Reply To: Miniature Wargames 398: Arthur Harman Article

[Guy Farrish]

How about cardboard bases painted the colour of the uniform? How about cartoon drawings/paintings of the troops (Arthurian v Saxons Dark Ages) directly on the mdf bases?

I did have 2mm blocks grey and blue for ACW (still have them somewhere). which worked brilliantly for army level games or Kriegsspiel.

I’m with Arthur all the way. I know him and a less patronising chap you would be very hard pressed to find.

I haven’t read his latest piece but I think that the perfect can be the enemy of the good. And if the gentlemen who wrote the responses listed haven’t heard the ‘not good enough for selling the hobby’, ‘it ought not to be allowed’ ‘why were they allowed a table’ in response to some demonstration/participation games that didn’t adhere to the ‘aesthetic’ prevailing at the time, they are very lucky.

It depends what you want from wargaming. If it’s a panorama of beautifully crafted and painted toy soldiers on  model railway terrain – that’s fine. But some people like the recreation of history, the tactical interest, the involvement in the action. So if you want/are able to combine both, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t have to defer the latter because you haven’t got or don’t want the former.

I’ve played campaigns on OS maps with a perspex overlay and chinagraph pencils, Ancient battles with painted mdf bases, and Renaissance battles with hundreds of lovingly painted 25mm figures. They’re all wargaming and knowing that a paper and pencil can give a game every bit as entertaining as the assembling of hundreds (thousands?) of pounds worth of painted metal figures is very reassuring  – to newcomers and old stagers wanting a change but lacking the commitment or spare change to shoot for the one style every time.

I’m definitely with Arthur.

And who says that the current style of painting wargame figures is the ‘right’ one anyway? Styles and fashions change – and simply because we have a fad for blending and shading in acrylic now doesn’t mean lining, washes, block painting or any of the other variants we’ve used over the years were wrong. Painting styles aren’t ‘progressing’ towards any perfect style. They’re changing. It’s fashion. Like most fashions – the best thing to do is ignore it. There’ll be another one along in a minute.