1. Dick Bryant, editor of THE COURIER, passed through Washington, DC and we invited him over; he participated in a Seven Years War battle and a British colonial skirmish. The first night, Bob Wiltrout, Bob Coggins and Pat Condray -- under their company name of Twitter, Teehee and Giggle -- showed up and stood around tableside. Twitter, Teehee and Giggle never game; they mull around the table, hands in pockets, and, in high pitched Munchkin-like voices, they comment and gurgle to themselves... a snicker here, a chirrup there, here a smirk, there a smirk, everywhere a smirk, smirk.. One of them ... I'm not sure if it was Twitter, Teehee or Giggle... asked about the SYW setup: "In what scale is the game?" Before I could reply, someone else shouted out "30mm", and such is the intelligence of Twitter, Teehee and Giggle, that they apparently were satisfied with the answer. 2. Dick Bryant was not impressed with our-group's efforts. Rating the British colonial encounter, he gave the scenario a 3 out of a possible 10 for "realism". I think his historical sense of propriety was outraged when, on the table, appeared an international brigade of anti-British forces composed of Pathans, Chinese Boxers and African Askaris. In truth, if I had remembered, I'd also have placed some Zulus on the field ... thus reducing the rating from +3 to -3. Dick's comment was that I do not play historical miniatures, rather, I wargame with toy soldiers. My comment was that he hit the nail on the head; all of Simon's rules systems include 4 key components: There is a mechanism for impact on the enemy at a distance, i.e., weapons' fire, or missilery rules. There is a mechanism to prevent the figures from zipping up and back too quickly, i.e., movement rules. There is a mechanism for close quarters impact on the enemy, i.e., melee rules. There is a mechanism to prevent units from all standing in battle and all dying to the last man, i.e., morale rules. These 4 elements, the 4 M's - missilery, movement, melee, morale - are basic ... all else is gloss, gilt and grunge. Each era has its own adjustments, of course. British colonial rifles reach further than Civil War muskets, microarmor trucks run down the road faster than Napoleonic cavalry, etc. But the amount of gloss, gilt and grunge is all subjective. Phil Barker's gloss differs from that of Scotty Bowden's, Larry Brom's gilt differs from that of Paul Koch's, and Dick Bryant's grunge differs from that of Wally Simon's. Dick also commented on the fact that I am an "anti-chartist". I tend to avoid rules requiring constant reference to tables and charts: EMPIRE, WRG, JOHNNY REB, ON TO RICHMOND, etc. My rule of thumb is that if the chart or table is too large to inscribe on the head of a pin ... forget it. However, said Dick Bryant at the end of our discussion, despite our different philosophies, we shall still remain friends... and he threw his arms around me in true Gallic fashion and bussed me on both cheeks. It was only when he tried to kiss me a third time that I pulled back, called the police, and had him forcibly escorted to his plane back to Boston. All in all, though ... a pleasant visit. 3. Pat Condray and Bob Coggins carried the HMGS flag to Chicago to participate in the LITTLE WARS convention in early May. They attended the meeting of HMGS-Midwest and Pat indicated that he was favorably impressed ... the HMGS clone, an amalgam of a dozen or so wargaming groups in the midwest, was apparently well organized ... relative, of course, to our own HMGS randomlike and helter-skelter activities. 4. If 'tain't one thing, 'tis another ... now that PW has a comfortable amount in the treasury, a shortfall has showed up in another area. This concerns the number of articles submitted to the REVIEW for publication. In short ... we're runnin' out. Even your friendly editor is running out of ideas! After all, I can insult Condray and Coggins and Bryant and Wiltrout and Sossi for only so long ... which reminds me; send me a note if you want to get on my insult list; I'll think of something crass to say about you. But I digress ... let's go back to the articles, or, rather, the lack of them. Tom Elsworth's article in this issue is the first received in a long time which discusses a new rules system. Surely someone out there is playtesting and experimenting and willing to write up his efforts. 5. Last month we announce the cutoff of the 30mm PW Seven Years War figures and since then, have received a couple of unhappy letters. One, in particular, written by Bill McHarg of Stone Mountain, stated in very expressive fashion: "A-R-R-R-GH!" Bill, it seemed, intended to order several battalions worth of figures but failed to come in under the gun. About all I can say to you guys is that, while we won't solicit specific orders, we'll still keep turning out the figures during our FUSILIER casting sessions, and every now and then mention that we've got a small stock in hand. It'll be first come, first serve, but it'll also be at an Increased price per figure. The initial 50 cents rate was established to stimulate sales ... which it did ... and since we were kicking in, gratis, our time, effort and metal, PW made a wee bit o' money for itself. From here on out however, nothin's free ... the figures will be sold at the regular FUSILIER rate of 70 cents each, plus postage. 6. My almost-brand-new 15mm Pontic army met Jeff Wiltrout's a second time in a WRG Ancients battle; the result was the same as the first encounter ... a resounding defeat for the Pontic establishment. By superior generalship, I succeeded in placing a woods and a swamp in the midst of Jeff's deployment area; this divided his force in two, but my superior generalship then resulted in my attacking the wrong half of his army. Jeff had put 3 large artillery pieces (catapults? ballistas? ) with his right flank force. He pointed out that I have a paranoia about these long range weapons ... which was quite true, for they were one of the key reasons I decided to go against the left flank force. I later found out that the artillery was not as powerful as I had thought it to be; with a 24 inch range versus movement rates ranging from 4 inches (infantry) to 8 inches (cavalry), the weapons will score consecutive hits on advancing forces, but not that many. The truly fascinating about the game was Jeff's infinite patience in researching the REACTION and HIT tables. His chants were truly impressive: "Let's see now. These 4 at 3 becomes 5 at 2, up 1 to 6 at 12, down 2 to 9 at 13..." The incantations are completely meaningless to the non-WRG buff; they are repeated several times each turn, turn after turn, serving to somnabulize the opposition, to render him comatose and subject to suggestion, at, which time the chanter states: "You've suffered a push-back, you have broken, you have unsecure flanks, you will rout, you will lose, and you will place your army back in the box from which you took it." ...which was exactly what I did... Back to PW Review June 1985 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com