[Shahbahraz]

You might be right, but who wants every novel to end up with the successful return of the Nazis?

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I’d like to see the app that can cut 40,000 words from a manuscript, drop particular characters, remove excessive adjectives and suggest changes to plot and storyline timing and exposition.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

So I can span both extremes. My wife’s school friend, now 61, has been writing for 30 years, her books frequently top their genre (crime thriller) listings on Amazon and she has made a pretty good living – but that represents literally millions of books sold. My wife is a journalist and editor with 30+ years of experience, and the market these days for a proper editor, not just a spell checker, is virtually non-existent. The last ‘proper’ editing job, i.e. working in collaboration with the author to change sequence, make cuts and suggest textual changes to improve the work was with a fairly wealthy self published writer who did a novel and an autobiography. That was 6 years ago. Other than very top end publishing houses, and only for their marquee writers, editing is non-existent.

I recently purchased a fairly expensive WW2 study in hardback by a well known author, and one particular page clearly had multiple paragraphs copied and out of sequence. (p301) Very disappointing.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I did some Indian Mutiny using Sharp Practice and really enjoyed it. The period seems to suit the smaller scale and individual derring-do…  plus.. Flashman.

I also managed to do it very cheaply using the AWS figures purchased during their 30% off pre-Christmas sale.  😀

Then of course I wanted to add Gurkhas and Highlanders and Sikhs…  so I had to add to the Indians..  and it all got a bit out of hand…

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nicely done. And although not a language I understand the video was very clear and instructive.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I have to say, my experience of dealing with wargames companies has been almost universally excellent with one notorious exception. There’s a lengthy thread on LAF if you look for it. Most companies are run by hobbyists who will absolutely do their best. In the last couple of weeks I have had brilliant service from 1st Corps, Warbases and a couple of others, who packed it and shipped it in no time, and this at a time of year when many wargames companies are on the road to shows.

Dealing with individual sellers on eBay has also been generally very good. Did I get lucky, or are the occasional moans very much the exception? I believe so.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Looks like they raided the museum for a Pz IV F1…  which apparently was actually the case in Normandy.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I applaud that approach, if losing, change the rules.  Is that ‘metagaming’ ?  🙂

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

One thing I have seen done that always adds interest is to have the ships boats being towed behind.

In battle, they were considered a handicap due to the chance of hits creating wood splinter wounds. So preparing for battle might also include swaying the boats over the side to be towed and collected after the battle.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Stephen Holmes wrote:

Something that seems to have accompanied the move to “Starter Boxes” is the demise of house rules. Grognards of more than 3 decade of “proper” gaming will recall house rule discussions on Usenet and the like. No self respecting gaming group played “rules as written” and house rules were barely worth the name unless their page count rivaled the actual rules.<snip>

I think the internet has to be held at least partly responsible for that. The community you talked to extended worldwide. Another part, there were also more rulesets appearing in conventions where you could play against players from across your country or other countries. Try taking your house rules to a competition?

Finally, yes, I think the quality of rules got better. One of my favourite rules companies produced early sets that were great fun, but frankly, had loopholes in them the size of elephants. You had to house rule to get through a game. Nowadays, the quality of the rules they produce is vastly more professional, better tested and much less in need of rulings/amendments/updates etc. I think rules are much more professional than they were even 10 years ago.

And if you showed the 1970s me, struggling to read mimeographed typeset, stapled between paper covers, a hard-bound glossy book with professional quality photographs, I would have been astonished. And naturally some people grumble…

Yesterday I cranked up the resin printer, ran off enough 15mm vehicles for Early War German & French forces from free 3d files, and sent them to a friend as a gift. That would have been unthinkable even three years ago. It is literally a wargaming golden age.

 

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Some of us are just old… and 6 years is old enough for Playmobil DBA or Fear & Faith.

As for FoW, well, how are they going to sell you artillery models if they can’t go on the table 😉

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I’m an old fart too, been mucking about with figures & vehicles since it was Rocco Minitanks and really badly moulded Airfix WW2 figures.

These days I play a bunch of scales and rules, I don’t play GW, or either of the WW2 sets that claim to be ‘The WW2 Hobby’ – I buy figures I like, and use them for rules I like.

I don’t take the view that starter sets or whatever are infantilising players – it’s useful and  helpful, and hopefully many players that buy a starter set for something will go and do some reading, find out a bit more, and decide they want to try new things, or not. And that’s ok too.

I’ve written stuff for Slingshot, argued with Phil Barker, but I’ve also painted Dwarf Landwehr for a giggle, and I’m also currently trying to print out a 28mm Colonial Space Marines APC..   it’s a broad church, there’s plenty of room for all sorts of ways to enjoy the hobby. Or maybe it’s multiple hobbies in various combinations.

So as long as you have good friends to play with, the room to play and the toys to put on a table (or floor.. or lawn) have at it, and have fun

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Whirlwind wrote:

https://hereticalgaming.blogspot.co.uk/

Because UPS et al are big companies, who won’t notice my actions on an individual scale, but will notice when people stop using them in the aggregate. The same goes for HMRC, the Post Office and all the other shareholders lining up to take a slice.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Postage costs are just that, extraneous costs. I don’t mind if a manufacturer makes an extra 5p or whatever, they employed a good sculptor and cast good figures, they get my money. Paying a stack of cash to DHL, UPS or a customs agency, not so much. Resale value irrelevant.  I don’t sell figures, with the exception of two times when I was planning to move between continents.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Yeah, but we all know you’re a cussed old bugger. See you at VL4

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

Well call me an old stick in the mud, but there’s no bloody way I’m buying and painting replacements for the figures I’ve collected over 50 years. I shall just have to carry on being ashamed to put them on the table. Not.

My understanding of the forum rules is that it would be unacceptable for me to call you ‘an old stick in the mud’, but perfectly acceptable for me not to disagree with you, when you call yourself that? 

And I have no shame, so I wouldn’t be ashamed, but I might well have figure envy if my opponent has far superior quality figures…  sort of like having strip 15mm Minifgs when your opponent has the contemporary ‘Jacobite Miniatures’ 15mm Napoleonic Wurttemburgers.*

It’s for you to decide whether you want to upgrade those minis. I used to have an army of Mikes Model’s Ottomans, and I lovingly painted them, fancy horse barding and all, but I wish the later and much improved Essex Ottomans had been available.

*Incidentally, still available from https://elitewargamesandmodels.com/product-category/15mm/15mm-napoleonic/wurttemberg/

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

deephorse wrote:

Shahbahraz wrote:

One of the real arguments for paying more for better figures is that they have longevity… standards and styles change, so what was an acceptable figure in 1990 is often not an acceptable figure now.

I don’t buy this argument either. My gaming interests have always been primarily WWII in 20mm, and my purchases have (until recent times) centred upon the German Army. My German figure collection consists mostly of FAA’s product, bought when FAA were still based in Britain. So, and I’m guessing here, they were probably obtained in the mid to late 1980s. They stand comparison with almost any figures available today. I also have a collection of Volkssturm which I think are Drews Militia. They too are every bit as good as anything I could buy now. And then I see notifications of new releases from Company X, or Company Y (apologies in advance if there are such companies!) where I struggle to see any similarity to a human being. Arms are too long and bent in the wrong place. Poses are sculpted which no human could possibly adopt. Body proportions are all wrong. Yes, there are cracking figures produced now, AB, Adler, Blitz/Battlefield (before they ceased – but ably continued in style by Simon’s Soldiers), but there’s also some dross being turned out masquerading as 20mm WWII.

 

You’re making my argument for me. Buying good quality figures at the time has ensured they have longevity. You could have bought cheap rubbish figures and not wanted to put them on the table now. You surely wouldn’t argue that overall the quality of figure sculpts has on the whole, improved hugely over the years?

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

What I would like is a broker. Someone who knows the hobby and has contacts. So for example, I would love to to commission a range of figures. I started looking into it two years ago, and the complexity of organising it myself put me off. As I said I am time poor, but I can scrape together cash.

So my ideal would be someone who could match me to a sculptor, a caster and a retailer, organise it all, and I put up the cash, take my figures and retain a small residual in the range sold by someone else.

One of the real arguments for paying more for better figures is that they have longevity…  standards and styles change, so what was an acceptable figure in 1990 is often not an acceptable figure now, but the Anthony Barton sculpted Sasanians I bought in 1995 or so, still stand comparison with current offerings. The same could not be said for many 1990s figures. Again; if I am going to spend 100s of hours with paintbrush in hand, then I want the army to look good on the table in 10 years time as well as today.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

200 companies? yes, but an awful lot of those are one man or woman operations, who do not make a living from it.

The number of multi-employee wargames figures manufacturers would be what 50 at most?

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nah, those Jagdtigers don’t hold their resale value. In all seriousness though, having recently done the SoA survey on hobby expenditure for the year, how many of us are actually honest with our spouses, and with ourselves, on what we spend?

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Ok, so I appreciate I may be the exception here, but I am someone who for 20 years has been cash rich but time poor. (At one stage I went to get a mortgage, and the bank manager looked at my income and my savings and asked me; horrified.. what I spent it all on..  to which my answer was ‘whatever I feel like’) – and many of the gamers out there have a high disposable income.

To me, the cost of figures, etc. is incidental, the limiting factor for my hobby is the time to paint it (I like to paint my own figures), and time and opponents to play. So I can get 20% off manufacturer x in a sale, and pay less than whatever for a figure.  But…  I am going to be investing a LOT of my time painting those. By the time I get them on the table, the figure cost is only a trivial part of the overall cost in my time/money equation.

So generally I will happily pay the premium to get the figures whose style I like. So for ancients in 15mm… does Xyston do it? No? Corvus Belli? Battle Honours? – and will I need to chop bits off and work with greenstuff?  Similarly with all my WW2 or 28mm AWI, Ancients and Napoleonics. The overall cost of the figures disappears over use.

I do agree to some extent, about hobby producers, I don’t think overall they hugely depress pricing, simply because most have only limited ranges, so if I want to do washer women of the war of Jenkins Ear, ok. If I want to do AWI forces in 28mm, then I will pick a producer with a) a comprehensive range, b) great sculpts c) reliabity d) longevity. a) and b) are interchangeable to some extent, provided the figure ranges are broadly compatible.

The one cost that grinds my gears is postage. I know it’s outwith the control of most producers, but it means I have dismissed US producers. I am not prepared to make an order for £100 and pay an extra £40 for shipping and then £25 for customs/import processing.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Steve Johnson wrote:

A good idea, but not having a dedicated painting area, makes it harder for me to achieve, as I have to wait for the kitchen table to become free, as it has the best lighting for painting in the house. If I did have my own area, I’m sure I would achieve a lot more…

Get a painting tray. You can stash it away quickly or produce it at short notice.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

The Wild Bunch! or maybe the man with no name will wander through. Viva Zapata!

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I know a number of people planning on using a variety of scales. Personally I think it would feel a little odd as the movement vs weapons ranges might be askew.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Pre paints from Indonesia? No licensing issues there then

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

They look great. I definitely need a Menhir for my Gauls, so on the weekend I will be scouring the garden for a suitable stone, and cranking up the hot glue gun. I have a Menhir delivery man…  🙂

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nice. Thanks for that, and chimes with my impressions. Though I do actually have some Gallic Asterix figures they are tiny next to ‘modern 28mm’.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

The only drawback with using Victrix, who are decent sized figures, is you need chunky barbarians to tower over the puny legionaries. 🙂

And I have just spent the last three hours assembling the final Romans (it won’t be, I have at least 36 more figures in that spare Victrix box, but plenty for a Caesarian force..) and then adding sand and kitty litter to markers, bases and other bits and pieces. All the sabot bases are ready for the paint shop as are the last of the Romans, a cart, Fervour dials (Warbases) and some Gallic cavalry. And I rummaged through old trophies and turned up some druids, a wailing woman and a mounted and foot warrior for my Germans, (plus a gladiator???) Now waiting for my Germans to arrive…  come on 1st Corps 😉  I can foresee a marathon painting session for the Romans though.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I personally prefer the Victrix figures to the Warlord ones, they seem a little more anatomically plausible to me, and apparently the Warlord ones you have to be careful about the size between the various sets. But that’s hearsay.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nice work. Those look rather good.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Bah, just wrote a lengthy reply which was swallowed by the BB software. TL:DR version:

Prepare for cost increases, UK £ dropped in value significantly, raw material costs are killing manufacturers and they will have to raise prices. Expect more increases late 2020 or before depending on political events. (Incidentally, it’s interesting to note the experiments with other mediums such as a variety of resins and so on).

The drop in the value of the UK £ vs Yuan also means any manufacturer who made deals with Chinese suppliers 10 years ago is paying 2/3 more again  for their product – and the last year alone has seen the Yuan appreciate by 10% vs the UK £.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Looks like a fairly standard German 37mm AA mount.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Tamiya flat clear, seems to do the job reliably every time.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Since when did Max wear a scarf?  Great looking collection of minis there.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nice work. I never have the patience to do all the rigging.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Nice work, I reckon they look really good. As I understand it, Xan are pretty much designed to be compatible and stylistically similar to AB. I sometimes wish I had stuck with 20mm for WW2, but as I play mainly Chain of Command, I thought that going 28mm would work as you only needed a platoons worth of figures..   now multiply that by 12 platoons and supports, and yes, I should have stuck with 20mm 🙂

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

I have a fairly large and varied collection of AWI figures I’ve picked up in the last couple of years. I confess, I don’t like the Warlord figures, the ones I have just don’t seem to lend themselves to natural poses, and are very skinny. The one exception to this was the Woodland Indian set, which with a bit of work, gives excellent results.

The Perry plastics on the other hand are uniformly excellent, go together well, look pretty natural, and I mix mine quite happily with the Perry and Foundry metals. (IIRC I even have some Dixon mixed in). For rules, I use Sharp Practice 2,  which I think works extremely well, especially in capturing the differences between the various troops.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

For years I have been advocating that wargamers adopt a standard house acrylic paint for scenery pieces, use the same flock, etc.

I had paint cans for litres of ‘ground base’, ‘drybrush highlight’ and ‘water-feature’. It worked perfectly for me. Now the paint company has withdrawn my base colour from their ‘new range’, and I haven’t yet been able to get it matched. Grrrrr.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Well, I have rather been enjoying playing Lardie rules almost exclusively over the last couple of years, so I very much had them in mind when I posted my comment.

But one of the things I am finding, (and this may be age), is that I am very much less competitive than I used to be. Having been a keen competition gamer in the past, I now treat gaming as much more of a social and collaborative exercise in story telling. I still prefer to win than lose, but it’s almost irrelevant to my enjoyment of the game.

The other thing I will note is that the quality of the games we think of as ‘narrative’ have improved over the years, so that where it was once considered ok for a narrative game to be a bit of fun and not perhaps well enough explained, play-tested, or have some gaping holes, more recent efforts have been much tighter and leave less of the ‘well how does that all work out then’ moments of puzzlement for players. (I know I had some difficulties persuading my local players in Canberra to try rules written by the same writer(s) as an earlier set that they had tried, and felt deeply unsatisfied as it had gaping holes in.)

Part of the social contract thing between players is that you try to make sure you are both playing the same rules – having to make it up as you go along trying for mutual agreement can be less than fun.

Narrative games need to be written to at least as high a standard as ‘competitive’ sets. More so in many ways, as the structure is inherently less rigid. For example, if you can react to an opponent’s actions, you’ve stepped out of the IGO-U-GO cycle, so now you need to write for that. If you have variable move lengths, you need to add in additional rules and perhaps some narrative explanation.  Writing a professional standard rule-set for a narrative game is hard. (I know, I’ve tried a few times, almost inevitably being incredibly derivative, and eventually deciding that there were rules out there that were better, albeit different, from the ones I wanted to write.)

Personally, I think between Sam’s larger scale games, and the Lardies efforts, we are pretty well served..  and on the rare occasion when I get an ultra-competitive urge, I can always play DBMM.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Shahbahraz]

Ok, I am going t0 be brave, or foolish enough to take a stab at this. Firstly all games are narrative to a greater or lesser degree. It depends in large part on the players, although it would be foolish not to recognise that some game systems are better able to generate a narrative.

So for example, a game with a solid historical basis, or a well established back story makes a narrative easier to create or sustain. A game on a smaller scale will make it easier to empathise with the protagonists. A campaign where characters have a recurring place creates narrative inflection.

But it is the players who generate the narrative. By treating the troops as men, as actual living and breathing characters or units, not a collection of stats. It happens when players make it happen. I have had a narrative game playing DBM, I’ve had a soulless game of SAGA.

If rules-writers want to create a narrative game, then they need to create an experience where the shared story-telling of the players is more important than the competition for a simple winner. Of course, it is a game, there is a winner and a loser, but I have enjoyed some games more when I have been on the losing side, than others where I won. So add ‘colour’ not ‘chrome’, make it clear at what level(s) the players are engaging at. Create scenario and campaign based games, not ‘equal points encounter battles’. Implement mechanisms that are unobtrusive and intuitive so players concentrate on their orders and incidents, not the mechanics.

My tuppence worth.

--An occasional wargames blog: http://aleadodyssey.blogspot.co.uk/ --

[Author]

Posts