Beliefs are ideas going bald

“If there is one activity in Surrealism which has most invited the derision of imbeciles, it is our persistent playing of games, which can be found throughout most of our publications over the last 35 years. Although as a defensive measure we sometimes described such activity as ‘experimental’ we were looking to it primarily for entertainment, and those rewarding discoveries it yielded in relation to knowledge came only later.

Certainly we pursued this activity with other consideration in mind; right from the start it proved useful for strengthening the bonds that united us, and for encouraging sudden awarenesses of our desires whenever these were held in common. Furthermore, the urgent need we felt to do away with the old antimonies that dominate work and leisure, wisdom and folly, etc., -- such as action and dream, past and future, sanity and madness, high and low, and so on -- disposed us not to spare that of the serious and the non-serious ...

It is clear that to shut oneself off from game-playing or at least from the play of the imagination as adult discipline prescribes it, is to undermine the best of one’s own humanity.”

-- Andre Breton, Medium vol. II no. 2, 1954

That you cheat

Decades back Mark Saha and Richard Berg visited us for a week in Santa Barbara where we played SPI’s then-new Global War. Pretty much after that, they both swore off actual play of games. Hey, what does that say about me?

-- anonymous

It’s time to give the Hundred Years’ War the attention it’s due

Dear Sirs, Your coverage of all of the most important campaigns of World War II, your discard list of old games, the apparent unsalability of your modern naval games, and the dead end of the Panzerblitz style; all indicate to me a lack of direction on your part. To continue to expand your company, you must produce new games. From this I hope that you glean that it is time for new directions ...

In the past two years is it any wonder that the narrow horizons of WWII have been virtually exhausted by the introduction of Panzerblitz and Luftwaffe? ...

-- Paul Brent in The General 9/1 (1972)

The Fall of Blancmange

CUSTARD’S LAST STAND Custer War Game Rare - A Rare Battle Game - CUSTARD’S LAST STAND The Battle of Little Bighorn: June 25, 1876. By Battleline, 1976.

-- eBay

(thanks Joe)

Joust the facts

Tactics II: This is a war game in which you command an army group in a realistic tournament.

-- eBay

(thanks again Joe)

Or get two sets for only $249

Wargamer Volume 2:
Issue 14 -- $10
Issues 1-13 & 15-25 -- $2 each
Complete Set (1-25) -- $99

-- Decision Games web site

And the duct tape holding the box lid on can be readily removed with a blowtorch

The pieces have been punched out. I only re-inserted them so you may verify they are present as stated. Being as the back side of the pieces are plain, I have put packing tape over the back so they will stick in the original position for shipping. The pieces WILL NOT be affected by this ... The board halves still crackle when opened, and are made of a very luxurious vinyl backed material. - eBay

(thanks yet again Joe)

32 words for snow? Pikers!

The following list contains the 84 different forms of capital punishment as described in Black’s Law Dictionary: Canfara; Carcan; Carry the Iron; Cashlite; Castigatory; Cat; Cenegild; Cippi; Cloere; Collistrigium; Combustio; Constuprate; Corium Forisfacere; Corsned; Crepare Oculum; Cucking Stool; Cynebot; Cyphonism; Decapitation; Decollatio; Dedititii; Defenestration; Deportatio; Desfossion; Devil on the Neck; Draw; Ducking Stool; Elimination; Elinguation; Empalement; Equuleus; Exilium; Excommunication; Exlegare; Exulare; Flogging; Fossa; Fustigatio; Gallows; Gantelope; Garrot; Gibbet; Guillotine; Gwalstow; Gyves; Hanged, Drawn and Quartered; Hard Labour; Healsfang; Hell; Holmgang; Horca; Hulks; Infamous Punishment; Lapidation; Monomachy; Mulct; Ordeal by Fire; Ordeal by Hot Water; Ordeal by Cold Water; Ornest; Peine Fort et Dure; Pillory; Poena Pilloralis; Pressing; Quartering; Rack; Quarterization; Reclusion; Supplicium; Talio; Torture; Trebucket; Tresviri; Trial by Battel; Trial by Fire; Tumbrel; Tymbrella; Ultimum Supplicium; Vulgaris Purgatio; Wehading; Wheel; Whipping; Wooden Collar; Xylon.