| Figure Gaming | Berkeley Vale Wargames Club | Board Gaming | ||
| Cirencester Wargames Club |
| The following is distilled from 28 years worth of conversations with people who discover that I wargame | ||
| What is wargaming? | ||
| Simulating military history using small objects to represent armies. | ||
| What? | ||
| Ok - I play with toy soldiers on the dining room table. | ||
| How old are you? | ||
| 40-ish | ||
| Are you a frustrated war-monger? | ||
| No fortunately I'm not. I just like military history. I have no desire to inflict pain, suffering or my point of view on any individual regardless of nationality, race, religious / moral beliefs or sexual orientation. | ||
| Do you like dressing up in uniforms and posing in front of the mirror? | ||
| Yes - as
Mr Floppy the naughty... sorry wrong web-site! No I do not like dressing up in uniforms - not even to re-enact battles in a field on a wet weekend with loads of other individuals. |
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| Don't you find recreating war morally reprehensible? | ||
| I
occasionally do have a problem with this aspect of
wargaming and I don't really have an answer for it. I know some wargamers who will not recreate wars in which any individual may still be living. Others won't have anything to do with gunpowder. With me it is whether I have an interest in the period concerned. At the end of the day it's my karma. |
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| So why do you wargame? | ||
| On the one
hand the wargame is a central point built up from reading
about and/or researching a) the politics, social and economic factors and geography that led to the war being fought b) the armies and their uniforms, weapons, tactics and leaders that fought the war c) the causes and outcomes of the battles, campaigns and wars On the other it is an evening spent socialising with other gamers. |
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| How do you wargame? | ||
| The basics
of wargaming involve moving counters around on a map
according to a set of rules. The rules basically govern how far the counters can move, when they can fight and whether they run away. There are two main types of wargaming - board games and figure games. |
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| Board games - do you mean Monopoly? | ||
| Well at it's
simplest level yes. Board games use card board counters and a paper map with a grid of squares or hexagons superimposed on it. Board games cover anything from individual battles through campaigns and wars to entire epochs. Most board games are self-contained ie you buy the game and you have everything, the rules, the armies and the map. Click here to see a list of my board games |
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| Figure games - you mean playing with toy soldiers on the dining room table. | ||
| Figure
games use metal or plastic figures and are played on a
board covered with model trees, hills, roads, rivers and
buildings. The figures range in height from 2mm upto 54mm and usually require painting beforehand. The most popular scales are 15mm and 25mm. The board can be any size, the only restrictions being space available and the length of your arms ie can you reach the centre of the board. I use a 6 by 4 foot table. The weirdest aspect of figure games has to be the rules - there are hundreds if not thousands of sets of rules available for every conceivable period. There are simple rules and there are complex rules and a whole host of rules in between and then there are the rules you write yourself!. I like rules that are simple, fast, fun and don't involve any writing or record keeping. Rules reflect a gamer's personality! Unlike Board games Figure games are definitely not self-contained. You can buy the metal or plastic figures from hundreds of different manufacturers in several different scales or you can make your own. You can paint the figures in several types of paint, ie enamels, acrylics or oils and paint them in different styles, block coloured, highly detailed or just badly or you can get someone else to paint them for you. You can buy the terrain pieces, hills, roads etc from hundreds of different manufacturers in several different scales or you can make your own. You can buy the rules from hundreds of different publishers or get them off the web for free or you can write your own. And people wonder why the rec.games.miniatures.historical newsgroup is plagued with arguments and flame-wars Click here to see more info about my miniature figures |
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| Ending Number 1 - I think that you are a sad individual who gets his kicks from other people's misfortune | ||
| That is your opinion and I respect your views - thanks for reading this far - if you want to discuss it further please email me | ||
| Ending Number 2 - I want to start wargaming but I need more information | ||
| The Miniatures Page is
a good place for info - click here to go there Free Wargames Rules is exactly what it says it is - click here to go there The rec.games.miniatures.historical newsgroup is ok if you are prepared to wade through all the arguments etc I'm quite happy to point you in the right direction so please email me |
| Alan's Home page | email me |
| Last Updated 18/01/2004 |
| Copyright 2004World-wide Information Services Ltd |