Try walking around to his side of the table and see the game from his perspective. Attack with boldness, but try to have a good idea of the odds before you start the troops rolling. But the one aspect I have found universally among the best players is a good spacial concept.
These players know quickly how long it will take troops to go from A to B. Included in this is the time required to fight and defeat an opponents' units. If you're not blessed with this talent naturally try developing it by actually thinking out, "This brigade will take 6 turns to more 24 inches and roll over a unit of skirmishes." If you find it is taking longer then you may have to speed up or slow down other attacks. Also try to objectively judge if you are sending enough troop to accomplish their assigned job. And lastly, roll good.
MWAN: Thanks very much, Todd, for taking the time to answer these questions. I hope you enjoyed this look at Todd Fisher.
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© Copyright 1987 Hal Thinglum
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