Quote from: sunjester on 02 January 2015, 07:07:05 PM
4x2 lump of wood for settling arguments in the car park etc

We used 4x4 

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

It's not the width, it's the length! 

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

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

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! 

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

Quote from: fsn on 03 January 2015, 10:46:45 AM
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 

QuoteI 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.

Quote
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!"   

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

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.

Only one: people who take it way too seriously 

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)

Quote from: Last Hussar on 08 February 2015, 12:38:56 PM

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....

Quote from: FierceKitty on 08 February 2015, 12:48:16 PM
Followed by a turkey like 7th edition....

We agree on some things then....

IanS

If you're on small bases (40mm or less wide) with multiples making up a unit then in wouldn't worry about diorama-ing them... I prefer bigger based units though so I like the look of rocks, clumps of foliage etc all making an interesting looking unit. I wouldn't fuss about puttin the farrier on and having the generals horse shoed or dragoon stealing chickens or nco's telling off a working party etc etc.

I would. I love all those little extra touches.

Maybe on command bases or the baggage, but whilst I like my bases to be scenic I like units to be premierly unit-y

Quote from: FierceKitty on 08 February 2015, 12:48:16 PM
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....

It was WRG who made me give up Ancients for forty years. Them and certain players.....

Quote from: Hertsblue on 09 February 2015, 09:36:31 AM
It was WRG who made me give up Ancients for forty years. Them and certain players.....

Not from Nottingham and Pinnar by any chance...

had to sit on the London ones as an umpire once or twice.

IanS