"best month in ages for wargame mags." Topic

This must be the first month that I have bought all 4 wargame mags from news stands.

Just picked up the wargames illustratedm, themed on Market Garden (next month even better, it is on 1066). Battlegames as always is simply a good cover to cover read. Wargames Solders and Strategy is themed on AWI and Miniature wargames not themed and therefore plenty of variety.

My one annoyance is here I am with 4 mags in front of me and nothing that really reflects 6mm and 10mm scales – if the mags would only do some 'real players' tables, we would see more of that.

Well, the last issue of WS&S had an entire article singing the praises of 10mm gaming…

The photographs that support the Polotsk article in this months Miniature Wargames is also supported by shots of 6mm figures, however the scale is not mentioned in the article or in the description of the shots.

We are talking about over 270 pages of content (incl adverts of course) across the 4 mags, which are themselves generally typical of the scale content of previous issues of the mags that have gone before.

It remains the (ongoing) case that the 6mm / 10mm content across the mags is not reflective of what is going on in the hobby and that eye candy takes precedence …. unless of course it is true that there are relatively few of us using the smaller scales (and tables) and the mags have it pretty much right!

I agree about 6mm and 10mm not appearing enough – I would like to see more shown

@normsmith

Thanks for the compliments.

If people send me good articles featuring 6/10mm, *I will publish them*. Baccus, Magister Militum and Pendraken know I have bought their products myself – but I can't write the entire mag! The other thing is that smaller scales are tricky to photograph effectively, and all us editors rely primarily on photos taken by the contributors themselves. I take as many pics as I can of games when I see them at shows, but only use them when they are relevant to the articles.

Henry

As a photographer and regular contributor to Wargames Illustrated, I always try to cover the smaller scale figures, particularly as they are my personal interest at the moment, but photographing small figures invariably poses more problems than photographing larger ones. The control of lighting, or correct use of reflectors is more important for a start. The other issue is the degree of magnification necessary to create an image which is comfortable to view on the page. If you want a photo in a magazine that is say, 6" x 4" with the main subject matter filling the image area, it stands to reason that a 6mm or 10mm figure will need far more enlarging that a 28mm figure.

Putting this 'tactfully', the higher the degree of enlargement the more detail of the image is revealed, 'warts and all'. Over the years I've photographed a lot of small scale figures, all of which have looked excellent when viewed at normal viewing distance which is perhaps 9" or 10" away, BUT often the size that a small scale figure appears 'on-the-page' is the equivalent of holding that figure just a few inches away from you, and that amount of magnification really does ‘sort the men out from the boys' when it comes to small scale figure painting. Fortunately, because of the generally high standard of figure painting these days, I have been able to photograph and feature small scale figures in my show reviews and features on many occasions.

Most recently my review of Colours 2012 ( PDF link ) included some photographs of an excellent 6mm recreation of the battle of Borodino with figures painted by Don Crane of The Old Guard Wargamers. These Adler figures were painted magnificently and I took a number of close-up photographs of them to show what was possible in this scale. Unfortunately there wasn't space to include them in the feature. Its also true to say that on this occasion I think the Editor wanting to show one of the benefits of smaller scale figures notably that they make it possible to field really impressive looking armies en masse, which unless you are working on a club project would be financially crippling in 28mm.

Regarding the photography of miniatures I wrote a short article in Wargames Illustrated 297 ( July 2012 ) , which sets out how I approach the subject. Incidentally, the article includes photographs of 6mm and 10mm figures. Hopefully the information contained therein will be useful to anyone wanting to submit photographs and articles to any wargames magazine.

And in closing I'll repeat the often repeated heart felt advice from all magazine editors… "We don't have full-time staff writing articles for us, we HAVE to rely on articles ( and photographs ) submitted by our readers, so if you want to see a particular subject covered, then whilst we'll do our best, in most cases, its ‘down to the readers', so why not have a go… and earn yourself a bit of money too".

Regarding the photography of miniatures I wrote a short article in Wargames Illustrated 297 (July 2012), which sets out how I approach the subject.

Paul, I missed that issue! Is there any chance you could get the guys to post it on the website? I'd happily reprint it in BG too if you like and if Dan had no objection.

Henry

Henry, I'll contact Dan tomorrow and see what I can do. To be honest, I don't know what determines which articles are posted on the website archive,and which are not, but certainly this particular article would in my humble opinion be helpful 'across the board'.

Ooooh, I'll definitely be getting that new WI issue with 1066 as the theme.

Normsmith says:

The photographs that support the Polotsk article in this months Miniature Wargames is also supported by shots of 6mm figures, however the scale is not mentioned in the article or in the description of the shots.

The caption reads:
1812 Campaign game staged using 6mm figures…