Nostalgia v today

[Norm]

Just thrown some thoughts down on the blog after re-purchasing an old (1974) book by Charles Grant, that my father originally bought me as a teenager.

Did we 'never really have it so good'?

LINK

http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/napoleonic-wargames-memory-lane.html

[fred.]

Interesting post Norm.

I certainly feel several of the points myself.

Back in the day, it was simpler, there was less choice, which probably made it easier for everyone to agree and get on with games. I'm probably 10 years younger than you, but my early 80s memories broadly tally. We played WWII with Airfix figures, and kits, with some new ESCI figures with some Matchbox and Hasegawa stuff thrown in as well. We didn't worry too much that some towered over others, even though they were notionally the same scale. I was happy just to have Shermans, rather than the bendy plastic M48s or whatever they were that came with the Airfix play sets. Painting figures and vehicles was rather secondary. And hills were white ovals of polystyrene ceiling tiles - that I remember asking for a large box of one birthday.

We then got into Fantasy with lead Citadel figures. But much of the same terrain as for WWII.

One friend did have some Napoleonics - but he was a rather on the fringe of the group, and I don't remember playing with these more than once.

So that was it, 2 periods. I suspect our teenage finances couldn't have supported more any way. But more wasn't readily available anyway.

I did pick up a copy of the rules we used back then, Operation Warboard, and the Bruce Quarrie rules (green book) but both where rather disappointing when looked at with today's knowledge and experience. Even back then we had created a fairly substantial set of house rules significantly modifying Op Warboard.

But we did enjoy the games - even if moving hundreds of single based plastic figures was rather a chore!

[Ithoriel]

Back in 1968 (aged 15) I had a large collection of plastic figures which were a mix of Airfix and US imports of the sort advertised on the back of comics. Birthdays, Christmasses, hoarded pocket money and the generosity of visiting relatives swelled the throng.

For land warfare I had WW2 Germans, Brits, Japanese and US Marines; I had Union and Rebs for ACW; French and British for Napoleonics; favourite period was Ancients and I had Imperial Romans, Ancient Brits and courtesy of Plasticene, banana oil, a craft knife and dressmakers pins, I had Arabs and Goths and finally some very dodgy US plastics providing the worlds least historical Trojan army I think the latter were rip offs of the Britains' Greeks but done in 1/72nd scale.

I had acquired two or three rule sets for each period, mainly Roneo'd off in what was literally purple prose! I can still recall the smell!!

We also did a fair bit of WW2 naval using Airfix kits on the back lawn and a variant Fletcher Pratt's naval rules from Don Featherstone's "Naval Wargames" but I think that was a year or so later.   

[Terry37]

I played my first wargame in the mid-fifties, with no written rules. I knew I was in trouble when my Renwal atomic cannon fired at an enemy truck and it was determined there was no damage!!!! Shortly after that his parents came home and were less than amused to see four young lads with army men and tanks all over their kitchen and den!!!! I got into what I would venture serious wargaming when in high school and then college in the 60's using converted Airfix figures doing ACW and a set of rules adapted from Donald Featherstone's "Tackle Model Soldiers This Way", which I had purchased (I still have that book). Then one day at the library, a regular hang out for me, I saw the Life magazine issue featuring the battle of Waterloo and that was all it took to plunge me head first into Napoleonic gaming - and I still play Napoleonic games (I also still have that issue of Life as well). Then Sports Illustrated did an article on the Sweet brothers and their AWI gaming and off I went again, always being a sucker for a colorful uniform (and yes, I still have that magazine too).

As I plundered my way through each new enlightenment I also discovered metal figures, and had ACW armies made of Bussler figures, and then got some SAE figures  and then learned of the "holy grail" at the time - Scruby Miniatures!  I even made a side trip on a business trip to California to visit Jack and do some gaming, which was very magical.


A picture of me at Jack Scruby's in 1973.

Then my career took hold and there was little time for much beyond getting to do some research every so often for the next 25 years. But then blessed retirement came along and once again I have been able to pursue a boyhood fascination of uniforms, painting figures and gaming. About 2003 I think it was,  I was first introduced to DBA, and fell in love with it, and then shortly after that to HOTT, and as time went by I saw HOTT as being much more fun and less dry than DBA, so that is my primary game today. I do play DBN for Napoleonics, and a little DBA-HX written to 2.2 for some non-DBA periods. My favorite periods are Ball and Musket, and Pike and Shotte, due just to all the great uniforms of those periods. But as a HOTT player I equally seem to enjoy total fantasy or futuristic stuff as well.

The biggest difference I've seen in all those years is the hobby is no longer a closet hobby as it was back in my early years - guys didn't want to be known as playing with toy soldiers. I never thought much about it and  just had fun and still do. Today it is a very open hobby with sooooo much available to consider in figures, rules, references, you name it.

Terry

[paulr]

A very interesting post Norm, I spotted several parallels

I agree with a comment on your blog, the wargaming is better now, the music was better then

I did pick up a copy of the rules we used back then, Operation Warboard, and the Bruce Quarrie rules (green book) but both where rather disappointing when looked at with today's knowledge and experience. Even back then we had created a fairly substantial set of house rules significantly modifying Op Warboard.

Our group still 'regularly' plays a house set of WWII rules based on an amalgam of Operation Warboard and Bruce Quarrie's rules
In fact we'll be playing them all day tomorrow in a large Eastern Front game on the outskirts of Leningrad

[kipt]

Terry, very similar to my intro to wargames.  I visited Scruby in 1967 I think. 

Joseph Morschauser's book (All about Wargames?) was reviewed in Popular Mechanics so I ordered it - perhaps 1964?  I still have it but can't find it at the moment - actually I have every book I ever bought on military history.

I have been painting and playing ever since.  Still working however; need to support the habit.
Kip

[fred.]

Our group still 'regularly' plays a house set of WWII rules based on an amalgam of Operation Warboard and Bruce Quarrie's rules
In fact we'll be playing them all day tomorrow in a large Eastern Front game on the outskirts of Leningrad

Paul, is this something you would be willing to share?

[Orcs]

I started proper wargaming with "Charge or how to play Wargames" by Brigadier P J Young.  using Airfix Napoleonic's reinforced with Airfix ACW figures, and some railway terrain made by Merit.

I must have been about 11 or 12 so it would have been Mid 70's.  I can remember typing the rules out on my Dads manual typewriter, and making the Canister frame from Garden wire and Dad buying me a piece of dowel  to make the Roundshot stick.  I still have the typed rules and the roundshot stick.

[paulr]

Our group still 'regularly' plays a house set of WWII rules based on an amalgam of Operation Warboard and Bruce Quarrie's rules
In fact we'll be playing them all day tomorrow in a large Eastern Front game on the outskirts of Leningrad

Paul, is this something you would be willing to share?

I'll check with the 'author' tomorrow and let you know

[fsn]

My first wargames book was "War Games" by the Blessed Featherstone. I took it out the local library almost continually for several years, and when it was discontinued I bought it. The Blessed Featherstone, the Grants, Bruce Quarrie and of course, HG Wells led the way.  Then point at which I said "whoa!" was Bruce Quarrie's "National Characteristics" in his "Napoleonic Wargames".

Since then, the advent of low cost computing has made wargaming (for me) simpler. I have a spreadsheet of WWII vehicles, with key data (armour, speed, weapon, crew etc) and that translates into the pages of look up tables of yesteryear. So now, I use a drop down of say a Churchill VII firing at a StuG III, and it the spreadsheet gives me range & penetration of the 75mm gun, the size of the StuG and it's armour. That's when I throw the dice ... and miss. (StuG's are like cockroaches on my table ... almost indestructible.)

Having said that, if you bury down deep enough, you'll find my rules stem from "War Games". I've certain layers of complexity, but kept the same structure, and as a solo gamer, it suits me fine.

I've looked at some "modern" rule sets, and "meh". How many sets of rules for the Napleonic period do we need? (I'd suggest max three - skirmish, division and army.) How many supplements do we need to WWII rules sets? Guess what? A Garand fired pretty much the same way on a Pacific Atoll as it did at Salerno. It seems to me that each new set has to find it's niche, and it's a combination of commerce and love of the subject that produce new ones.

The difference now is in many cases we are being sold systems - rules, figures, accessories and (in the case of Frostgrave) one colour of white paint for every word the Eskimos have for snow. Frostgrave is D&D and snow. Gangs of Rome. It's a skirmish game doing a Jets and the Sharks with togas.  It's a set of ancient skirmish rules with RPG overlays. Flames of War offers you every thing you need to game WWII on a glossy, expensive plate.  

So life was better in the 1970's*? Well the music was definitely better, the rules were simpler, and it took me a lot longer to comb my hair. Having said that, in terms of figures, life is so much rosier. Looking at a Battle magazine from January 1977 I see adverts from Skytrex, Heller, Minifigs, Heroics & Ros and New Model Army - basically Ancients, Napoleonics , ACW and WWII, with a frisson of "we're all going to die in WWIII" thrown in. C17 was "exotic"and there's an article about making Han Chinese from Airfix Romans. Minifigs foot figure cost 8p, now they're £1.30-£1.40. In the January 1975 Military Modelling there are two pages of local model shops. I notice with keen interest there were 3 in Liverpool.

Look at a wargames mag now, and there are dozens of adverts for every period you can think of and some you wouldn't. Pendraken makes "3700 products over 200 ranges" and we I still complain because they don't do Byzantines, Chariot Armies, Apaches and Amazons. We are spoiled for choice in ranges, scales, and poses. I am very lucky to be in then position of moaning that the mg teams are prone, and the Brunswick Avant Garde are in the wrong pose. In 1977 they were Airfix Confederates with a paint job!

In summary, we're spoiled for choice: we have more rulesets that we can comfortably burn in an arctic winter evening, we have a choice of figures that I literally used to dream about, we have resources galore - both online and hard copy, we have acrylic paints, we have on-line ordering and in some cases next day delivery (though my Amazon delivery yesterday was aborted because of "damaged package or dangerous substances").  

And yet.

And yet.

One of the reasons for my keeping away from the Wargaming fraternity is the application of all that wealth of resource. My WWII US forces will fight in any temperate theatre from Torch to the Rhine. They will battle on with the same welded hull Shermans for the whole war. Why? Because I like welded hull Shermans better than I like cast hull Shermans, but someone is bound to point out that on that Tuesday afternoon in 1945, all the Shermans were the later ... (at which point I tune out.) We discuss what colour was Confederate Grey, when we all know it was one of a dozen colours and didn't look like that after the first river crossing anyway. Then there are people who actually have an opinion on what a troll looks like.

So is wargaming better than it used to be? In some ways, yes.  What makes wargaming isn't just the paint jobs, isn't only the hours of research, but is in the joy of playing a competitive game. Here's a thought experiment. You are washed up on an island. You know you will be rescued in 2 weeks and you have all you need to survive comfortably. You have a beach. On the beach are shells and smooth stones; seaweed and a forum member of your choice. What period do you game, and how?  




*Scene from an old folks home in 2078

[Westmarcher]

 

Thank God, the YouTube video stopped ...  

Whilst I was preparing my own post, you were posting yours, Nobby, so I'll give your question more thought later.

Anyhoo, like many of us, my wargaming roots go back to Airfix models and figures, my own homespun rules, then Don Featherstone's and other "off the shelf" rules, Featherstone's Naval Wargames and Grant's The War Game, Airfix magazine, sandwich style balsa wood ships and figure conversions using plasticine and banana oil. Tried the Fletcher Pratt rules also, Ithoriel, but too complicated for my pals and took ages to calculate ship points.

Great looking back but The Good Old Days were also the The Frustrating Old Days with regards to the relative unsophistication of the hobby back then. Thankfully, I was not alone and we can now look back and see how this 'frustration' has propelled the hobby forward over the years. Everything is so much better now in every way - wider choice of miniatures, paints, basing, terrain, rules, books and general hobby information from the the likes of blogs, forums, magazines, YouTube, etc. And, of course, I now have more money and time to spend on the hobby.

Therefore, addressing "Nostalgia vs. Today," for me, "Today" wins also.

P.S. One era which is worth mentioning is my "Middle or Wilderness Years" when I neither had the the time, the space or the money but kept in touch with the hobby through mags and the odd visit to Claymore. In these years, nursing the hope that one day I would return (and I did! Huzzah!), I continued to search for the elusive "perfect" wargames rules. The trouble is there are no "perfect" rules just ones that you get very comfortable with. Now I don't know if anyone else agrees but I found that there was a period when rules were getting just too complicated and whilst their authenticity in representing the appropriate period of warfare was unparalleled in the history of wargaming, they were just not fun. As I got back into wargaming, after a hard, often stressful day at work, I just wanted something simple to pick up, give some flavour of the period played and be fast flowing and enjoyable. In that sense, I am therefore glad that this spirit of wargaming, the spirit that seemed to prevail in my nostalgia days, is back.  

[Terry - an audience with the famous Jack Scruby. Impressed!]

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nostalgia, it's not what it used to be...

[FierceKitty]

Isn't this one of those topics that come up every two months or so?

[Orcs]

Here's a thought experiment. You are washed up on an island. You know you will be rescued in 2 weeks and you have all you need to survive comfortably. You have a beach. On the beach are shells and smooth stones; seaweed and a forum member of your choice. What period do you game, and how?  

I agree with a lot of what you say, but If I was washed up on a desert Island for 2 weeks I can think of companions I would rather have than another forum member!! and consequently other games I would rather be playing.  

Karen Gillan
Anne Hathaway (You will definitely approve of that one)
Rose Leslie
Etc Etc.

[Orcs]

Isn't this one of those topics that come up every two months or so?

Yes because we have talked "b*ll*cks" round to the same subject again