Welcome to Episode 178 of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast
In this episode, hosts Neil Shuck Mike Hobbs & Mike Whitaker are joined by Henry Hyde, ex-editor of Miniature Wargames magazine. We chat with Henry and discuss his recent decision to resign as editor of the magazine.
We hope you enjoy the show
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4 thoughts on “Meeples & Miniatures #78”
19/09/2016 at 11:34
ah, ManticWargames Not with Battlegames.
19/09/2016 at 16:08
I haven’t finished listening yet, but 30 minutes in I strongly, strongly disagree with Henry Hyde’s statement that, I quote, “there is no fantasy/sci-fi gaming community” (implied: in a sense of a community that exists in the same way the historicals gaming community does). I’m part of it, so clearly it exists. Whatever Mr Hyde says, it’s not all big brand loyalty and proprietary game systems, there’s plenty of us sci-fi/fantasy gamers who don’t pay much attention to that sort of divisions. For instance, most of the fantasy/sci-fi products I buy, use and talk about are from “indie” businesses (or “garage level” or “vanity” businesses, whatever you want to call them) which are part of the same scene as most/much of the historical wargaming hobby. Even when I engage with the bigger brands I tend to do it in a “disruptive” way, like when I buy Heavy Gear Blitz miniatures but intend to use them with alternative rulesets and occasionally mix them with 15mm sci-fi figures when the mood strikes me. Or when I buy Beyond the Gates of Antares miniatures but am not committing (for the time being, at least) to the BtGoA ruleset, much less the notion that I can’t mix them with figures from other manufacturers, having for instance Isorians represent evil bio-tech pirates in a non-BtGoA setting, or Ghar represent space goblins in a more science-fantasy type setting.
Besides, there’s plenty of fragmentation in historical wargaming, too. It’s likewise “far from being a coherent thing”, to use Mr Hyde’s description of sci-fi/fantasy. There’s your DBx players, your FoW players, your WAB players (many of whom have now migrated to other rulesets that keep the WAB spirit alive). There’s people who game only 20th century and modern conflicts, only horse-and-musket, only their own nation’s history, only naval battles, only with 1/72 soft plastics, only with true 25mm figures sculpted no later than the 1980s, and so on.
I genuinely don’t see why some historicals-only and historicals-mainly gamers keep treating us fantasticals-mainly gamers like we’re a different species that seem to operate under different laws of physics. Sure, there’s your Games Workshop fanatics, your Privateer Press fanatics and so on, but there’s also a parallel community of people like me, who are much the same as historicals gamers (not counting your Battlefront fanatics, of course), the only significant difference being that whereas a historicals-mainly gamer’s next purchase might be more likely to be some Artizan Designs Afghans or Khurasan Miniatures Marlburians, mine might be more likely to be some Artizan Designs goblins or Khurasan Miniatures aliens. Is it that big of a difference, really?
19/09/2016 at 17:48
I think that is worthy of a forum topic, do you want to start one?
19/09/2016 at 18:37
I think you’re right, just let me rescript it a bit to make it slightly more succinct and I’ll start a topic later this evening.