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Saturday, 10 September 2016

The Treadaway Conundrum.

It is now pretty common knowledge that John Treadaway has taken ove as editor on Miniature Wargames.  magazine.  Henry Hyde's tenure- whilst starting a tad shakily soon made the magazine my personal favourite,  on average, of the 3 glossies. WSS out shone it sometimes and WI out glossed it always but never had the style to treat its readers as if they were older then 14 so all in all it was the best of the 3 .
So Treads has a hard act to follow and frankly a bit of a poisoned chalice. He brings a good bit of experience to the table but knowledge which lies primarily in the Sci-fant arena. Now personally I' ll nerve be a fan of Fantasy gaming - can't see the point of all that Dwarf -fiddling and more importantly the po-faces of many of its practicioners. Also GW- especially 40k just turns my stomach it reads like  a game for nasty little boys who pull the wings off flies ....
However on the ups side Treads has a track record of fine looking sci-fant games in various sub-genres often - and this is much to his credit- avoiding the well trodden paths. Both in Mil -Mod and latterly in MW even though not a fantasy game at all I'd read Fantasy Facts as I do have a small interest in "hard SF" style games as occasional light relief from serious historical stuff.

 THE 69th Marine Independent Landing  Force.
I've no actual objection to sci-fant articles within the pages of the magazine though I do have a concern that- due to internal Warners politics it may allegedly  all be slanted towards  one company to whit Mantic games. Now my knowledge of this outfit is severely limited- to one meeting with one supposed  representative at the Scarborough show War Torn a few years back. Frankly he was full of s***. He promised but did not perform. Now I have no reason to suppose that this will happen in the magazine- or that this attitude is normal for Mantic but it does make you cautious.

So Treads has a serious conundrum to  solve. He has to bear with the sometime waspish attitude of historical wargamers to sci-fant ( guilty m'lud!) as well as the narrow minds of some of the "gamin' innit" crowd who can't see past the end of the currently fashionable overpriced plastic spaceship.
 Then of course he can only decide  which article to print from those he has to hand......
I await the first few Treadaway issues with interest.
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8 comments:

  1. Andrew the Tekkie10 September 2016 at 14:50

    A good Robert Ludlum novel title. :-) I am of an open mind, see how the first six months or so go.

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    1. Big Andy11 September 2016 at 01:28

      That would be my view.
      FYI I have never knowingly read any Ludlum ...

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  2. Steve-the-Wargamer11 September 2016 at 02:14

    The "Treadaway Sanction", perhaps... or the"Treadaway Conspiracy" for those of a suspicious mind set... :o) Like you I'll wait and see, but from a purely informational point of view we already know that there will be an *extra* 16 pages of fantasy in the magazine - which is of no use to me as I already skip straight over the existing content.. we'll see... but I have no idea how the hobby supports three full colour monthly glossies - I foresee one of them will have gone/changed significanty, within 12 months

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    1. Big Andy11 September 2016 at 04:48

      Steve - these "extra" pages are those that will be allegedly Mantic content so I was told by Henry. My suspicion is that Treads will be the last editor of MW - Warners is far to big a publishing outfit to fiddle with this but I hope I'm wrong

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  3. Scott1314@virginmedia.com17 September 2016 at 20:29

    It may be that two fall away.
    I have still to see WI in WH Smiths for September. So if only WSS is around in a year I would like to think the reviews could expand to include stuff outside the scope of the issue's theme. I still like the feel of the paper (literally).
    Also the scope of Warners "Tabletop Gaming" may change.

    That said if magazines fold the community can be accused of not supporting them one way or another.

    Scott
    P.S. Robert Ludlum wrote the Bourne identity etc. So there is a good chance while Big Andy has not read a Ludlum book he may have seen the film of a book

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    1. Big Andy21 September 2016 at 04:45

      Scott the latest WI droped on my mat yesterday. Not sure what to make of it yet as I have n't got past the normal Shazam-Kapow.
      A review will follow.

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  4. Big Andy19 September 2016 at 01:26

    Scott I've managed to avoid the films too! Somehow yet another "American action hero movie which is the same as all the others" does not attract !
    As for magazines- apparently Tabletop gaming had some kind of poll or survey- over 70% said they DID NOT want "miniatures games" in their magazine- this according to Henry when we last spoke.
    Mind you I do think that it is all up in the air at the moment and as it is the publishing industry almost anything could happen with little or no logic to it.

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    1. Archduke Piccolo23 September 2016 at 18:39

      Off topic - but I have to admit I probably have read at least one Robert Ludlum novel, and enjoy the Bourne movies. The latter aren't quite the same as 'all the others' in my view, and good enough to get away with postmodernist tweaks that I would find irksome in other movies.

      But maybe it's just because I have a little bit of a soft spot for Julia Stiles...

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