You Write to Us "I find figure wargaming rather unstimulating these days, but, thanks to your reviews of Strategy and Tactic; magazine I now possess several boardgames which keep alive my wargaming interest. I am certain the boardgames will increase in favour in England. It is a great advantage not to have to spend hours painting up a force before battle can be joined. Coupling this with the low standard of painting which seems to permeate big clubs it would seem the future is either boardgames or the very small 5mm figures." --Charles H. Vasey of N.Yorks "It might be of interest to you that it is only through publications such as the "Newsletter" that I have been able to keep up with the hobby. I have yet to be near a city which has an organised Club. My opponents are always Marines I work with, all of whom I have introduced to the hobby. If it were not for my library of Wargaming books, they would not hive any guides or contact with the hobby. The big clubs are fine and very possibly a step in the right direction, but we "little operators" exist by virtue of the news carried in your publication alone. There are no shops carrying miniatures near us and we buy all our "men" by mail through the advertisements carried in the magazines. Any time you get discouraged with the work that goes into the "Newsletter" just keep in mind that it is the lifeblood of the hobby to a lot of its who do not have access to big organisations. Without the periodicals we are literally sunk." --Walter I. Hufman, Gennery Sergeant, Corps. "At the present moment no sound can be heard in our house - no thunder of heavy artillery; no crackle of rifle fire; no shouts of dying men. All must stop for example However, after June all will be back to normal and men will be fighting to the death again .... and again .... and again .... ad nauseam (hope not!)." --J.S. Fox of Belfast "I have just finished reading Asimov's Foundation trilogy (I am a rather late Sci-Fi converts. The battles in these books seem stirring stuff, the dying Empire versus the First Foundation. It is a pity space wargames are impractical because of the scales and 3 dimensions (or Perhaps 4?) involved. Air Wargames are complicated enough! It may mean nothing and it may have nothing to do with the rest of this paragraph, but I have noticed a distinct rise in the number of contracts between the Ministry of Defense and the company I work for - International Computers Limited." --C.B.Darke of Stockport "As you will see my period of history is the Hundred Years War, which is something of a minority interest, but which nevertheless has quite a lot to recommend it. Being a long-time enthusiast for heraldry, I always have groups of knight a in embroidered jupons among the ranks of archers and men-at-arms, together with the forest of assorted flags so dear to the Mediaeval heart, and to mine. It all makes a colourful spectacle, and that's what its all about, isn't it? There were such a lot of interesting little wars going on, too, in that period of official truce after Poitiers, private, and semi-official affairs took place all over France and Spain, with assorted lords changing sides every few years in desperate attempts to keep in with the winners, and the Free Companies are naturals for wargaming. People are always looking for help on heraldry. If you know anyone, ask them to write me - I will be glad to do what I can." --Michael N. Pearce of University of Warwick "Just cannot understand George Phillies (Board Games and Miniaturists in U.S.A.). Our local group has never bothered to paint its figures. I always thought that one of the delights of using figures in wargaming was for the visual effect - in our local group the youngest and newest member tries his best to paint up his figures apart from anything else his own mates (not the seniors, incidentally) will soon pull his leg about it until he has a go. I suppose it takes all sorts. We have produced a sheet of amendments for the 1750 to 1850 rules - this is free to anyone who requests, provided they send a S.A.E. All our copies are being sent out with the amendments sheet in, but we went to give everybody the chance to have them who already have the rules." --Bob O'Brien of Goring-by- Sea "The £ 2.10 subscription to Wargamer's Newsletter works out at 17 1/2p per month. Postage and the envelope account for 3p which means the magazine costs 14 1/2p per copy. The glossy magazines cost at least 15p per month but do not contain nearly so much information as does Wargamer's Newsletter. In view of the above I am quite prepared to pay 25 to 30p per copy and I would suggest that over the next twelve months you send out a questionnaire, with each renewal notice, asking subscribers their views on the subject. You might also be able to collect some information that would be useful to your advertisers." --P. Hutcheon of Meldon "Since you have been selling Avalon Hill games for a number of years, you might have noticed that their "Gettysburg" game went through three revisions. Their orders of battle changed with each revision as did the arrival times. This caused me to speculate upon the accuracy of their research. Since I was within 2 miles of the Jefferson Davis shrine, I obtained permission to consult their copies of the official records of the Civil War. It took me over 6 months to read every battle report filed by every participant but I now have an accurate order of battle end arrival times which are accurate within 20 minutes, Since I now also have this fantastically detailed wargame map, which is superior to what Avalon Hill uses; I would like to redesign the Gettysburg game to conform to the facts as I know them to be." --Tsgt. Lou Zocchi of Calif., U.S.A. "It is indeed a shame you have not tried out WGF Rules - they are great fun, an ingredient surely essential to your games! Seriously though the very nature of the period i.e. the Cowboy in us all, makes for a very light hearted approach, and hence a, usually, most enjoyable game. You might like to know that we are busily working on a new set of rules, based on the same principles i.e. 1:1 scale (figures), for the Colonial 1850- 1900 period - one of your favourites! The one thing which will have you groaning, or even shouting, is that we are converting to a % system using % dice. Knowing your horror of things like 20 sided dice, which smack of the scientific and coldly analytical I have great trepidation in telling you this, but I can assure you the enjoyment of the game is undiminished. The whole procedure is simplified and by use % chances (rather like the BWS Modern rules) no one has a chance to calculate that they will always in certain circumstances hit a given target. There is now always the chance of missing! I should also hasten to add that the % approach is the only resemblance to the Modern Rules. The game is played in the normal manner, all figures visible to all players (except for hidden movement, etc). None of this turning your back etc., and missing what to me is the real fun i.e. the sight of all the glorious figures! --Mike Blake of Bristol "Mini-Minifigs certainly open up new possibilities for wargaming. At present I am busy providing mounted versions for my 20mm horse artillerymen, but once that is done I hope to get down to painting lots of 5mm groups. Someone made the interesting suggestion that with them you might get a real Waterloo situation where you really could not make out whether that was Grouchy or the Prussians at the other end of the table!" --Peter Gouldesbrough of Edinburgh Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 125 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1972 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