I am an ancient and fantasy wargamer. No matter how hard I try I can't get the fantasy out of my blood. Every once in a while, I have to run my Orc army through its paces. But getting back on track, I had a hard time wargaming in any area outside my main area of interest. I suppose other people have the same problem, especially people who are not wargamers, and those who do not care for ancient wargaming.

I now belong to a little wargaming group and we play every other weekend. Each time, each member gets his turn to host his game. He is the umpire and the battle is in his period of choice. The average game lasts from 2 to 4 hours and is played in the space of an afternoon. When it is my turn, they know what they are going to get. When it is their turn, I have to put up with micro-armor or something related. But because the battle is not overly complex and the rules used are generally simple, I am actually getting interested in the game. I even found an opportunity to make a trade; Vikings (painted) for a painted set of micro-armor (really it's 1/200th scale or N gauge).

Monster Games

Before joining this group, I knew of a friend who ran monster games in microarmor. His games would take 3 weekends and each game session would last over 12 hours. Every few months, I might show up for one session and play, just to be polite, but I was always glad to get back to my beloved ancients.

Then there was nother friend. His idea of good was complex. I was invited over to a game he had inflicted on a few of my wargaming friends for the past month. It was a WWII naval game. We would spend 2 minutes moving our ships, filling out our game sheets telling him what we were shooting at and how far. Next, out would come the scientific calculator and 5 pages of charts, and our friendly umpire would spend the next half hour calculatiung everything out, and he would expect complete silence from all of us while he was busy.

Is that your idea of an exciting wargame? If we were dedicated WWII naval wargamers we may have found ourselves rivited to our seats watching with excited expectation as our glorious umpire punched each key of his calculator.

But even in my area of interest, I would have a hard time putting up with such an involved process. A proper wargame needs to be fast moving and exciting, not just made for eggheads. To bring in the uninitiated, our games have to be something they find interesting. More complexity and detail can be added as they get interested in gaming the period. That is how to attract interest.

Gone Solo

My Volci campaign is still running strong. Our editor stepped and saved the day for one of the kingdoms. Since that experience, I have gained further insights on how to keep a game moving. The campaign is still running strong and is advertised in the Lone Warrior [magazine]. The Solo Wargamer's Association has provided me with several good players. I am a dedicated Solo Wargamer.

Solo Wargaming gives me the chance to play the kind of wargames I'm interested in, and some of the games I have played solo have given me a ideas for games run for friends. I have also had good experience running convention games. For me, play-by-mail is a new frontier to be explored. I get great pleasure out of seeing what the players are up to, and seeing how they react to different problems I throw at them.

In the wargaming world, there is a major misconception that the ancient Numidians were negroes. If the modern Algerians are their descendents, there is no way they could be anything but members of the Caucasian race. Furthermore, most of the peoples who live in the Sahara are Berbers today. They are not negroes. If anyone has any other comments or information on the subject, I would be interested in what they have to write in the pages of SAGA.

Note: This feature will become a regular column in SAGA if enough interest is there. It can be a forum for discussions of anything of interest within our hobby. Jon is a long-time subscriber and always has something of interest to say.