[Phil Dutré]

One also has to take a look at the logistics of providing food from the organizer’s pov.

If you organize an event at a location that has its own catering services or food stalls, then all is fine. Although there might be a cost to the organizer for the location to open its food stalls. After all, it might depend on the number of visitors expected and projected sales, since location management has to provide staff.

Even better if the location is in a city centre and there are plenty of options in the immediate neighbourhoud. Nothing to worry about. Just tell the punters to go outside and buy something.

However, if you organize something at a location, and as an organizer, you have to provide catering yourself, then it can become a hassle. Either you provide something yourself (usually sandwiches or bread rolls or whatever the local custom is  … limited choice is a given) and this requires a lot of volunteers, both in prep and on the day itself. Or you rent the services of mobile food trucks, but probably the budget isn’t high enough to provide for many different type of trucks. Hence, the only viable choice is often the lowest common denominator, resulting in hamburgers and simple offerings.

Having organized hobby events myself, providing food and drink as an organizer is the biggest challenge. Everything else is a rather minor logistic problem. Esp with the ever-increasing demands of the public w.r.t. food preferences and allergies.

As a Belgian, I’m more concerned about the beers that are offered on tap, though.

[Phil Dutré]

MustPlayThat wrote:

if you can 3D print coloured shells of figs,

We have come full circle … hollow cast toy soldiers used to be a thing once 😉

 

[Phil Dutré]

Mass production will always beat house-made in terms of *total* cost. It’s simply a matter of distributing the fixed cost of the machinery over price per item. Whether as an individual it’s more convenient to order something or rather DIY (“It’s my hobby, so I have fun doing it!”) is a different matter.

3D printing at home is very useful for individual items for which a mass production setup doesn’t make sense or is non-profitable. However, over time, 3D printing could as well become a very cheap service as simply sending a file to a printer service, and they don’t care what the printer spews out. If the printer doesn’t care whether to print 1000 individual items or 1000 identical items (and associated cost before and after), it doesn’t matter anymore. Then printing at home becomes even more expensive. There’s no way one can keep it up with changing tech, maintenance, labour, etc.

But now, we’re still very much in the transition phase between both modes.

[Phil Dutré]

The 3-argument game: it’s known as “matrix gaming”, a variant of free kriegsspiel so to say.

There have been many variants over the years, also quite some articles in the magazines in the late 90s/early 2000s IIRC.

The system works very well for gamesmastering campaigns. We have used it for tactical battles as well. But it’s a different experience, and all players need to briefed very well about the format.

[Phil Dutré]

Book publishing ranges from “books for the masses” to “highly specialized academic books”. Books on military history are no different.

Any decent bookshop has a smallish section on “military history”, usually covering WW2 , and then some topics specifically for the local country, but of course marketed for a mass audience. As a teenager I bought many of these books, still reading up on many of the topics I knew nothing about. But these days, I don’t really bother. How many books about Waterloo can you read? How many books about Hitler? How many books about (insert local battle here)? Sooner or later, you know it all, and you’ve seen all the photographs. If I still buy one of these mass-produced books today, it has to be a very good one. BTW, over the years, I also have reduced my personal collection very aggressively, for the same reasons. Esp soft-covers go away quickly, no reason to keep them all, I’ll probably never read them again anyway.

So, do I still buy books? Yes, but mostly books that are on the other end of the spectrum. Might be a “definite” biography written by an academic who has spent a lifetime researching the subject, or a well-researched reference book. But yes, you pay money for those. Quality does cost something.

At some point, you know so much about a topic that any additional info will not be found in books, and you’ll have to primary research yourself: dig through archives, go see the stocks in museum collections that are not on display, check all the facts about a battlefield by walking it,  etc. That’s when you have become the authority ans should write the final book on the topic yourself  🙂

(It’s a similar feeling I had as an academic  a long time ago … at one point you realize you should be the one giving the courses at conferences or write the reference work outlining the current state-of-the-art … you have become the expert in your niche. And yes, I did write a book 😉 )

[Phil Dutré]

BTW, if you want to have the visual spectacle, but don’t like painting figures, there’s not much to worry about. The visual impression of the table is much more determined by the scenery elements and the basing of the figures rather than the individually painted figures. A table with good scenery and less-than-well painted figures looks much better than well-painted figures on crappy scenery.

Invest in some nice buildings, trees, hills, a good gaming cloth or other surface … and pay some attention to a uniform basing for the figures (can be even as simple as green flock or a well-chosen green/brown/grey paint that blends with gaming mat), and leave the figures undercoated or with a wash only. It does wonders for the visual look of the table.

[Phil Dutré]

For a different visual look, here are some images of games I’ve run in the past:

Using paper models for an ECW game:

Using “undercoat and wash only” figures, for a Warhammer Quest game:

Using single-colour spray-painted 1/72 Napoleonics:

I admit such styles do not appeal to everyone (and I do prefer fully painted miniatures myself for most games), but they still provide a good visual appeal. YMMV.

[Phil Dutré]

If you look at the history of the hobby, miniature wargaming has always been very much intertwined with toy soldier collecting, casting, and painting. I have old toy soldiers books from the 50s or earlier  that have a chapter on how to wargame with one’s soldiers.  This started to change in the 60s, but even if you look at Featherstone’s first books, half or third of the book is still about toy soldier modelling and painting. Gradually one sees the “toy soldier” part to take less and less pages in the wargaming books.

But to come back to the original question, no one is forcing anyone. As Martin said, it is a hobby and not a job. However, if you want to game in a club or take part in a tournament, then there indeed might be an expectation to show up with painted figures. The hobby is *miniature* wargaming after all. I also don’t show up at the local stamp collecting club (if these still exist?) and tell them I feel forced to collect stamps and rather want to collect teaspoons instead. The hobby is *miniature* wargaming, and collecting and painting miniatures is part of that.

But wargaming is a broad church. There is board wargaming (no figures at all!) but if you like the visual spectacle of figures (but don’t want to paint them), there have been attempts to bring painted miniatures to market (ranging from Heroclix type games to current 3D printing). Or you can pay for a painting service. Or you can go for a different visual style. E.g. you can simply undercoat your figures and give them a single colour wash. Works great. It’s not the model railroad look, but visually, it does work.

One other thing: many miniature rules and procedures are of course designed with miniatures in mind (because of limited record keeping, limited visible stats, imprecision in measurements etc). Simply taking the rules and replacing miniatures by something else is not such a good idea IMO. Then you might as play board(war)games – even some board(war)games come with plenty of (unpainted) miniatures these days. The truth is that miniature wargaming rules often are less sophisticated design-wise compared to boardgames, exactly because of the medium of miniatures. But the visual spectacles makes up for it all! 🙂

[Phil Dutré]

For very individualized figures 3D printing offers a lot of possibilities. Perhaps even for warband games. You might even invest in your own printer.

But for let’s say a massive game with several 100 figures … I don’t really see how it could be done cheaper at home that through a 3D printing service.

A friend of mine has printed a lot of “specialized” ww2 vehicles at home (1 or 2 models per vehicle). You buy the stl files, you print them once or twice. In such cases the economics work out.

[Phil Dutré]

It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if wargaming rules are holy scripture, or wargaming rules writers are demigods that communicate their holy wisdom to us through their rules.

To be honest, I find many wargaming rules are not very elegantly designed and a mishmash of various mechanics and procedures. That’s also the reason few rulesets really do become very popular – these are usually the very well written and/or designed ones 😉

[Phil Dutré]

I mostly remember it as a “not so fun” game. We tried several times to play it, but never finished a game. Perhaps it just didn’t “click” with my gaming group.

[Phil Dutré]

As usual, I haven’t even received the February issue yet.

I don’t know what’s wrong with MW’s mailing system. Since October or so, I haven’t received my regular copies. But I do receive them afterwards when I specifically ask for them, so that’s good! I do receive other mail from the Uk, although usually in closed enveloppes.

I’m not saying this is MW’s fault (there could well be someone somewhere snatching my copies before they arrive in my mailbox), and as I said, subscription staff has been helpful in replacing copies gone AWOL, but if this continues, I cannot continue my subscription when it’s up for renewal. There’s little point in paying for a magazine that doesn’t arrive.

 

[Phil Dutré]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Except Programmed Wargame Scenarios 2nd ed is published by Partizan Press/Caliver Books and not History of Wargaming project.

Oops, my mistake!

Nevertheless, probably still an OCR error 😉

[Phil Dutré]

Volume 2 is also available:

https://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/2022/12/original-manuscript-of-history-of_28.html

 

[Phil Dutré]

The reprints offered by the “History of Wargaming” project do have OCR errors. THis is probably one of them.

[Phil Dutré]

Whirlwind wrote:

I don’t really like extra/bonus movement for reserves but I will live with it if it doesn’t mess up the time scale too much

I guess that’s the balance we have to find between playability and realistic time and distance scales. I would not be a very good game (YMMV) is the “combat” is restricted to 1/10 the area of the entre table, and all the other space is only used for moving around a few troops kept as reinforcements/reserves. Thus, whatever happens “behind the lines” is often compressed both in space and time.

[Phil Dutré]

Whirlwind wrote:

‘Freshness’ in troops is an under-rated quality (or fatigue is an under-rated problem, same thing)

Many rulesets try to cover this by giving some bonus for the “first shot” or “first melee” in the game for a specific unit.

In one of my self-written rulesets, I track the “status” of a unit by a quality marker ranging from 10 to 1. It’s an ever decreasing number, and affects combat effectiveness. It’s also the only number I track for units, no figure removal or other status indicators (broken, disrupted, disorganized, …). That sorts of simulates “troop freshness” in my games.

[Phil Dutré]

I also tend to make a subtle difference between ‘reserves’ and ‘reinforcements’.

Reinforcements are troops that can be used in the current game, but I haven’t decided yet where to deploy them, and I want to postpone that decision to see how the battle evolves. Ruleswise, this might mean that reinforcements “kept in the rear” might need a bonus on their movement to be able to move around a bit faster to have a meaningful effect in the game.

Reserves I associate more with campaigns. Reserves for me are troops not meant to be used, but could be used if things go wrong. But a good general might want to keep their reserves pristine, to fight the follow-up battle the next day or next week. Reserves to me are more like an insurance, while reinforcements are more like spreading out your power in time and space for the current battle.

I don’t know whether I have the proper nomenclature correct in terms of military vocabulary, but they feel like different concepts to me.

[Phil Dutré]

I think the use of reserves has less to do with the rules but more with playing style and scenario design. In the end, you can always quickly come up with some rules or scenario events that allow reseverves/reinforcements being brought on the table in later turns, with more or less control about timing and point and arrival in the hands of the players.

A more important issue whether a wargame can deal with reserves is troop density on the table and engagement distances. If you want to have and see your reserves on the table, you also need a ‘rear area’ behind the front lines that can be used for manoeuvring the reserves (an alternative is to have them off-table, but then, any wargamer *wants* to have the toys on the table!). But if your ruleset has e.g. movement and/or firing distances that allow troops to move or shoot from one end to the other end in a turn or two, then the notion of having reserves on-table becomes a bit silly. Then they become “pop-up” troops.

Troop density on the tabe is one of these often unspoken assumptions in many rulesets. Rulesets are written with a specific troop density in mind (another is terrain density), and this is important for a ruleset to work ‘properly’, yet is often left to the players how to deal with this issue. Hence the often-mocked WW2 games which have too many troops on the table, and the whole thing more resembles a parking lot rather than an actual battle.

[Phil Dutré]

The replacement issues arrived! Waiting anxiously for the January issue now 😉

[Phil Dutré]

BTW, I talked to a fellow-Belgian this weekend who has a subscription to a UK gardening magazine. Same problem: magazine issues from the UK have a problem of arriving since Brexit.

[Phil Dutré]

The “dying of the hobby” has been predicted since at least the 70s, so one can safely ignore all such discussions.

The future of wargaming shows is a ifferent matter though, and a very real problem in mainland EU. Wargaming still is very anglocentric, but since the you-know-what, traders have it more difficult to cross the channel. As a direct result, CRISIS, the biggest wargaming show held each year in Antwerp, has stopped. But also smaller events have thrown in the towel. The 2 shows (one of them being CRISIS) I went to each year have now disappeared.

So the ideas that are floating around now is to go back to “gaming days”, events where clubs meet each other, play some games, but no traders are present.

I feel there has to be at least something to keep a community feeling. Otherwise, wargaming will degenerate to a hobby played in isolated groups only, and then there’s a real danger for it to die.

[Phil Dutré]

It is an enjoyable book, and have regularly used as inspiration for non-solo scenarios as well.

[Phil Dutré]

I’ve been in contact with the subscriptions department, they will send me replacement copies. Thanks for any poke you might have given them 😉

They told me cross-channel mail has become less reliable since the-event-that-should-not-be-named.

[Phil Dutré]

 

[Phil Dutré]

Hi John,

I know this is not your department, but this is the 3rd month in a row my hardcopy fails to arrive (in Belgium), and I have to ask for a replacement copy through the subscription department.

I asked the people from subscriptions to look into it, and whether it’s something on my end, the magazine’s end, or somewhere in between (i.e. the mail services), but perhaps you could apply some additional pressure to sort this out? 😉

I’m always happy to support the hobby magazines, but then the magazines also have to arrive, of course 😉

 

[Phil Dutré]

irishserb wrote:

Cool, thanks for looking those up. By chance, last weekend I found a box of my old mags that had been stashed away, though another box is still in hiding with some of the listed issues.

Just as a reminder, over the years I have compiled an index for many (old) wargaming magazines:

https://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/p/wargames-magazine-database.html

[Phil Dutré]

W.r.t. diversity of games at shows:

I have been running games at shows for over 20 years. Sometimes proper participation games, sometimes more demo-games whose purpose was to get people interested in a  period, or just as a starter point for chatting.

I have never been asked by show organizers what game I would run, in what scale, etc. I could literally decide the day before the show what I would run 😉 So, any mix of games at shows is mostly ‘by accident’, since any gaming group or club basically decides themselves what to run.

Don’t forget that many of these games run by groups are labours of love and pure fun. If someone would tell anyone what game to run, chances are such a gaming group might not run a game at all. The exception is games run by traders, or sponsored by traders, to highlight a specific ruleset or range of miniatures.

It all depends what is expected of the games at a show. It’s fairly realistic to say that most games are simply there to create “buzz”, to show “the best the hobby has to offer”. Participation is a bonus, but difficult to enforce in practice.

As for scales: 28mm or bigger are very suitable scales to use at shows due to excellent visuals – also for scenery. 6mm or smaller isn’t noticed as easily.

In the end, a show is all about the social aspect, giving everyone the feeling that we all belong to a bigger community.

[Phil Dutré]

That all depends on how you define ‘division’ and ‘brigade’. A Napoleonic division is also something different from a 21st century division.

I guess what it really comes down to is the relationship between typical mission objectives and size of force needed to achieve those and how such a force can act on its own before it needs to be resupplied/replaced/etc.

What do you need to conquer a planet in the future? Can you do that with a platoon? Or do you need 15 bazillion men and equipment? And will we need men after all, or will everything be relegated to ai-machines?

[Phil Dutré]

It’s not always easy to say ‘why’ I wargame. It’s a hobby I rolled into through various things I came across when a kid and youngster. I probably could have ended up in slightly related hobbies, or perhaps something else entirely. Who knows.

So I can explain how I got into wargaming, but it’s a bit harder to say why I wargame. However, I can say why I like it – any of the usual reasons: a blend of military history, modelling, gaming, playing with toy soldiers, along the meta reasons such as hanging out with friends.

[Phil Dutré]

Looking forward to this issue as well!

[Phil Dutré]

Wrong mindset.

Base in whatever way you like is more esthetically pleasing. Rulesets come and go, but your figures are with you forever. So, adapt the rules to your figures, not the other way around.

[Phil Dutré]

It really depends what you’re looking for:

– dungeon exploration game?

– dungeon tactical combat game?

– dungeon character advancement game?

– …

Not all dungeon crawl boardgames focus on the same aspects, and it’s hard to combine them all together.

[Phil Dutré]

Boardgamegeek has a number of geeklists and discussions that focus on the genre of dungeon crawl.

[Phil Dutré]

A different mechanic, not often seen in wargames, but which is fairly common in boardgames, is a timetrack.

Every unit has its spot kn the timetrack. The ‘earliest’ unit gets activated, and depending on what that unit does, it moves so many spaces backwards on the timetrack. Then the next unit activates etc. The timetrack can be a simple ordering, or can have different length intervals, etc.

I experimented a bit with a timetrack in miniature wargaming: http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/2019/03/imaginations-in-42mm-12.html

 

[Phil Dutré]

Drawing cards that specify what unit can act has the disadvantage that some scenarios won’t work, esp if there can be traffic jams, such as moving across a bridge with several units etc. Also, coordination between several units becomes much more difficult.

That’s why most unit-activation systems allow for some freedom by the player, and have group activation mechanics as well. Purely depending on unit-specific card draws means you can only play scenarios which have a low unit density and/or lots of manoeuvring space.

[Phil Dutré]

irishserb wrote:

When I helped run conventions, usually as an event coordinator, the staff would organize the show, run the show, some of us might even run a gaming event or two, and most years, we paid admission to get into the show. We looked at all of it as our contribution to promoting the hobby and building the gaming community. If your thing is presenting a display game, and you attend a convention that is in danger of going away, and you want to continue to present your game, I would think that you might be willing to kick in a couple of coins to help make it happen. The number of coins required might reasonably be a deal breaker, but the general pretention that my game is so masterful, that somebody else is obligated to pay for a place for me to show is very grand of me, I think.

Yes, of course, and it clearly depends on the type of show. I don’t mind paying the entrance fee – although for the bigger shows it’s already above 10 euro. Given the fact that I’m there all day, do spend a fair amount at the bar etc, I think it’s nice if game organizers at least get something in return, either free entrance or a free drink or something like that.

But it also depends on what is expected from you as a game organizer. At most European conventions, games are ‘demo’games, with the only expectation one does interact with the public. However, if I’m obliged to run so many games during the day with sign-up lists etc, then it becomes a different story.

But if a show would charge me on top of the entrance fee to be there with a game, then the answer would be no.

[Phil Dutré]

Probably not.

A show is fun because there’s a mix of events – shopping, gaming, browsing the B&B, a bar, a food stand, … Not all things appeal to everyone in the same way, but if there would only be trade stands, then where’s the fun?

I guess it depends on whether you see a show as a shopping mall, or whether you see a show as a place to socialize with other gamers.

[Phil Dutré]

Norm S wrote:

So basically, after all of that waffle, if we can get all tables to be pro-friendly to visitors, then I think they have already earned their place at the show.

That’s the idea! Gaming tables are there to stir enthusiasm about the hobby and to socialize with fellow wargamers. Whether the game is a demonstration game, a participation game, a tournament game, a whatever game, doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there are tables that make wargamers meet each other.

Nevertheless, there’s sometimes confusion, both by clubs running a game and by visitors, about what these gaming tables are for. Indeed, the typical example are a bunch of mates not interacting with anyone else and playing their own game as if at home. But I’ve also seen visitors reluctant to socialize. “Are you interested in this period?” No answer. “You want to play along for a turn or two?” No answer. “What games do you play yourself?” No answer. Then they wisper something with their friends and move off to the next table 😉

But I’ve also met visitors *demanding* to play, right there and then, “because that’s what I paid the entrance for!” They simply don’t understand many games are often simply talking points to start up a conversation, not a ride in  theme park to have a good time.

But the worst is if some parent drops of his kid at your table. I’ve nothing against kids at shows, but I’m not there to babysit either. I want to enjoy the show as well 😉

[Phil Dutré]

I’ve been running games for over 25 years at shows – mostly CRISIS in Antwerp. I’ve won a few trophies with my games as well, 3 or 4 total IIRC. Some years I did put in a lot of effort, other years it was more something put together 2 weeks before the show 😉

But anyway, would I pay to put a game on? Doubtful. I do expect to get free entrance though, or a free drink at the bar (depending on the size of the show – I’m happy to pay the entrance fee for very small local affairs).

It really depends on the character of the show. Many shows have trade stands for ppl to buy stuff, and then games run by clubs. What’s the purpose of these games? Apart from whether you can participate or not, the real purpose of these gaming tables is to have anchor points such that wargamers can socialize and talk about the hobby, get to know new people, have a chat with old friends, etc. The game itself is often secondary – at least in my experience.

So, as a game organizer, I feel I’m adding to the show, not taking from the show. I don’t NEED to run a game, rather, I want to contribute to make the show a succes. The show NEEDS gaming tables, not the other way around.

Moreover, the people who put on games often also are the “big spenders”. One show organizers once told me that those hardcore wargamers, willing to run a game, also often are the ones that buy a lot of stuff from the traders. At a minimum, they buy a lot of drinks and snacks as well, since they’re there for the entire day.

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