Wargaming pet hates

[Sandinista]

4x2 lump of wood for settling arguments in the car park etc

We used 4x4 

[Ithoriel]

I thought 4x4's used to settle arguments in a car park were "technicals"

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

It's not the width, it's the length! 

[toxicpixie]

That's not a plank, it's a bloody table top!

[Hertsblue]

Remind me again - how many sixteenths of an inch in a furlong? No, on second thoughts, don't bother. 

[fsn]

Well ... a furlong is 10 chains or 220 yards. This is 660 feet or 7920 inches. Therefore a furlong is 126,720 sixteenths of an inch.

I love maths! 

[Hertsblue]

Sorry, while you were working that out we packed up and went home...

[Pijlie]

Well ... a furlong is 10 chains or 220 yards. This is 660 feet or 7920 inches. Therefore a furlong is 126,720 sixteenths of an inch.

I love maths! 

That's not furry long 

[DanJ]

I think there are two aspects to this.
Firstly, there is the fact that a large number of wargamers (rules writers?) are old farts like me who grew up using imperial and still think that way, I certainly still think in terms of feet and inches (6x4 wargames table, 4x2 lump of wood for settling arguments in the car park etc), miles and gallons.

Age is no excuse for fartyness, wargamers should be at the cutting edge of life; despite having been born at a time when we were taught the rules for mutiplying half dozen and dozens by old coppers to arrive at a price in shillings (1 dozen thrupney stamps would cost 3 bob or a florin and a couple of tanners) I've managed to enbrace the metric on the wargames table simply because it works better.

Secondly, I believe that USA have doggedly refused to adopt this French system of measurement so rules produced in the States or hoping to sell in quantity there use the good old imperial system.

And yet the 'Good Ole Boys' across the Atlantic (it' not a pond, it's a bloody great big ocean) manage to cope with most of their guns and ammo coming along in metric sizes so even that's not consistent.  I can almost hear the converstation,

Q "How far does this tank shoot?"

A "That 10mm model of the Sherman M4A1 can fire its 75mm gun twelve inches!"   

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Flames of War at least allows both measurement systems...
Imperial is slightly further for 75mm gun 32"vs 80cm.

[Dunnadd]

People who use a table edge to avoid being outflanked, instead of the right kind of troops, reserves, terrain or fortifications - and rules systems that let them.

Rules systems that are too random, or not random enough (need to get the balance right)

Rules systems that make some troop types virtually invulnerable

People claiming rolls are "practice rolls" if they don't roll high and then re-rolling.

People who argue for rules changes purely because they'd benefit their army.

[getagrip]

Only one: people who take it way too seriously 

[Last Hussar]

People who say "Can these rules be used with xxx size figures" ESPECIALLY if the size they want are smaller.  Smaller models are probably closer to the ground scale.  As long as relative footprint on the table is the same - Just put more (or fewer) figures on the base.  Alternatively read inches as cm, and keep everything else the same.

Game designers.  Not so much the rules, but the pointless instructions they feel it necessary to dictate.

1) Base sizes.  PICK SOMETHING EASY TO MEASURE AND CUT.  Fire and Fury uses 1 1/8th inch by 7/8th of an inch.  WTF?  In this household they are 30mm. (my 2 standard base sizes are 20mm and 30mm  Warmaster I have on 20x40, but future armies will be 20x20 with 2 together, so I can use them in other games as single stands.  The stands are not entirely unrelated to the fact that the compartments in the trays for Really Useful Boxes are 60mm square)

and while we are on it, Arty, how about your phrase

2)  "Each stand should be modelled to be an attractive diorama.".  I've got 100 bases, each of 5-7 figures, and the idea that I am going to sod about making interesting vignettes on each one is preposterous. And it may have escaped your notice, but soldiers tend to do the same as those around them, especially pre 20th century.

3) "If using 15 mm then multiply all distances by .66". See opening comment.  Also, given that none of the measurements in the rules are divisible by 3, don't you thing "a half" would have been better?

4) Any introduction that tells you these are the best rules ever.

5) Intros that feel the need to explain what a wargame is, and what the period of history is.  Who is buying these rules and DOESN'T know.  (A pass to games that cover a wide period of history, such as BP, which point out other wars that can be covered, especially if no one has ever heard of them - bonus points to BP for exhorting us to ignore players of the 2nd Schweissig-Holstein war)

[FierceKitty]

4) Any introduction that tells you these are the best rules ever.

Mmm, remember the way WRG used to preface EVERY dam' new set with the announcement that the archangel Gabriel had just given out this final and definitive set of rules which all gamingkind in common had craved since dice were first rolled? Followed by a turkey like 7th edition....

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Followed by a turkey like 7th edition....

We agree on some things then....

IanS