1. I've been looking at WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED (WI), in particular, Issue #167 of August 2001. And over a period of some months, I've noted a horrible trend in the magazine's content.
The above issue has 7 articles, and of the 7, 3 of them are about WARHAMMER (WH) and its derivatives. Two on WARHAMMER ANCIENTS, and the other on the RENAISSANCE version.
In past issues, more and more articles have shown up in WI devoted to WH. I must assume that the publisher, Duncan Macfarlane, has polled his audience, and WH articles are a winner.
Each and every WARHAMMER article gives a long list of the types of troops for the era. And each type in the long list has a long list of 10 attributes. For example, in the Renaissance listings for the Italian army, the Italian pikemen have an V of 4, a WS' of 3, a 'BS' of zilch (it's blank, there's nothing listed), an 'S' of 3, a 'T' of 3, an T of 3, an 'A' of 1, an 'Ld' of 6, and a 'Save' of 6+.
Few of the articles ever list the meaning of these arcane and hidden parameters... In WI Issue #167, only one of the three articles bothers to explain what the terms mean. The authors assume you have the $50 rules manual ready for reference. I have never looked at the WH rules, and have no desire to do so, and my desire is reinforced by the mysterious listings. For example, on a first reading, the Italian pikeman have no 'BS'... Why are they BS-less? 'Stradiots' have a BS of 3... while the Italian 'ordonnance handgunners' are given a BS of 3. 1 had to turn to another article wherein it explained that BS stands for Ballistic Skill.
WI is one of the premier (perhaps thepremier) British glossy magazine devoted to wargaming. That is to say, purportediy devoted to wargaming. I have noted, however, that most of the articles, the WARHAMMER stuff notwithstanding, are simply historical accounts of battles. And at the end of the article, the sole linkage to wargaming is that the author states... "Oh, yeah... you can play out the encounter with your favorite set of rules..." I really hate to see a good magazine gone bad.
2. Last month, I wrote of my adventures with Easy Eight's BATTLEGROUND, and since then, I've tried another game with the rules. A simple one of three advancing Russian squads trying to flush out a couple of hidden German units. The Russian squads had 10 men in them and when they fired, lots and lots and lots of dice were thrown (for historical accuracy and realism, of course).
If not moving, each Russian rifleman was given 2 actions and could fire on each action. Thus he could toss two 20-sided dice (1 shot per action)... that's 20 dice for the squad. Then we looked on the 'To-Hit' chart for the hits betokened by the dice. Then, for each hit, we tossed more 20sided dice... looking on another 'Damage' chart for the type of result. It could be a serious wound, a light wound, a suppression, or a morale check.
Now, having found out what happened to the men in the target squad, we had to find out which particular men were wounded... more dice tossing. Too much! Too much!
I think all tableside agreed that BATTLEGROUND could be modified and simplified to the nth degree, and a lot of the historical and realistic crappola done away with.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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