Wargaming has come a long way since the seven of us who knew each other wrote regularly and travelled all over the country to battle (in reasonably amicable fashion) on each others wargaming table to "house" rules. Because of the almost total absence of wargames figures, with the exception of Jack Scruby in America and Ronald Spencer-Smith's plastic 30mms in this country, we all converted, cast and moulded our own changing ideas and hints, doing jobs for each other and generally making a really enjoyable "family" affair of the whole business. But the march of progress cannot be denied and in its advance it trampled on much of the spontaneous, practical and ingenious aspects of the hobby so that now most us are all a bit cynical and blase because we know that the type and size of our wargames armies depend largely upon economics rather than inventiveness. The greatest limiting factor in building a wargames army must be its painting but even that is overcome by those hobbyists with cash paying those without to paint for them or, as does a well-known wargamer who is also a school teacher, persuading classes of youngsters that there is nothing more desirable than sitting painting wargames figures for you!
Recently it was interesting to hear from a wargamer of long-standing that he was becoming disenchanted with the hobby, that it was all too easy and he longed for a return to the day when ones armies were governed not by the purse but by nimbleness of brain and fingers. It fits in with that latent dream of Mankind that simplicity is the answer to everything, that the rat-race of commercial life can be replaced by an Utopian existence at basic levels in a isolated farm where, lacking electricity, mains-water, and sanitation and all other modern facilities, a man can get back to basics and live off the land.
That legend is personified in the wargamer's mind by a return to basic rules to control "fun" games with everyone cheerfully and humorously accepting acknowledged lack of realism in the interest of rapid playability. That this has begun to happen in a limited fashion is indicated by recent letters and articles dealing with the return to simple rules but where does one get the simple unspoilt minds and temperaments that will have to go with them? So far as I can see, there no way in which we can return to the days when we laboriously made our own figures (and I doubt if any of us REALLY want to). I find it hard to visualise any of my acquaintances messing about for weeks making a regiment of Nassau Grenadiers out of some Airfix cowboys when for the expenditure of about a fiver (less if 15mm are used) they can obtain a beautifully modelled unit from one of the many competent commercial organisations only too eager to fill their needs.
My second point arises from the recent publication of the 5th version of the Wargames ResearchGroup Ancient Rules (see the "Must List"). I struggled with the first copy of amended sets before deciding that I was temperamentally unsuited to use them but returned to considering their use because my son, who fights with them at the Wessex Military Society, has built up a Sassanid Army and the W.R.G. rules are about the only universal set by which we can fight each other. Now I find that they have been considerably revised and, in the opinion of no less authorities than Peter Gilder, winner of the Society of Ancients Wargame Championship, there are many different aspects in the evaluation arising from those changes. I suppose it is a sign of encroaching old age, but I hate change and would have loved at least one relatively common aspect of wargaming to have remained the same! Of course, this is quite unreasonable of me because, apart from the commercial considerations for the Wargames Research Group of putting out new sets of rules, the ideas and researches of users makes inevitable that they shall force amendments upon the formulators and publishers of those rules. But I can't help thinking that it is awful to consider that there will never be an end to amendments to Wargames Research Rules (and probably everybody else's as well!) I now sit back and await spirited letters from Bob O'Brien and Phil Barker -- don't disappoint me lads!
IMPORTANT NOTICE
A most grievous error was made in the last issue of WARGAMER'S NEWSLETTER when, on page 17 a pair of fine drawings by Michael Chappell, from Philip Haythornthwaite's book UNIFORMS OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, were attributed to the wrong publisher! This beautifully illustrated book was published by BLANDFORD PRESS, in their "BLANDFORD COLOUR SERIES".
STOP PRESS!!
MILITARAMA 176 which was to have been held in Harrogate on April 2nd and 3rd 1976, has been CANCELLED.
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© Copyright 1976 by Donald Featherstone.
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