| Whirlwind | 20 Oct 2012 5:51 a.m. PST |
I thought this might be of interest to some: link Regards |
Old Glory  | 20 Oct 2012 7:13 a.m. PST |
I stopped buying or looking at wargame magazines years ago.
The only reason I ever looked at them was for the add's and to see new product -- the computer. sites like this one, individuals bogs,etc now provide that.
Regards
Russ Dunaway |
79thPA  | 20 Oct 2012 7:51 a.m. PST |
I've been buying WS&S lately. It is the closest to what I need in a magazine. MWAN was the last mag that was always worth subscribing to. |
 Murphy | 20 Oct 2012 8:11 a.m. PST |
Like 79th said…I missed MWAN…and while the current WI is good, It's rare that I find something there to make me go "I need this issue"… |
| GildasFacit | 20 Oct 2012 8:40 a.m. PST |
Haven't had much interest in the few I have seen over the past 10 years. Ancient Warfare & Medieval Warfare seem about the best formats around at the moment but they are not periods that I'm currently playing. 'Eye Candy' is a waste of paper to me and I don't need the adverts like I did pre-internet. Badly written and poorly researched articles are what I hear most complaints about from those who do still get them but that is a shrinking breed. |
| DisasterWargamer | 20 Oct 2012 9:00 a.m. PST |
Really enjoyed MWAN (Thanks Hal) – pick up an occassional one now for the eye candy and inspiration only |
| morrigan | 20 Oct 2012 9:18 a.m. PST |
Don't buy them anymore. I agree – Hal's MWAN really set the standard for me. |
| normsmith | 20 Oct 2012 9:31 a.m. PST |
I quite like to bomb out with a magazine and a coffee, a sort of self indulging bit of quality time. However, they do not compete well with the interactive and informative nature of the internet and I tend to flick through them rather than really stopping and reading many of the articles. I dislike historical articles with a 'how to wargame it' section bolted onto the end. If I want to read history then there are better sources to get that kind of stuff. I would also like to see more 'real' wargame tables rather than just eye candy and I do not need the superficial reports of shows. Articles on actual wargaming are what is needed (problem being a mag can only publish what is provided) and I miss the old 'Practical wargaming' in this regard, there was certainly an emphasis on the 'practical' aspect. I do to some degree resent the fact that the internet undermines so much of daily life as I once knew it, such as magazine circulations (in general) dropping and town centres turning into shadows of former selves but it does seem the nature of the beast and an unstopable force in that regard. The real downside of the internet for me has been how much of my spare productive time I spend on-line, that used to be spent doing other 'real' things. As much as I enjoy sitting in fron of the screen, it has enslaved me as much as it has liberated me. |
| BigNickR | 20 Oct 2012 8:07 p.m. PST |
The internet is my wargaming magazine. Like Egon said in Ghostbusters: "Print is dead" |
| FigKeeper | 21 Oct 2012 6:55 p.m. PST |
I buy and read a lot of them, but nevertheless find the product a mixed bag. What I enjoy most are tips and techniques on painting, gaming, building, and so forth, and even the occasional well-written game report. What I enjoy least are frothy convention summaries, endless rule reinterpretations or inventions, and the loose (in some cases, exceedingly loose) history that fills up many of the articles with, as a colleague earlier said, a gaming bit "bolted onto the end." The photos, generally, are welcome, although the painting quality on display defeats me, as are the ads. As someone else noted above, I guess there's a practical quality I miss in them, and perhaps a bit less navel-gazing about rules and so on, instead of discussions and presentations that are of more more immediate help or interest. Perhaps more 15mm and 6mm too, including micro-armor? Now that's just crazy talk!! |
| sumerandakkad | 22 Oct 2012 4:19 a.m. PST |
The above are all the reasons I no longer buy wargames magazines.
Many battles have been covered and you do tire of them being printed time after time.
But that is because I have been wargaming a long time. Others newer to the hobby may need the inspiration of some of these articles as I did in my earlier years.
I get more enjoyment from TMP now as it is more diverse interesting and immediate. |
dampfpanzerwagon  | 23 Oct 2012 5:27 a.m. PST |
This may be of interest.
link Tony |
| OSchmidt | 25 Oct 2012 10:43 a.m. PST |
Generally I agree with the originator of the thread. Rehashes of historical battles published elsewhere are never gazed upon. As for battle reports, when I wrote battle reports for Historical Gamer or The Courier, they always had to have at least three times the wordage given to purple prose to illustrations of how the game worked so the reader could gain an idea of what was going on. This meant that reules specific to the game were detailed, or a disquisition into the do's and don'ts of a rule and how it made for fun or the justification of the same. Most appreciative was discussons of gaffes to a specific rule and their fixes. Staged pictures of other peoples figures came in with less interest than the historical accounts. Nowdays I don't read War Games Magazines, the only "Hobby" magazines I subscribe to are Model Railroader and Model Railroad Craftsmen and I do so for the terrain and building construction. r |
| onmilitarymatters | 29 Nov 2012 2:55 p.m. PST |
Here at Dennis' shoppe… Although not a "magazine" in the sense of a periodical, Wally Simon's "Secrets of Wargame Design: Vol 1" (edited by me: Russ "MagWeb" Lockwood) provides a lot of the nuts and bolts of wargame design. I just released Vol 2 "More Secrets of Wargame Design" at Fall-In with even more nuts and bolts articles. One of the articles in Vol. 1 (AWI Morale) was used as the cover story in December's Miniature Wargames. The articles originally came from WS' PW Review newsletter from the 80s to 00s, edited quite a bit by me. Free sample article at: OMM: Secrets of Wargame Design --Russ Lockwood |
| surdu2005 | 17 Dec 2012 2:21 p.m. PST |
So far, I've heard a lot about what people DON'T like about the current raft of gaming magazines. TMP messages boards are good at negative. If you were going to design a gaming magazine to meet your needs, what would it be like? Buck Surdu |
| GNREP8 | 30 Dec 2012 11:00 a.m. PST |
The internet is my wargaming magazine. Like Egon said in Ghostbusters: "Print is dead" --------------------
As said by others above, you still can't beat a magazine, a copy of coffee (or green tea) and a choccy biscuit. I spend all day sat in front of a PC – the last thing I want to do is then read a magazine on it (plus since most of us are men, I'm sure there's a number who like to peruse old wargaming magazines in the smallest room in the house for that new period one is into – can't really do that even with a tablet). Also MWAN, The Courier etc were all US publications anyway that we never saw in the UK |
