Things wot I know I don't like

An exercise in navel gazing today, as I take a look at certain things in the hobby that I have an adverse reaction to. This isn't intended to be a shot at anyone, just some musings on things that I've noticed or played with in the hobby that just don't do it for me. Wargaming is a broad school, and this blog can attest to my eclectic nature in terms of what I do like, which is varied and not easily pigeon-holed. But there are some things that I'm not particularly fussed about.

#1 - Big Battalions:
I'll be honest - in horse and musket games in general, but Napoleonics in particular, there is a tendency towards big battalions - particularly as shown in the wargames press - and I don't like it. I'm turned off by units of 24+ figures on both a practical and an aesthetic level. Since I started wargaming with plastic 1/72 figures, a battalion has been 16 figures. Sometimes I have extended this out to 18 figures (Marlburian for instance), or lowered it to 12 (ACW for instance), but that is really the limit of my Horse and Musket playground. When I see 36 figure units all I can think is that there is actually 2 units worth of painting there, and what a waste it is putting them all into one unit.  It also starts to limit manouevre especially with 28mm figures, and aesthetically I find a table crammed with large units sitting bumper to bumper (to take a phrase that is a common criticism of Flames of War) to be unhistorical and messy. Not all (in fact hardly any) Napoleonic battles were as crowded as Waterloo and Borodino.

A recent game at the club with just too many figures cluttered up on the table for my liking.

There are many who feel that big battalions should be the pinnacle of wargaming, and the hobby would be poorer without them. I agree with neither of these points. Obviously.

Incidentally, I'm not against big armies, just unwieldy and ugly masses of figures masquerading as a single unit.

#2 - Aerial (Space) games:
I love Star Wars and collected a few X-Wing models, but the games just left me cold. Basically I've never found a spaceship (or aerial) game that I really enjoy. I've tried Wings of War (Glory), and like X Wing, it was OK, but not what I want to spend my gaming time doing.

Tried it. Didn't like it. Models are fantastic though.

#3 - DBMM/R:
I love DBA. Absolutely love it, and DBA 3.0 is the best yet. But DBMM and DBR leave me cold. I tried DBR for a few years, and the guys I played against were really cool, but the rules themselves I found geometric and cold. It seemed that a degree in history was not as useful as a degree in maths, and to me that is not something that should happen in a wargame.

# 4 - Games where the meta matters:
The thing that turns me off about many games is the list-building aspect of them. 40K, Warmachine, etc leave me cold. Now I do enjoy Flames of War and Team Yankee, which do have their own meta, but this is restricted to some extent by history. I'm unlikely to come up against an army composed entirely of British TOGs for instance. It also has a lot to do with the people I game with, many of whom are more interested in the history than the points. Not that I don't like points, but only as a guideline as opposed to building a killer list.

#5 - Overly detailed rules:
I've tried a lot of different games and rules, and I keep coming back to the idea of KISS (keep it simple stupid). If I have to work out which type of canteen a character in a game needs to take, then it is too complicated. If I have to check morale on a unit 3 times in a turn on 3 different tables (test to stand, test to fire at chargers, test to break upon losing melee), then this isn't a set of rules I want to play. I really wanted to like Infinity, for instance, because the figures are fantastic and Mike was really keen. But I found the rules to be opaque and the game just wasn't enjoyable. Not for me, move on.

Sorry, Mike.

#6 - Horses hooves:
I think that there is something that everyone dreads painting. For me, it is horse hooves. There is nothing rational about this. I just don't like doing it, especially on 15mm figures.

And that's about it. People will disagree about some of this stuff, but we all have our own take on the hobby. I'm sure my love of skirmish games and solo gaming would be irksome to some people. Just how it is. I might have a think and publish another post about things that I like, but that would have to be a very long list, surely?

Nate

Not a review, more a tiny rant

This post contains no spoilers about The Force Awakens. I was going to do an in-depth review early next year when people have seen it and the key elements of plot were well-known. But I doubt I'll be revisiting it. So this rant will avoid giving away anything but my personal reaction to the movie.
I'll start by stating that a lot of people have enjoyed Star Wars Episode VII. You probably will too. If you are someone that felt betrayed by the prequels and hated them, then this probably is the movie you have been waiting for. But not me.

For Episode VII, dream up a better plot I shall.

I've made no secret of the fact that I liked the prequels. Was there stuff I thought could have been different? Yes - mostly Jar Jar and some of the wooden dialogue and 'yippee'. But what George Lucas did do was tell a story. We knew Anakin would fall, but Lucas created a situation that made sense for that to happen. The background to the collapse of the Republic was explored in a way that advanced the story and gave a message to us at the same time. Star Wars under Lucas explored the diversity of human experience and created a modern myth. 

Episode VII does not do that. It is derivative and dull. The plot twists are few and telegraphed. There is no wonder in this movie for me. It gives me nothing new. In fact it has taken something away from me. Star Wars was a pivotal influence on me growing up, shaping my sense of wonderment and perception of the universe. The prequels built on this, even though I was an adult when I saw them. Episode VII has had the opposite effect. It is a missed opportunity to do wonderful things with characters we all loved. It has no soul. It has no myth. It has killed a little bit of my childhood. I found it nothing short of depressing. I am now seriously considering selling all of my Star Wars miniatures and moving on. Over-reaction? Possibly, but my reaction nonetheless.

I said in my eariler post this week that Star Wars is a very personal journey for many of us. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with what I have written. That does not make it any less true for me.

Nate

Where did January go?

I can't believe we are almost in the second month of the year! I went back to work 2 and a half weeks ago, but took the last Thursday and Friday of the holidays off to head back to the beach. This week saw the students back in at school and next week we'll be back into it like the holidays had never happened.
Despite January's unreasonable swiftness, progress has been made on a number of wargames fronts. For a start, I now have all the figures for my Great Northern War and Samurai projects, and the majority of the figures for the Great Paraguayan War. I thought I'd do a review of some of these figures.

Mounted Samurai from Outpost Wargames Services. Very nicely detailed with separate swords to be glued on.

Foot Samurai from the same range. I think that the raised detail will make the otherwise daunting Samurai armour much easier to paint.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the Outpost Wargame Services figures. Nicely detailed but not overly so. The plan is that the DBA Samurai will be next on the painting tray.

Russian dragoon in kartuz hat for the Great Northern War. The Irregular figures are good solid wargames figures with a minimum of detail but clear areas to paint. 

A Swedish Dragoon officer in karpus.

A Swedish infantryman. There is very little definition to the face - this will have to be hinted at with the brushwork. Given that I plan to paint these with black line as I did the Crimean War project, it should be simple enough to create an impressionistic face.

Swedish infantry officer. Again, everything is there that needs to be there.

A Swedish pikeman.

I'm quite pleased with the Irregular Miniatures figures for the Great Northern War. After painting up the Crimean War figures that I had which were minimal in detail but were clearly defined, I quite enjoyed the effect of the massed armies using the black-lining technique. I am looking at doing the same with this project, although as there is a variation of quite bright colours I may use two tones here and there. The figures were generally quite easy to clean up, but every now and then there was a howler which was more flash than figure. To my relief I found it very easy to clean, and once removed the figure was fine - none of that problem where the two halves of the mold haven't aligned and your figure looks like Two Face from Batman.

I sold off my Napoleonics - yes that is now 8 times I have bought a Napoleonic army/armies and sold them without painting them, but who is counting - and reinvested the money into Paraguayan figures from QRF's Freikorps 15 range. Having done that I was left contemplating the $200 dollars I'd have to find to put together the Brazilians. Then I remembered that Paul at our club had a whole pile of unpainted Freikorps ACW figures. I went around to visit him, prepared to exchange some 28mm WWII for some 15mm figures if they were suitable. Well, they most certainly were. Amongst the figures he had a pile of infantry in gum blanket:

A photo of the infantry in gum blanket from the QRF website.

I took one look and shouted 'ponchos'! I mixed them in with other figures in slouch hats for 5 battalions worth of Brazilians and also constructed 3 battalions of kepi-wearing infantry, 4 regiments of cavalry and 4 guns. Now all I need are command figures, artillery crew and a unit of gauchos - about $40, which will be much easier to find. To top it all off Paul said that I didn't need to swap - I could have them! Best priced project ever! Are they perfectly accurate? No, but at 15mm the inaccuracies will pretty much disappear beneath the brightly coloured ponchos!

I finished my fortified camp and today added a chevaux de frise from Irregular miniatures. Hopefully I'll finish that off this weekend.

I'll be using this in just about every period.

On other fronts, I have joined the Continental Wars Society and ordered the CD of back issues of the Foreign Correspondent newsletter from 1 through to 69. As I make my way through them I am consistently inspired to want to try new periods - like the Portuguese Civil War or Garibaldi in Naples, or the Hungarian uprising. The price is incredibly cheap - it cost me the princely sum of 25 NZ pesos to join for a year and order the CD. The expensive part is the constant 'ohhh shiny' moments I am now having. If you have an interest in the area I thoroughly recommend you email Ralph Weaver and join!

Marvel have the rights to the Star Wars universe again, and a new Star Wars series is available. The first issue was really good, and I feel it is worth continuing with. In order to subscribe I had to find the monthly money from somewhere, so I have sacrificed my subscription to Miniature Wargames with Battlegames. I've been contemplating this for sometime as I haven't been finding this magazine of much interest. There is maybe one, or in a good month two articles that I am eager to read, but all too often I find myself skipping through to the end and thinking 'is that it?' I used to love Miniature Wargames because it was the kind of magazine that seemed aimed at the ordinary wargamer (and I always enjoyed Gary Mitchell's columns), and I loved Battlegames because it had some very thoughtful articles (Dan Mersey's DBA campaign system from issue 2 is still a real highlight). But since the merger it feels like it has lost what was special about both.  I'm a bit sad about this, because Henry is a genuinely nice bloke (not that I've met him, apart from on a few forums) and because I would like to support the wargames press. In the end though, choices have to be made with the cash available, so MWwBG has joined Wargames Illustrated in the group of discarded subscriptions. This just leaves Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy which is, without doubt, my favourite magazine and delivers just what I want. The only downside being that it only delivers every two months!

Speaking of hard choices, I've been faced with the decision of whether or not to put my hand up to help out with Peter Jackson's Gallipoli diorama. My first impression on hearing the news was one of excitement, but then I thought about it realistically. How could I commit to paint forty 54mm figures in two months? And the painting guides use GW or Tamiya - but I'm strictly Vallejo. I have painting commission work for Geoff and I have my endless array of projects to work through. Oh yes, and I work and have a family. So in the end I haven't volunteered. I'm sure they will get plenty of other people willing to help out, but for me it just isn't practicable.

Maybe February will be a bit slower...

Nate

Thanks Google!

Just a quick note to say that I complained to Google regarding the copyright of my Blog posts and the actions of Creepy Corridor. While they haven't blocked all of the reblogged posts, they have blocked most - especially the ones that showcase my IHMN and SAGA painting, which are real 'eye-candy' posts and the ones most precious to me. I probably didn't provide all of the URLs, as it is quite a long process and involved going through each of the pages of Creepy's blog and matching them to my own.
The point has been made though, and I feel happy with the outcome. If anyone reading this is ever affected by mass uncredited reblogging like this, it is worth taking the time to complain.
Now, back to those Normans...

Nate

All property is theft

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But what about wholesale reblogging without credit? I have to say that on one hand it bolsters my ego to know that someone likes my stuff enough to post it again on their own blog. And I'm absolutely fine with that - nothing I write or photograph is so earth-shatteringly amazing that I don't want other people to do what they like with it. But this week I was alerted to the fact that there was another blog out there called Creepy Corridor which has effectively reposted everything that I've done in the last few months. OK, a bit stalkerish, but not a huge issue. However, Mr Corridor has edited all of these posts to remove my name from them and has not even linked them back to where he got them from. Effectively Monsieur Corridor is making it look like these are his own posts. Herr Corridor is unknown to me. There is no indication of who or what the blog-owner is and there has been no contact to ask whether I mind if he does this.
This isn't the kind of thing that will bring down governments or depress the economy. It isn't a matter of life and death, and as the revenue stream from my blog consists of a couple of prizes that I've won, it isn't impacting on my income. But it is pissing me off. My hope is that by posting this Senor Corridor will either desist from reposting EVERYTHING I do, or at least have the good manners to ask first or to provide a link to the site that it came from.
I haven't provided a link to CC's blog, because I'd rather not have any formal link between the two. If you want to google it and see what I'm ranting about, it was #3 google-whack for me.

A genuine photo of me about to go postal on something!

Nate (how I sign off all of my posts unless someone is reblogging them and removing my name)