From the Editor of Slingshot

Dear Terry,

What a happy day 25 November was for me! Slingshot arrived in the first post, and Saga and Spearpoint in the second. My evening was spent leafing through them all, and I so nearly went to bed a contented man -- then I read the letter from Phil Barker on the last page of November's Saga.

I'm sorry to see Phil Barker falling back into his bad lazy old ways in your magazine. He replies to a very interesting and stimulating article by Howard Whitehouse "Meanwhile in the Mea( Hall," that appeared in the September Saga. I'm grinding two axes here, one a little Scythian hand type and the other a whopping great Viking two-handed cleaver.

The little Scythian hand axe relates to how Phil Barker understands Howard Whitehouse's article. Howard Whitehouse very clearly declares that he is interested in adapting DBA. There are some historical points that, in Howard Whitehouse's opinion, aren't really sorted out by DBA. Indeed, Howard Whitehouse is touching on what is becoming a hot issue here in Britain. How do y represent on a wargames table troops who seem to have operated in different ways in different circumstances? I happen to think the Whitehouse response is an impressively clean solution. The Barker response is effectively to say that "DBM is the answer." But what if Howard Whitehouse is perfectly happy with DBA once his games use these little adaptations? That sort of person doesn't need to buy DBM. Leave him alone you big bully!

My two-handed chopper is the bad history that creeps into the first part of Phil Barker's letter. A statement such as "That these differences may not have been apparent to the Saxon monks that wrote what passes for history..." is either an attempt to be funny that doesn't work, or exposes a shocking lack of familiarity with what modern historians now think about their ancient and medieval predecessors. Remember, our Saxon monk is unlikely to be familiar with the farms at villages a Viking comes from. Our Saxon monk probably perceives a Viking as akin to what a resident of Pasadena or San Marino might think about youth gangs in South Central Los Angeles: there is unlikely to be any attempt at rational analysis.

But what is worse is that the mind that produces such a statement seems not to comprehend that the religious ideology that a Saxon monk might have brought to the writing of history is qualitatively little different from the scientific ideology a 20th-century historian might apply.

In both cases, the writer examines some facts and selects those that seem important according to their ideology. Phil Barker presumably finds scientific ideology more sympathetic when he's writing rules. But that doesn't mean that the product of religious ideology can be ignored. You just have to read them differently. It all seems shameless behavior on the part of someone who wrote so intelligently, in 1984, "I think it is most unwise to censor your sources."

And there's more - Phil describes a cute little scenario involving popular stereotypes of Saxons and Vikings, but gives no sources for any of this. Indeed, I find it very difficult to pin Phil Barker's ideas on anything beyond Alexander and the Byzantines down to particular sources. Worse, every time someone such as Phil Barker resorts to handy, unsourced stereotypes, even in an informal setting, it destroys months of work on the part of the Matthew Bennetts, William Hamblins, and Howard Whitehouses to give us a better understanding of the past

So, here's the Szuscikiewicz challenge: Phil Barker states in his letter, about Vikings, that if they win "They get rich, go home and impress the girls, and tell tall stories that the next lot have to live up to. If the Vikings lose, they. .. get laughed at when they get home still poor, and lose the warrior reputation that often gets them an easy victory." I would like sources please for these statements Viking motivation on the battlefield. I do not consider reference to a particular book or poem along the lines of "see Jonas McClintock's Vikings Go A - Viking or Jarl Gnarl's Saga." I want to know what page of McClintock, what lines of Gnarl's Saga, I will find evidence for these statements.

Yours faithfully,
Pawel Szuscikiewicz

Lists

Dear Terry

I received the latest copy of SAGA this week and wanted to comment on it before mailing off your Christmas card.

After reading my last letter to you (computers are useful as filing systems), I was hoping for some comments in your usually scrawl about my previous comments. I guess that I shall have to wait for another occasion.

I was interested in your article on the Sicilian Hohenstaufen army and the army list. I have been building my own army and would be interested in your own research. It is always nice to have the proper heraldry and such, although this is probably an elitist opinion. I did the Middle Imperial Roman army as the units drawn by Diocletian from the Danube frontier for his eastern campaigns. It makes record keeping easier rather than referring to a unit as the guys with the wine cups on their shields. Jamie does it with his Islemen and it makes it easier to follow battle accounts instead of HI or other WRG terms. I have noticed that some others who have contributed articles use unit names for their armies (the Ethiopians come to mind).

I do not agree with your troop selection but it appears that it is a well balanced force and the idea of fielding a single army for a tournament meets with my approval. I refer to my comments on army lists in which I suggested the use of an army drawn from a specific period with proper credentials to support its composition and deployment including formations. I still think there are a few gimmicks in your list like mixing knights to maximize the number of wedges and not allowing the opponent to strike at the sergeants who are tucked in the rear. I could live with these as it is still based on a restrictive list. Who picked those numbers for the troop types within NASAMW? If you need knights as bodyguards how is one to organize the numbers and why not state that each element of knights can have one sergeant rather than 1 per 3? According to my calculations, if you have 30 knights then you can have up to 10 sergeants but that is invalid for element purposes. Why is the ratio 1 to 3, particularly as the rules define knights to include lesser types considered retainers.

So despite my comments, I am interested in your thoughts on heraldry and uniforms as well as figures to use for the various types especially the Muslims.

I am enclosing payment for NASAMW and I hope it is as you have indicated. I am looking forward to Historicon next year and a renewal of contacts. I am heading to Ottawa next March and anothez three years in that city. It will be nice to do some gaming after two years of drought.

Before returning, I shall be travelling to places here ant there. The main trip is to Turkey 15-22 January to visit some o1 Anatolia. The tour includes Izmir, Bursa, Istanbul, Ephesus, Seljuk, Troy, Gallipoli and several other towns. I hope to have another article for you on the ruins of Turkey. I shall also be able to show movies to friends of the travels to date.

So hopefully all will go well in the near future. I hope that your holiday season is enjoyable and SC is good to you.

Perry Gray

Ed. In response to Perry's points about my Hohenstauffen list--since troop selection is a very subjective thing, I always opt for those troops which I feel comfortable with using. As I pointed out before, Dave Armer, a casual gamer who loses 90% of his games often due to his propensity to indulge huge quantities of alcoholic refreshment), played using my list at HISTORICON a couple of years ack and won his games. Obviously, then, the list is balanced for any no matter what your level of expertise.

Perry's suggestion (serendipitous as it were) that we begin to draw our lists from a specific period echoes the sentiments of Paul Strscikiewicz (editor of SLINGSHOT) and myself. Note that from this oint on, I will be asking for more lists along these lines for publication in SAGA as well as SPEARPOINT. Next issue I'll include Clontarf (1014 A.D.) period Norse-Irish.

So far as 'gimmicks' re: sergeants in my list are concerned, one ping I am absolutely adamant about is the fact that in medieval aafare, the sergeants served as retainers of the knights. Contamine, Verbruggen and Beeler all refer repeatedly to this. Each thought had one or more retainers who normally provided him with advice and helped while on campaign with the day-to-day necessities of living. In battle, they would form up in the rear, behind the knights who made the front ranks of a formation, be it in wedge, line or column. The sergeants were still vulnerable from a flank or rear attack and, if in wedge, missile fire counts against the lightest attired troop type as well.

As far as the NASANW list goes, I don't know who designed the list, but it definitely could do with a facelift. Perry's right about the number of sergeants situation, it's just plain foolish! I'd allow one sergeant/knights element as Perry suggests. Heraldry is easy to come by, so far as English, French and even Spanish armies go, but the Germans... the Osprey books might be of help. For figures (15mm) I use Jamie's 'generic' archers, TTG Saracens, some Essex and a handful of odds and ends from a big box of hundreds of unpainted figures which is always useful to make up a unit from. In 25mm I use Wargames Foundry, Irregular Miniatures, Essex and old Hinchcliffe figures. The Muslims are Ral Partha.

Spearpoints

Dear Terry:

Enclosed is $20 for my SAGA renewal. Sorry that I didn't send it along earlier, but things have been very hectic lately. My recent move to Toronto (please note my new address and phone number above) kept me quite busy over the past month. Now that I am settled in, I am catching up with my correspondence and other important hobby matters. Moving clser to my job in Toronto should give me a little more time to contribute articles to SAGA and Spearpoint, since my commuting time will be reduced from 3 hours to a half hour per day. I may even find some time to paint again! I have a number of armies which are under way (Later Hungarian, Armenian, Khazar) and a few rather interesting ones for which I have bought figures but have not yet started (100 Years War English, Zhou Chinese).

Congratulations on the publication of your first Spearpoint. Our club members were quite impressed with the new format and approach. The direction you have set out for the NASAMW newsletter is quite ambitious. I really hope that you receive the support necessary to continue providing a high-quality newsletter. With respect to my contributions for Spearpoint, I will be getting together some battle reports from around our club. Since we game extensively in the. ancient and medieval period using four different rules sets, I hope to be able to provide some interesting and varied material. I should have something to you before the end of the year.

There are a few events from our club I would like to inform you of for the purposes of publication in Spearpoint. Our September MIGS Semi-Annual WRG 7th Edition Ancients Tournament featured 10 players, with Vic Fitzpatrick winning first place honours with his Carthaginian army. Mike Dececchi was the runner-up, using a Gallic army. Special recognition should be extended to Dennis Wark for entering with a Low Countries army. The first MIGS Ancients Gaming League season has concluded, with my Magyars winning the championship over Vic's Parthians. The second season is well under way, as you have probably seen from our club newsletter. Our next major ancients gaming event will be held on the weekend of January 23-24th at the MIGS clubhouse (598 Concession St., Hamilton, Ontario). People who are interested in further information can call Chris Goldsmith at (416)-895-2935.

Thanks for sending those Spearpoints along to me for our members. Now that Scott Dickson has confirmed receiving the membership renewals, we can resume the conventional direct-mail distribution!'

Yours Sincerely,
Brian Lewis