Minature Wargames

In past posts here you will have seen that I have a pretty low opinion on average of the current crop of glossy wargames magazines. - There has been one exception that being Miniature Wargames. Now time was when that magazine was arguably the worst of the crop. Poor pictures were usually what its accusers flung at it. Now I never wholly subscribed to this - at least it had stuff in it you could read. It didn't assune you had the mind of a backward pekinese and while the picture content wasn't great at least it was of a standard attainable by most chaps in default of an overly healthy budget for your toys.
Nonetheless MW had become a little staid.
However in the last couple of years this has changed and for my money its now the only one worth a regular read. Others may pique the interest every few issues but MW is now the only mag I've found something to read every issue for the past year or so- I've evn been known to dip into the Dwarf fiddling column- sorry Fantasy and Sci- fi(the sci -fi bit I do have an occaisional interest in)
The current issue is a case in point- though dear reader I say it as shouldn't it has some tasty pictures of actual units used on my actual table at an actual show together with stuff that is actually interesting to read- A fine little article on early - and small ACW battles - which I'd never heard of - all to the good I can feel an outing for my 40mm ACW coming on - a nice ECW article- nice pic these(did I fell just a hint of a blush there!!) but again stuff you can actually read - which is the most important part. Despite the letter from Mike Smith in the "open fire" letters column- in which he makes several good points-regarding elitism I'm not a zillionaire nor do I have a permanet table the size of a small house. While he has valid points he is overly pessimistic.Most wargamers - even if they are not club memeber- the TWATS are not organised enough for a club- are somwheree in the middle of the picture mike paints . Merely becasuse He does not like it does not mean that it does not have a palce in our hopefully broad church MW continues to steer a good middle course and long may it continue
Andy OGUK