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Tuesday 8 September 2015

No regrets.. No tears Goodbye .. and then some more important stuff.

 Well thats it done finito Benito . Over   Brilliant. No more Stygian Gloom . The last Kelham Hall Parizan is dead.
 Long Live Brighter Partizan !!! 
Thank God thats over. Over the last few year the bunch of  pillocks who took over Kelham Hall from the previous owners have moverd heaven and earth to be obstructive and unplaeasant to the Partizan Organisers. If only half of the stuff I have heard is true then the MD of Kelhamn Hall Ltd needs a slap . For the amont of crap he has put in my way alone he needs a slap 
However No more..
 So
 No More  Getting to your stand to find that the Venue owners have filled the space with staging.
No More  Being charged £14.00 for 3 pints (Here I was almost on the phone to my Lawyers Hadaway and Shyteman! )
NO more Manky overpriced bacon butties or saugages that look like dildos for bunny rabbits
No more tea  that looks as if I've peed in it- and thats before the teabag goes in ...(Dunk it Man Dunk It!!)
 well at least not in that part of Notts anyhow ...
 so 
 There's No regrets,
 No Tears Goodbye,
 Idon't want you back,
 We'd only Cry ,

Thank you Scott Walker and Goodnight
Goodnight Ladies 
Goodnight Sweet Ladies
Goddnight Goodnight
 and flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest .... 

More Important Matters. 

40mm French Hussars

 

 I finally got hold of my copy of MW389. Its a Good 'un! There is stuff in it to read and not just more tedious scenarios for rules I've never heard of. There is stuff that shows evidence of actual serious thought.
 Leaving aside the stuff on fencing and Waterloo and 6mm figures- all of which have their uses I'm really talking about 2 or 3 articles
 Conrad Kinch's piece on points systems put both sides of the case well. Now I don't use them myself but others do so the vitriol they attract is "pointless" - I'd use them if I played competitions though and I've always thought they have a place- merely becasue I find them tedious is beside the point use them if you wish or don't . Points systems however do beget Army lists and so feed into  Neil Shucks piece on Warhammer Fantasy and its new derivative Age of Sigmar- neither are something I give a toss about per se but again they feed into the constant debate about the Future of the Hobby and it is intresting that both autors - Kinch and Shuck say much the same as I did in my "Who Needs Army Lists" piece  in the mag  around this time last year. 
Plus ca Change thinks I !! 
 Mind you a picture of my idea of hell appears in this article Row after Row of identical competiton tables filled with identikit war gamers - if they think thats fun then fine- Positive Freedom all round but me I'll pass- all those backsides bending in unison ... Nah ! 
 Mind you Mr Shuck's remarks on price- Plastic is not always cheaper- I can think of plastic sets that are more expensive than our standard 28mm packs. then you have to spend half a life time building one or two ..... 
 Neagative Freedom by Rob Wyeness definitly caught my eye. Even if he started from a Fanstasy perspective. My first thought was God almighty these dudes are really weird as I read phrases like "the need to play a game" and "anyone who is a geek" and "freedoms to go too far" I wondered if these chaps get out much  or if they live in their mothers attic - like a modern Mrs Rochester perhaps ! 
 But reading on and coming to the crux I realised that the point was a fine one well made- for myself- although I barely touch Fantasy at all and only a tad more sci-fi I'm all in favour of positive Freedom in wargames as well as life - so  the rules are merely a toolbos and never Holy Writ and Whatever Blows your skirt up Dude ! Those of you who read this blog will know that on the whole I'm a Positive Freedom advocate- though the term was new to me. You'd think that  from a Historical perspective there would be much more Negative than Positive Freedom - but in my experience that is not so. Period is immaterial here its the players attiude that counts - I'd define 2 basic types in our hobby really - though as always there are shadings and extremesand some chaps do bits of both depending upon mood . These types are "Competitors" and "Storytellers" . I'm pretty much in the storyteller camp  I find competitors on the whole too narrow in outlook  for a storyteller the Rules can  get in the way for a competitor they are to be used to advantage- to narrow the focus for a victory and an ego boost. The storyteller gets his ego boost when the story is well told. so competitors are Negative Freedom Types- the Rules give them the structure and boundaries they crave. The Storytellers will use the rules to support the narrative - but will discard the bits that don't work- a much more open ended arrangement. As a general rule I opine that "period" is more to a storytellers taste and "game"  more to that of the competitor.
  I'm betting most games companies are in favour of as much Negative Freedom as they can force down your throat .



PS and how many other writers could get Scott Walker Shakespear and Charllotte Bronte into the same few hundred words .

2 comments:

  1. As one firmly in the 'storyteller' camp myself, I find competitions rather inhibit that side of the duality of wargames. As an adversarial game - agreed, wargames can often be cooperative as much as competitive - one does want a degree of skill to be called for and exercisable, and you want some kind of equitability - something both sides can play for.

    But 'competition' rule sets, army lists and points systems don't always (or, I suspect, even often) obviate the intervention of 'fall of the dice', or inequitability (fair suck of the sav for both sides), or opportunities for sharp practice. The advice - if you don't like the way so-and-so plays, don't play him - is not so easy to take, neither.

    OK, I'll play on competitions from time to time myself, but there my motivations might be a bit different from going all out to win more games than anyone else. I have long since quit playing tournament chess, don't miss it, even though I have retained a considerable interest in the game. So I'm not interested in tournament war games, and don't really reserve much (wargames) respect for those that do.

    Incidentally, the fact that one can record the moves (called a 'score' in the sense similar to a musical score), allows chess a certain story-telling quality...

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  2. When I was at school all the chess players used to record their games- in a shorthand that I still find easier to grasp than DBA Jargon - and I no longer play chess.
    For the rest of the discussion read the piece why Exactly am I disenchanted- which goes a bit deeper into some of this- I find myself nodding as I read you comments.... Storytellers to the fore !!

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