Well, that's it then, one year's subscription completed and another on the way. This marks just over a year in wargaming, and in that time I have not achieved all that I would have liked: though I have done considerable research and experimenting with rules, set up my American Civil War Armies, and delved into various aspects of wargaming. I have still not completed painting my troops, there have been no attempts at a campaign and the gamesboard and terrain are still quite primitive. Nevertheless, my whole appreciation of the military art has increased enormously looking back over my original set of rules it seems hard to believe I could have devised anything like them!
Those rules were for my Napoleonic 'Flats'. When I first started I was utterly determined to fight Napoleonic - and since Airfix were not in that line at the time and I could not afford the metal figures - I decided to make my own. In just 5 days I contrived to make up about 250 coloured, plasticine-based, cardboard flats. The cost was 6/- and chronic eye strain!
Those were the days! There were 20 men and 2 officers in an infantry regiment, the 11ritish all wore red and white uniforms with black boots and the French all Blue, white and black and no fuss about it! It may give the old hands a heart attack, but, though I was vaguely aware this was not quite accurate I was frankly more interested in the game - and anyway I couldn't be bothered! Looking back now, I realise I had some great times with these stalwarts. Perhaps I had the greatest times in the ignorance which meant that cavalry were not safe on the battlefield, that squares were never employed (you could not fire all your guns that way) and that the French rarely attacked in column (why make an easier target for artillery to fire at?). Limitations on my artistic technique meant that the British were all right handed and the French were all left handed!
It wasn't long before I had progressed to the American Civil War and I ha e been working on that ever since. I started, like so many others, I suppose, with a: feeling of "poor man's Napoleonic", but as time went by I gradually changed this attitude. The A.C.W. has a tremendous fascination about it, a scope for wargaming on a tactical and strategical scale, and is relatively cheap into the bargain. In many ways I think it has its advantages over Napoleonic. The rigid column-line-square formations, for example, bear a certain revulsion for me. I would not deride it, though -- each person has his own 'first love' and each period has its advantages.
As for the hobby itself, it seems to be undergoing a period of great expansion. Nowadays wargaming finds itself in magazines, television and the daily press. It is being adopted by the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme as an official hobby - the ranks are swelling. In this Sunday's Newspaper there is the dramatic headline "Wargamers split by controversy."
. Perhaps this very expansion is the reason why it hasn't yet found its feet. When this sort of situation arises, there are bound to be people who set themselves up as Central Committees, Wargames Centres, etc. Perhaps the hobby is undergoing some sort of metamorphosis right now. Whether, for instance, the Annual Conventions are going to die a painful, ignoble death or whether they will flourish and flower and attain their true, implied status is something which, it seems to us, is hanging on the balance right now. Perhaps, one day, we might well arrive at that golden destination where wargames last all day without anyone ever getting tired, where complicated factors are unnecessary and where dice are used only for chance, where the rules and opponents are perfect, where Annual Conventions suit everybody, where arguments are a thing of the past and where the games run smoothly and never bring up any arguments and problems.
If that day ever arrives then that argumentative but good-natured, individual but gregarious animal they call "wargamer" will have passed into the annals of history! Until then, we will all go on asserting what is right and wrong in rules, conventions, the 'gaming scene and other wargamers. But there again, if we didn't we probably all would be plain, uncomplicated secret agents or political theorists!
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© Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone.
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