The Agony and the Pointlessness

 Received my copy of WSS 80 yesterday- Punic wars being the featured topic. Not a bad issue at all. I used to  do the Punic Wars back in the 80s. I had largish 25mm armies for both Rome and Carthage. A right mixture of figures- QT. Britannia, Lamming, Garrison, Minifigs- all the Usual suspects of those far off times. I moved them on sometime in the 90s. I actually can't remember where or when  but overall there was the best part of 800 figures. We(by we I mean myself and Dave Hulland and sometimes Dave Reay and Ron Emery) refought Trebbia and Ticino and doubtless some others so I was intrested to see  the modern take on something I have not touched for 20 odd years
 So what did we get- A DBA game of the battle of Bagradas - hmmmm  can't speak to the rules but the article was a good one despite its lapse into  Jargon for the actual armies. Try as I might I really don't get the appeal of DBA as a system and apparently no -one can explain this- If I can explain why I don't like it- armies too small that don't look right on the table.  No unit structure that follows the period. Gobblegook jargon, to name but 3 reasons(there are more)  why can no-one explain why they do like it. One thing I've discovered  many wargamers really have massive  trouble with why ... the answers are almost always flippant or childish
 However moving swiftly on There was a nice review of the "To the Strongest" - a rule set I've heard eulogised by a couple of chaps previously . Now this is a card driven system- which is a nice idea but I'm not keen on gridded movement- which it also is but I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to junk that and use rulers instead. I'm quite attracted by the cards idea as I'm really coming to HATE dice.
 So given the above its no surprise I found Richard Clarkes piece on D6 a bit wearing. What is this obsession wargamers have with bloody dice!- I have it myself devil a doubt, hate the bloody things- yet despite that his basic logic was impeccable- which made the article even more wearing .... still have to use the damned dice then ...
The Painting article was really  nice- I've used similar- non metallic metallics for years off and on - directional light was the sort of stuff I learned in Art classes- but it was nice refresher- and there are materials now that I didn't have back then  I'll have a bash at this- again - especially on flats..
  I groaned mightily at "The Irregular" this issue- and not just the bit about Mulletts and Ra-Ra skirts what  caused the groaning was the  burbling on about "innovative Games mechanisms" and "push your luck engines"(don't think he drives a Morris Marina !!!) that tedious bloody gamespeak rears its head again  oh ****!! more damnable gamesey jargon . Mind you I do  think the point about reducing artificial .barriers was well made.
 A nice Ancient Naval article- not my thing but very well done and well written - Nice to see a bit of Naval stuff. 
 Next we are told to play some kind of Ancient game with 48 figure armies(and its not DBA!!)- Pass
 Waterloo - the assault on La Haye Saint on a four foot table-  pass 
A nice article on the Punic war in Sicily - most of which I'd forgotten or never knew.
 Three other articles - all more or less about skirmish games- in different period but skirmish games all the same.
 so overall not a bad mag at all - things to read in it which was nice .... 
Finally there was Rick Priestly's column- more agonising about the Future of the Hobby - but not quite- I even agreed with most of it- certainly the principles and only differed in the details- I doubt you'll ever convince me that "Games Workshop" is " proper" wargaming or that actual games actually matter but there is no doubt that on the whole GW has been beneficial at laying the groundwork for many historical gamers over the last 30 or so years and that equally assuming kids can only deal with simple games is bloody patronising indeed see my earlier post
My "In the Light of preceding Blog posts t posts" article  earlier in this blog   says some of  the same and like Rick come to no conclusions because there aren't any and who cares anyway . Why agonise again and again .Nobody will give a toss when you are dead