Procrastination means never getting around to saying that you are sorry, but it is a most tedious condition. There are many reasons for the appalling delay since PA102 but a bout of serious procrastination is certainly a major one. Having worked very hard indeed for ten years I suddenly discovered that I could not get the cadence when there was less work and as a result have expanded the work I had to do to fill the same time as well as engaging in classically unimportant projects. However, I can undoubtedly indicate another rogue in the diary of My Rake’s Progress. Step forward John Kranz the man responsible for the addictive Consimworld on the Internet. I have had to deny myself a whole category of folders on this site to recharge my designing and publishing batteries.
Step forward also Tim Gow. His ideas for battalion-level World War 2 games for figures (so you can fit several corps on the table) have encouraged me to expend large sums on books and figures for this era - an era that I had almost completely abandoned for over a decade. Procrastination has a particular field day with the unpainted Mountains of Lead though the plastic kits that require track assembly link-by-link also have their moments. I have however made some strides here, notably by discovering I can scan maps into my computer, trace the relevant area map on the top of it and then print as tiled to cover the table. Thus allowing me to combine figures and boardgaming. I must return to my Franco-Prussian figure games now this is dealt with.
With such a delay this issue and the next one which (deus le veult) follows on close behind are rather formless compared to normal PAs, but I hope they have some entertainment value.
What has happened in our hobby over the two years wherein I have slumbered ‘neath Elsinore Castle? There are signs of growth and signs of shrinkage. I do believe that the shops/distributors channel is in serious retreat though. Columbia, that latter day Avalon Hill, has abandoned them totally and sells direct only. This has cut out not just the Comic Guy shops but the email traders too. I believe the Wizards of the Coast shop chain also closed cutting off contact with the younger gamer.
However the style of game produced is also changing. The old 8 hour game (sneered at by the 15 hour gamers) is now a beached minority category and many more games are pushing inside the four hour session and also challenging the Euro games in bright presentation and short rules. Of course you still get the likes of Ardennes ’44 to feed those who still enjoy the big panzer pusher. If I had to pick the most indicative game for this trend I would go to The Napoleonic Wars by GMT. This is not much in the way of a simulation but it contains a lot of history (much as a plum pudding is mostly not plums).
It is also a real game (with lots of tricks and traps) that builds on excitement for its proponents. Although still rather long it indicates an euro-ish view of gaming. Its sessions are noisy sessions, none of the sepulchral silences of AHIKS meetings. It represents something altogether more vital than the historically accurate but sterile long game. The fact that a game can be great fun yet have good underlying historical characterisation is not the same as having many of these games to purchase. The Napoleonic Wars at least pleases a lot of gamers (though I think its history sucks). So too is Monty’s Gamble a game straight out of the Avalon Hill stable which is both ludic and historical (though you may argue about both).
The appearance of the new brand of Euro-wargames (or so their designers fondly imagine them) particularly from Richard Berg does not I think alter my view that wargamers require something more historical than these. Frequently when criticism is directed at these games it will be answered with the view that the games are games with a historical theme they are not intended as historical games. I believe wargamers want more than that. Something like The Napoleonic Wars or Hammer of the Scots not, it is true, major historical tracts, but, equally, more than just a bag of old Euro mechanisms with a historical topic roughly nailed on to the back of them.
Has the Hobby got the net yet? I’m not sure it has, but when you look at what people are playing rather than what they are buying then I think that we can see all too clearly the way the Fickle Finger of Fate is pointing. The older longer type of game will continue to function well within its limits but other categories are needed.
And what better way to welcome this June the next Richard Borg game (he of Battle Cry) fame – Memoire ’44 as our brave lads land in Normandy to battle the Germans.
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© Copyright 2004 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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