It is a good thing to be proud of an accomplishment and it is understood if an inventor has confidence in whatever he has devised. But if the product is a set of wargames rules, one among many, then it is not necessarily praiseworthy for the compilers to "knock" other rules whilst asserting the wonders of their own. Wargames rules are highly personalised affairs and are specifically designed to give their compiler the type of game he wishes to achieve without necessarily embracing minute accuracies and realism which the compiler accepts but finds boring or tedious. All this preamble is leading up to the fact that I think I can detect in the advert, and in recent writing of the Wargames Research Group a certain dogmatic and semi-arrogant assertion that their rules are the "only" rules. Of course, they will be the first to admit that this is not the case but I think it must be acknowledged that whilst the well conceived and researched rules of the Wargames Research Group probably give as realistic a game as any other rules in existence, they are not necessarily to the liking of everyone. Personally, I find that I am unable to enjoy battles fought under them because their very far reaching effects at realism tie my hands and result in a battle that is stodgy and colourless when compared with the usual very fast moving free-for-alls that one has become accustomed to at 69 Hill Lane, Southampton. By all means buy these rules which, as I have already said, are probably as good as any others in existence but read them, experiment with them and then pinch the best bits from them and put them in your own rules to give YOU the sort of game that YOU desire! Over the last two or three months I have chatted on a bit about Conventions and if I have given the impression that I was not fully aware of the fantastic amount of work that Dave Millward and his wife Vivienne put in in organising the recent Birmingham Convention then I must apologise. My greatest admiration goes out to them because Conventions have gone a long way since the first ones that I organised in this Country and, if the spirit of rivalry in putting on a better show than the last one is to continue then obviously they must be organised by a very large and willing band of people. But human nature being what it is, the work usually falls on one pair of shoulders -- the thing to do is to make sure they are not yours! Dave Millward has written some views on Conventions which I have printed in this edition, together with advice on running conventions from Jack Mansfield who, in America, has probably run more of these affairs than anyone else in the world. Han is a gregarious animal and likes to meet up with his fellows so Conventions are probably here to stay -- but I still think that, once the people get into the hall or hotel, they are too crowded, too complex and either too little or too overorgivised. Gee last month's editorial mention of a recent wargames demonstration to get my meaning. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 120 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com