With regard to what Jerry Groombridge calls my glaring inaccuracies on this years Convention, I can reveal that my source was the Secretary of the Leicester Club at the time, Greg Robertson, who exchanged letters and telephone calls, with the then Birmingham secretary. It is true that Leicester have now thought the better of their previous plans, but to deny that they existed, and to then make allegations or prejudice in favour of a local club, is not fair tactics.
The Birmingham meeting was not designed as a rival attraction, though there was the thought that if the Leicester Convention failed to come off, there would be at least one big Midlands meeting during 1973. The Club Committees first act was to tell their Secretary to write to Leicester, informing them of the date, so that there need be no clash, and there would in fact have been 5 weeks between them.
I say, there "would have been", because I believe that the planned Birmingham meeting is not now likely to go ahead. The invited player concept is however, likely to be tried out at a major weekend meeting to be organised at a large London hotel by the Society of Ancients in 1974, of which more will be heard later. Obviously, as Steve Reed says, the Committee will not necessarily know the best players in the country, though the Society league competition gives a good guide. What the concept does do is make sure that all the games are worth watching, with good players, realistic terrain and nicely painted armies.
Incidentally, the Trade response to this idea was enthusiastic. As one wellknown figure put it: "Unpainted Airfix Robin Hoods without bases masquerading as something else over a few pieces of tatty polystyrene board don't sell figures."
In reply to the allegations of prejudice in favour of the Birmingham Club, I would like to make the point once more that I have NO particular affiliation with them apart from being one of the 1 1/2 million people living in the same city. I have far stronger ties, for example, With the Worthing Club, and with Southampton, as do many of the older hands in wargaming. My contribution to the Birmingham Convention was limited to acting as a Chief Umpire, which I also did at Worthing, Dundee, and last year at Leicester. There was certainly no weak umpiring, in the Ancient games, and no arguments that I know of, possibly because both players and umpires knew the rules well after playing with them for years. Weak umpiring is to my mind a direct result of using purpose-built rules not familiar to the great mass of wargamers. If clubs must use their own private rules, they should at least provide competent umpires for them, even if this keeps their own best players out of the competition.
Changing the subject to rules generally -- both A.J. Mitchell and Geo. Heath have valid points with regard to simplicity. Many a set of rules starts out reasonably simple, and then gradually gets more complicated as modifications have to be made, usually because some "wide boy" has found a loophole and exploited it. Bob and I reckon you need at least a years testing to get a set reasonably right, and probably another two to block the loopholes one by one, by free amendment sheets. The terrible thing is, the people responsible for the rules often do not notice they are getting complicated, because they are only altering one thing at a time. It is the poor beginner that gets bogged down.
I can reassure Charles Vasey that "Decline and Fall" is not just up to Strategy and Tactics standard, but considerably better than most of their products. Strategy and Tactics tactical games in particular are still way behind the average set of miniatures rules for accuracy, especially those for the Ancient period, where they are not yet at the point Don's "Wargames" had reached in 1962. However, "Decline and Fall" is not really an English offering, as it was designed by a Canadian, although being printed over here where costs are lower.
One point that may be of interest is that we recently organised a conference on Computers in Archeology, and invited everyone back to the flat to a party at the end of the first day. Of the 30 archeologists that turned up, 3 turned out to have copies of "Decline and Fall", and embarked in discussions of Roman policy against the Barbarians that left others looking slightly dazed and worried. I think we may have sold some others since!
Finally, I agree wholeheartedly with Peter Young. Not 1 wargamer in 50 sets up a plan taking into account enemy actions, and not 1 in 100 tries to set up a plan where enemy actions help him and not the enemy.
I would also recommend the maxims in Chapter 20 of Liddell-Hart's book "Strategy: The Indirect Approach." They are useful in map campaigns.
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© Copyright 1973 by Donald Featherstone.
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