Overstuffed market?

[toxicpixie]

That's covered under PSA. We shall now spend eleventy gazillion hours on innumerable posts discussing this. And still not get a consensus

[Roy]

My old dad worked for PSA on Catterick Garrison in the 1980s and early 90s. That was until they changed the name to NOREAST, government funding cuts decimated MOD spending and then they got rid of PSA altogether and contracted out maintenance of British Army property to Balfour Beaty.
Rather a bugger it was, too. Could have been posted as a family to Cyprus or, possibly if they did allow the family (I can't remember) to Belize. Might have been fun plagued with tropical diseases.

Or is it a different PSA you're talking about? 

[Wulf]

Public Service Announcement? With that cartoon cat yowling warnings?

[toxicpixie]

I rest my case

[Roy]

Google gives the meaning to PSA as

"Prostate Specific Antigen
PSA is a blood test that is commonly used to help predict the presence of prostate cancer. It stands for Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and refers to a protein first identified in 1979 that is made only by the prostate gland."

I just think they're talking out of their ars*.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Ars, just outside of Metz, on the way up to Gorze. Stopped in a lovely bar there many times!

[Wulf]

Ars Gratia Artis

[fsn]

But, Milord Oik, you still have to consider scale. Skirmish? Tactical? Grand Tactical? Operational? Stategic? Stupidly Big?

Why? A tank model is either a tank, or a troop or a squadron or a regiment. Your naked tribesman is either "Ug", the club wielding brute, or Ug's family, or Ug's clan or the whole Uggish race.

Your 400 beautifully painted French line infantry of 1812 are either a battalion, a brigade or a division largely dependent upon the number of flags you have painted.

What we do, and this is where the real heresy comes in, is the same as board gamers, but with prettier counters. 

[Wulf]

I heartily agree with that (since I mostly play Boardgames...), but it falls apart in specific situations, specifically terrain. Skirmish scale requires different terrain to Operational, etc.  Otherwise you get tanks that can't move their own length in a turn...

[fsn]

I heartily agree with that (since I mostly play Boardgames...), but it falls apart in specific situations, specifically terrain. Skirmish scale requires different terrain to Operational, etc.  Otherwise you get tanks that can't move their own length in a turn...

Tush and fie! A skirmish stream is a brigade's river.  As long as you are consistent, you just adjust the relative time/distance scales. In skirmish you play 1 move = 1 seconds, in division 1 move = 15 seconds.  in skirmish 1" = 1yd , in division 1" = 15 yards. It's all relative.

[fred.]

I heartily agree with that (since I mostly play Boardgames...), but it falls apart in specific situations, specifically terrain. Skirmish scale requires different terrain to Operational, etc.  Otherwise you get tanks that can't move their own length in a turn...

I remember this with the rules we used as a kid, with 1/72nd plastics, infantry couldn't move the length of a tank in a turn. I think the rules were notionally 1/1000 ground scale.

[fred.]

Why? A tank model is either a tank, or a troop or a squadron or a regiment. Your naked tribesman is either "Ug", the club wielding brute, or Ug's family, or Ug's clan or the whole Uggish race.

Your 400 beautifully painted French line infantry of 1812 are either a battalion, a brigade or a division largely dependent upon the number of flags you have painted.

What we do, and this is where the real heresy comes in, is the same as board gamers, but with prettier counters. 

While the model can very easily represent all these scales of units, just by changing the names, the rules have to treat them differently. Ug the individual can turn and react to threats on his flank, much more easily than can the whole Uggish race.  The bigger the group that your it represents the shorter individual weapon ranges get, relative to the size of the group, so in a skirmish game Ug could throw his javelin many times the width of his base footprint, but if it's the whole Uggish race represented by the same figure, then the range of the javelin may be so short as to be just part of hand to hand melee.

[Leman]

TBH I'm glad that there isn't one set of rules, because if there was you can bet your life it would have WRG stamped all over it, and how naff would that be. I for one am very happy that rules have developed over the years to give better and better games for someone like me (not OCD or bolt counter or in the 'that weapon will always beat that weapon' camp). Of note recently have been Neil Thomas' books, Dux Bellorum, BBB, Honours of War, Black Powder, Impetus, Baroque and so on; all a million miles away from the tedium of WRG.

[Dr Dave]

It strikes me as a strange stance to take: too many rules? 

No one has to buy them all. Just look at the media - how many newspapers are there? You don't buy them all - only the ones you like and trust.

If I popped into the supermarket for cereal they'd think me very odd if I complained about too much choice! 

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Are any newspapers trustworthy...they almost all lied over brexit after all.