1. My newly formed ancients army has its share of hoplites ... Greek infantrymen ... and my arduous research into the field revealed that I, and every wargamer I've ever met, have been sadly mispronouncing the word 'hoplites' as HOP LIGHTS, with accent on the HOP. I mentioned these HOP LIGHTS to a fella of the greek persuasion who works in my office and he swore up and dowm he had absolutely no idea of what I was talking about. Finally, his eyes lit up. "Aha!", he cried, "What you're referring to is a HOP LEE TEES, with accent on the LEE." Now, kind reader, aside from correcting your gross mispronounciation, also note that while we have a single HOP LEE TEES with an "ess", the plural is a group of HOP LEE TEE, without the "ess". 2. In this issue, I have an analysis of the content of the British publication MINIATURE WARGAMES. In my assessment of a wargaming magazine, I tend to thumb my nose at "pure history" articles ... my thought is that if I want to read up on history, I can run to the library or refer directly to the books from which the author culled his information. I don't argue with the fact that historic battle descriptions and uniform information and the like are essential to the wargamer. I do argue, however, that if two-thirds of a publication's content continually consists of such material, it really shouldn't call itself a "wargaming" magazine. It becomes, in essence, a "history" magazine, with only a minor section devoted to the hobby. At this writing, I haven't done an analysis of THE COURIER ... I'm waiting to see what sort of flak is drawn by the current article. 3. The third Friday in April is Good Friday. Our PW meeting is still on; the Pilgrim Church staff indicate we won't interfere with their functions. But please ... keep the rebel yells to a bare minimum ... 4. Played a couple of neat games the other day; Robin Peck's HEADS OF OAK, otherwise known far and wide as TESTICLES OF STEEL, VISCERA OF POLYETHYLENE, BOWELS OF QUICKLIME, etc., etc. A good ship-of-sail game. Peter Dennis is so taken with the title(s), that he's going to publish the set. Our only major problem in rules interpretation came when we looked at the ship speed chart which, of course, is a function of the relative directions ship's course and wind. We saw terms such as 'broad reaching' and 'quarter reaching' arid the like. Broad reach? Quarter reach? I looked at the Ancient Mariner, Fred Haub. "Don't ask ", quoth he, "I'm painting World War I figures." I looked at ex-Special Forces member Fred Hubig. "I only know about blowing up bridges," Then THEY looked at ex-Lt. jg. W Simon, USNR. "Harrumph! ... well ... ah ... broad reach, you say? Nothing to do with MY navy!" Let this be a lesson to all rules makers ... always include a definitional section for the unenlightened in your audience. 5. I have heard all sorts of "Ooh's:" and "Aah's!" about MINIATURE WARGAMES (MW), the monthly British magazine with the pretty color photographs. Most of the comments focus on the photos, of course, and , in truth, one simply cannot fault the photographs. Nor can one fault the slick paper, nor can one fault the fact that the publication comes out on time, every month, just as a monthly should. I received seven back issues of MW in the mail (Issue # 36 of May '86, through Issue # 42 of November '86) which were sent to me by Tom Elsworth. Having a free evening, I sat down to analyze MW, to see if it truly merited that most precious and cherished kudo of them all ... a Simon "Ooh!" and "Aah."'. An input from a PW member, about a year ago, triggered my research; the good fellow was heard to extol the virtues of MW to the detriment of THE COURIER... the slick paper and the use of color, of course, was predominant in his argument, but the comment that aroused me from my usual comatose state centered on the publication's content. This magazine, said the lad, contained nothing but article after article that was "useful" to the wargamer. The term 'useful' was used in the sense that an article contained ideas which could be directly translated to, and used in, table-top gaming, i.e., "history" articles were out, and "idea" articles were in. My reading of MW, at that time, indicated a disagreement with that position, but I had nothing specific to cite to counter it... so why argue? NOW, I can argue. Le's look at the stats, as we are wont to say. The first thing I noted about MW was that the page numbering system begins on the FRONT COVER and ends, apparently, on the BACK COVER, giving a somewhat inflated appearance of 4 extra pages per issue (front and back of the front cover, and front and back of the back cover). Using this count, MW puts out, every month, a standard 52 page publication. My seven issue sample had, therefore, a total of 7x52, or 364 pages in all. I went through each issue, dividing the articles and features into three categories: "pure history" articles, "wargaming idea" articles, and "others". This third category contains classifieds, book reviews, convention reports, etc. What I got was: Total number of articles and features 79 Total number of history articles 37 Total number of wargaming idea articles 27 Devoted to the 27 "idea" articles were a nominal 70 pages. I term this "nominal" because these 70 pages also contained advertisements and, of course, the beautiful color photographs. It turned out that if one deducts the space given to this fol-de-rol, the 70 pages come down to an actual 55. Now let's do some math: a. With 27 "idea" articles spread out over 55 pages, we get an average article length of 55/27, or 2 pages per "idea" article. b. Over 7 issues, there were 27 such articles, hence the average number of wargaming articles per issue was 27/7, or 4 articles. c. Using (a) and (b) above, we get (4 wargaming articles per issue) x (2 pages per article) or a grand total of 8 pages per issue devoted to wargaming ideas. This average is in line with the tabulated values, issue by issue, that I've listed at the end of this piece. Thus far we've seen that MW devotes the magnificent sum of 8 pages every issue, ;ut of a grand total of 52, to "useful" wargaming ideas. What happened to the other 44 pages? Or, to put it another way, out of a 7 issue content of 364 pages, with 55 given to "ideas", what happened to the other 309 pages? As the tallies below show, they went to full page advertisements (120 pages), to full color photos and plates (20 pages), to "pure history" articles, to reviews, reports and interviews. My pseudo-scientific survey, therefore, indicates that I can give MW neither an "Ooh."' nor an "AW". A "Hm-m-m" perhaps, but nothing more. And until someone shows me to be in error, I shall not move one jot nor tittle from this position. Back to PW Review March 1987 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 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