How many rules do you need?

There is no doubt in my mind that the hobby is changing . Parts of it are  possibly in their death throes. In 20 years even assuming it survives it will be unrecognisable to the previous generations. (As incidentally will the by then  non-existant UK. With England a poor 3rd world rump that everyone in the rest of the world ignores unless it is as a holiday theme park for "Heritage" excursions)
Good or bad does not enter into it. A hobby  of sorts will still exist but will it be wargaming as we know  NOW it and  should we actually give a toss since most of us will be dead.

 It is however interesting and amusing to speculate upon the possible outcomes of some current trends- if indeed they are trends or merely fashion blips.
 Will the current passion for seemingly endless releases of similar "skirmish wargames"  continue? Will "serious" wargames be drowned in a sea of lightweight fluff?

 Will there still be a military book industry- 

Well yes of course in some form simply because there are plenty of people interested in Military History that would not come within a mile of a wargames table. Some days I can see their point!  The "reality gap" between the modern hobby's roots in Military History and many of today's "games" gets wider and wider. This trend is likely to continue simply because games companies want to sell you a different game next week in a prettier box that requires even less effort on your part. Also you had better get bored with it pretty quickly (you will) so they can sell you another one. In a prettier box but actually the same as the one you just bought- except for page 4 of the 8 page rulebook. This of course has 2 different stats for the  Death -Ray or Chaos Doomblade   or whatever silly name the d6 WITH SKULLZ on has in THAT box.

 Yes of course I'm being waspish and facetious- It's my job! 

Of course it may do to the other extreme- 10 hour games with 5000  figures a side and  50 lashes for each button out of place on those 10mm infantry but I think the former case is the more likely.

Will there still be a Model Soldier industry?

Now this one I am less sure about and the answer is probably - though how much of it will be historical is more open to question. The "miniatures gaming industry" is awash with so many similar sci-fant skirmish -a-likes  ranging from funny  WW2 (with or without Zombies) to  Steptoe in space- taking in sundry sub-Tolkien dwarf-fiddling along the way-all from blokes who want to be Games Workshop -2. so dystopian nastiness abounds (just like the UK in 2017 then) and same old same old in a different box is the rule. There is nothing new under the (plastic) sun.

 Doubtless there will still be private producers making the stuff that interests them but the accessible public face may well be almost entirely non- historical  or even non- war Wargames so new chaps- assuming there are any such may well have an even harder time  than now- especially if they are historically minded. But then they will probably be immersed in the latest VR world- sitting on an automated  kermode for 18 hours a day eating grasshopper and beetle burgers from a (recycled) plastic bag. Not seeing an actual human being for months on end - if ever -living a virtual life from a festering bedroom -only opening the door to accept the next pizza or burger delivery.

Will there still be Wargames shows?

Now this one is a hard call- I honestly don't know. Speaking commercially many perhaps most shows simply are not worth the effort of hiring a van. There was a time when even the smallest show was worth the advertising time. This is no longer the case. Back in the 1990s I did 26 shows a year and could have done more if I chose. This year- 2017- I will do a total of 7. I know of some companies who do none at all and are happy that way. Personally I still value customer contact both by phone and face to face at shows.. Though again I know of outfits who will not speak to the people who put bread in their mouths without the  interdiction of a computer interface or sometimes even at all.
 The drive to greater personal isolation and therefore  outside control continues-. We are entering an age of Totalitarianism by commercial pressure- usually by Insurance companies so wargamers may become even more personally isolated  because of factors outside the hobby. This will of course mean that games companies will have to produce smaller and  simpler  boxed games that Daddy can play with Tarquin or Jocasta for the odd half -hour that their attention span lasts before the next burst of social media input fries their brains .

Of course in the Orwellian nightmare that will be  Gaminland no dissension will be allowed, no departure from the 2 foot square table or the ready painted plastic spaceship or day-glo elf(unless by special  Gaming Police dispensation it is a 4 foot square table). Those caught reading Chandler or Reid or Young sent to  CORRECTICON  A convention of re-education and force read  Martin and  strapped helpless and screaming  to Lion Rampant games !!


I suspect a few larger shows will survive and even thrive- given a stable economy- which of course went out of the window last June- but given current trends they will be mostly sci-fant and games will be merely those put on by the games companies for their own advertising needs. To the "commercial=popular therefore MUST be good" type of games player this will be hog heaven but to those of you who prefer diversity and individual thought perhaps not so splendid. Those of us who like toy soldiers  in numbers more than a couple of dozen will all be dead by then.
 Of course we might all get fed up and take up something interesting like Alligator wrestling or Crochet so that we don't suffer what Zabadak called "meh"  after you have been to yet another same old same old show. Now I'm not at that point yet by a long chalk- but maybe I can just see it from here.

Am I going round the bend.

 Quite possibly with the unmitigated gold star f**k up perpetrated by the sorry bunch of self-centred  non-entities masquerading as a government that you have saddled  the country with since this time last year. The strane on the brane(quoting Molesworth) has been enuff to last a lifftime .
 Nevertheless within the hobby the short term -i.e. the next couple of years, looks OK at the moment- new stuff coming out from Blue Moon , Raven Banner and Drabant- and those are just 3 of the companies I deal with . Other miniatures companies also producing historical stuff despite the deluge of same old same old sci-fant.

Rules, Games, Games Rules

  Rules are really beginning to get up my nose. Or perhaps we have to call them "Games" now. Especially as I realise that in the last couple of years I've spent more money on the bloody things that I did in the previous 10 years.
 What did I get for my shekels. 4 Ospreys and 3 hardbacks and 1 softback
 to whit
 The Hardbacks
 Black Powder- which is pretty awful . Hard to find stuff in the book and historical bunk to book. Full of errors and gamsey rubbish.Sort of OK ish with smaller scales if you  be bothered to wade through all the tripe to find the good bits - of which there are some.

Pike and Shotte- Better but still not good-  some silly formations and troop distinctions that bear only an occasional resemblance to the actuality mar what is a not too bad rule set if you know your period. However these days the urge to "play the game" at the expense of period whilst not universal is pretty common. Sacrificing period for mere dice rolling does not inspire me.

7TV A splendid idea and probably not a bad game but the cost to get a decent set up is a bit prohibitive especially for something  where  the likelihood of  multiple games is pretty remote and EACH of those games possibly require a different set up with some different characters- at around 3-4 quid a figure. plus specialist scenery and props- find me a decent 1/50th ish scale Jag mkII or a Ford Capri or Ford Transit(this last I can get but it is not cheap) or what about a Dofge Charger orFord pickup.
 I have not given up on this but it is far harder to get it right than say an ECW army.

Now 4 Ospreys
En Garde- Not a bad set of rules for low level  skirmishes. Though perhaps a bit  fiddly. Definitely has potential for 40mm use.
 Lion Rampant/Pikemans Lament.
 The same crap in different covers. I honestly fail to see why they are even remotely popular. Childish and simplistic and especially PL- actually  run counter to the history if purports to be inspired by

Honours of War. I have not yet made up my mind about these. They are not rubbish by any means but the one size fits all unit sizes and formations are a big downer (despite the optional rules for larger or smaller units)  but very common in lots of "games" these days. It is as if the writers don't want to tax the poor players brain with anything that might resemble they way things were done in the period under consideration. Yet there is still useful stuff here especially for smaller size figure games.
 However as I now study my own (very recently aquired) copy I see more potential if I can solve the "standard unit" problem to my own satisfaction.
 Of the rules bought over the last couple of years these are probably the best.
and finally
 Cold War Commander
 This is the absolute pits- makes Lion Rampant look historical, What utter dross.  No organisation worth a damn and no way of using the rules with your own. Long winded and simplistic- which is quite hard to do. The gamiest game of them all . To be rubbish it would have to improve.

So 8  different- well 7 different- sets of rules/games. Using them I have played a total of 3 games- 2 of which were Black Powder the other beoing Honours of War in 10mm  which - with a bit of tweaking will be essayed again I think.

However in toto these 8 sets have cost  me about a ton or maybe a bit more. I'd estimate that about half of that is money down the drain. The "quality" and limitations of many more recent "games" has been at least partly responsible for a partial reversion to retro wargaming. Team Yankee seems to be not a great deal more than a posher prettier version of Charles Grants WW2 rules - with a bit of Lionel Tarr thrown in. There is nothing  in many of these sets that an averagely knowledgeable chap could not do himself so why I have spent a ton plus looking for better rules ,in retrospect , I cannot imgine.

What you must decide.

Is exactly which bits of the above are satire, parody or merely taking the p""".and which bits are interpretations of o cold hard facts and which to be candid(e) 

 are all for the best in this the best of all possible worlds.


Seriously for a moment I invite your comments- unlike at least one other blog I visited and temporarily commented on very recently I will not delete stuff I personally don't agree with - as long as it is not libellous or illegal- discussion and differing opinions are paradoxically one of the things we may be losing in the social media age.