Q of the Week: Magazines?

[huascar]

I am always surprised by the strong reactions magazines provoke. I regularly get both Wargames Illustrated and Miniature Wargames from my local newsagent and I find them to be a great source of inspiration. In its latest incarnation Wargames Ilustrated is a lavish and substantial publication - sure there is always a decent FOW section, but it is far from a FOW catalogue and the FOW content is basically extra pages added on top of the old magazine (while I don't play FOW the articles and images are well done and usually an enjoyable read). Miniature Wargames has also lifted it's game recently - the new format is better looking and better organized. On balance I enjoy MW more as it's articles seem to have a greater gaming focus (as opposed to modeling) but I think both are worth the price (noting that I am in Aust and they cost me about $15 each). In addition to WI and MW I also get the SOTCW journal (great read highly recommended) and I have recently taken out a PDF subscription to Battlegames (great initiative that I hope more magazines follow!).

So do I pay any attention to the advertising? As I am in Aust I get these magazine several weeks after UK release so I have generally seen most products online long before I see any magazine ads - but in general:

WI: No as ads are generally for the bigger players and I have seen most of it before.
MW: Ocassionally as they seem to attract a broader range of ads which highlight figures or companies I have not seen before (for example I followed up 2 ads from the latest issue).
SOTCW: Often as the articles and reviews commonly touch on figures and ranges that I was not previously aware of - also as many companies offer a SOTCW discount I am usually more motivated to follow up.

Personally I think the best form of magazine advertising is articles which include figures 'suggestions'. I am more likey to buy figures when I have been inspired by a period or a scenario. You might want to consider how you can motivate budding wargame writers to doing something around your figures? 

[Leon]

Personally I think the best form of magazine advertising is articles which include figures 'suggestions'. I am more likey to buy figures when I have been inspired by a period or a scenario. You might want to consider how you can motivate budding wargame writers to doing something around your figures? 

Interesting stuff there, cheers.  We're always open to people writing about our products, the problem seems to be that the bigger magazines aren't that keen on putting much 10mm in their articles.  There is a SCW article currently being done for MW, with our figures (painted by Nik), but apart from that, we haven't had anything featured for some time.

The one exception to that is Wargames Recon, the new mag on the block, who've only been going since the start of the year.  So far they've included our stuff in all three issues, and it's nice to see 10mm gaming getting a bit more coverage.

[17-21l]

Leon - why dont you write an article for the mags?? " the advantages of 10mil" or somat like that , and include some fab painted figures from the forum - lets face it there are some beauties.  I beleave its figures that interest people!!, not periods , theyre already into what they are into so if they see some 10mm that are well painted- well who knows?

Some of those FAB AWI  or SYW painted figs and some WW2, that'll get em hungry for more.  :

[Leon]

Maybe, I'm sure me and Dave could have a go at something.

[jchaos79]

If you write it, just tell around here to buy the magazine 

[Leveller Mutineer]

I like Miniature Wargames mag.  In fact I've written articles for it, but only for the previous regime.  Perhaps I should do a couple more for the new geezer.

[goat major]

Maybe, I'm sure me and Dave could have a go at something.

you really should. 'Ive lost count of the number of articles i've seen by Pete Berry in various magazines pushing 6mm. Its time for the 10mm fightback!!!

[nikharwood]

Good point...maybe we should all pitch in, eh??!

[Leon]

you really should. 'Ive lost count of the number of articles i've seen by Pete Berry in various magazines pushing 6mm. Its time for the 10mm fightback!!!

Does he?  I didn't realise that.  I've been thinking about this tonight while casting, maybe we could come up with something.

[Shaun]

Hi

the thing with pete and the 6mm articles is that it is either pushing the 'polemos' ruleset or dispelling the myth ( probably created by Pete;) ) that 6mm are hard to paint....

I think if we which to push 10mm Articles we need to adopt (or write yet another) set of rules that shows the benefits we already know about...

for me 10mm comes into its own at many levels (yes, cost)  but also the size lends itself to large formed units... hence why i play Impetus with it, the bases are like diarama's and the game is good, the figures can be seen for what they are straight away and the formations are all there, no fiddly figure removal either....

and for HnM games Black Powder... what we discovered is that if you drop to 10mm on 3 30mm base (approx 100mm frontage of unit) that the ground scale for a 6x4 talbe actually becomes the equivalent of something like a 12x9 table in 28mm again the rules do not have figure removal until the unit breaks... so all nicely painted figures get to be on table longer!!

once you decide on a period/ruleset i think the best type of article would be to go along the lines GWs 'battle of 4 gamers' so that you take 4 peoples version of raising troops, building armies  and eventually playing a game, either using a budget or a timeframe, or both!!

for example... take 1066... and Basic impetus.... and say a budget of 40£ per gamer... one makes a viking army, one  saxon army and two opt for Normans.. (or one norman and one arab army as the first crussade wasnt far away) each game r then shows how he looked at his BI army list, bought the figures he wanted, created units and styled the bases how he wanted... and then played the other players... culminating in merging the armies to play a big 2 vrs 2 game of full Impetus

example of HnM period would be to maybe do the Imag-nations option, 4 gamers, 4 imaginary 17C armies based and painted in differnet colours... maybe create a small force generator to vary the troops available  to each gamer... like rolling up a space marine chapter in the first rogue trader book ( yes, i am that old ) so some forces have more infantry available (city states) while other are mor cavalry and light troops (agricultural states) while other have better trained troops (rich states). forces then gwet painted in difierent colours... maybe the local football temas colors hmmm, glad i dont live in Norwich altho a yellow army faced green might be nice

just some ideas

Shaun

[Leon]

Thanks for that Shaun, I'll have a think about this over the next few weeks.

[DanJ]

I used to buy WI and MW and now subscribe to Battlegames, personally if I've forked out good money I'll read everything in a mag several times including the adverts although as apart from a few 28mm WW1 figures all I've bought for about 3 years are 10mm armies I couldn't say that figure adverts actually make me buy new stuff.

As for writing articles the problem is it's bloody hard work (for very little reward although that's not the reason for writing anything for a wargames mag).  A 5000 word article will take me about 20 hours of typing, which doesn't include research, maps and other illustrations. So I'm afraid the chances of seeing lots of articles here or on any other website are pretty small.