"What is the appeal of Imaginations? " Topic

I am seeing more and more postings here on TMP about imaginations. I am sure there are no hard and fast rules as to how one goes about setting this up with their gaming buddies but I would like to read some pro and cons and how the experience has gone for those who have explored this area.

I know we have the famous (infamous) Bolognesia(sp?) which takes place in an Africaesque modern 3rd World conflict using AK 47 but I have also seen recent posts of Imaginations set during the War of Spanish Succession, as well as other periods. So how have you gone about setting this up?

Thanks

The AK 47 rule book has a section on setting up an imaginary African nation, complete with naming and flag convention.

Setting up your own nations, armies, characters to give you gaming scenarios based on 'real life'
What is not to like?

See the Emperor v Elector blog and all its associated links for 18th Century imagi-nations.

emperor-elector.blogspot.com

Jim

Dear Whitemanticore

The allure is simple.

It's your own creation.

It puts the rules lawyers and the Osprey Nazi's right out of business. You can paint what you want and game what you want and at the lowest level you don't get people saying.

"Oh my God! you have those troops in an 1807 game where everyone knows the facing were a dark carmine, but you have them painted in a fire engine red!"

or

"Everyone KNOWS tha the 443rd SS MessKit repair Battalion of the old guard would NEVER/ALWAYS have done that!"

But more than that it allows your imagination to run free untrammeled by reality. You can use corretly historically painted troops or completely made up uniforms.

But as I said that's only the lowest level. Remember that all the greats of the Wargame Hobby, H.G. Wells, Don Featherstone, Tony Bath, Charles Grant, Brigadeer Peter YOung, used imaginations. Part of this was pure need, they could not get historically accurate troops, but most of it was just the spirit of play. Tony Bath's Hyperborean campaign is legendary, as are the original "Emperor and Elector" campaigns of Peter Young.

I've been doing Imagi-Nations since the 70's and found it entirely wonderful. I do them in the Ancient world, 18th century and modern period. It allows you complete freedom to do what you want, paint what you want, organize and collect what you want.

Besides when you have allegedly historical gaming tournaments in ancients facing Byzantines against Old Kingdom Egyptians--guess what-- that's really an Imagi-nation Battle.

But the real fun is in the backstory, the history and write-ups and battle reports of your Imagi-nations, the fun of making up whacky and outrageous titles, of the grand burlesque of it all that is the real attraction. What is the allure of a Napoleon against that of Faustus the Grump, Military Genius of the World, and so forth.

If you are interested, the Society of Daisy is the oldest Yahoo list dedicated to fun, fellowship, and imagi-nations, and boasts a spirited group of gamers who talk about this all the time. Further, their newsletter "Saxe N'Violets," a print newsletter, is published quarterly and has usually about 8 tabloid pages, both sides (8 8 1/2 by 11 pages) in full color dealing with imagi-nations and their creation.

The Society has recently compiled its complete guide to creating and inspiring imaginationss along with suggestions of rules, game control procedures and how to do articles. We are publishing it over the next two years in serialized form.

All I can tell you is that it's a complete emancipation of the Imagination, and in the Imagi-Nation, there is almost nothign you can't do. It's a huge amount of fun.

Also, we are holding our fourth annual convention in Lancaster PA, June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, and each convention features several "imagi-nation battles."
It's invitation only, but if you want an invitation, just ask. We do this because we don't want to man a registration desk, so everything is done through the mail ahead of time. The cost for the convention is free if you stay at the Continental Inn (we get a room credit towards the 5,000 square foot balroom we use, and if you stay elsewhere we just ask for a $10 USD donation.

This year the theme of the Weekend is "When Wars Were Worth it!" The Great age of the B movie.

Next year it will ahve an ancient theme and it will be "Honey I sacrificed the kids!

Very serious persons who don't have a sense of humore are advised this may not be for them.

Setting up your own nations, armies, characters to give you gaming scenarios based on 'real life'
What is not to like?

plus there's the painting up of armies the way you want them to look, this is especially true for the 18th century

Does Bolognesia sponsor Oscar Meyer products? I know the Bongolesians don't put up with any real baloney.

The appeal is simple; when "that guy" points out that the senior NCO of a regiment only has three buttons on his right cuff but four on his left, you tell him it is to commemorate an incident when the senior NCO was in command of the regiment due to casualties and the army commander ordered them to hold a key piece of terrain blah, blah. The NCO then held his salute, even when a stray bullet tore off one of the buttons on his cuff, until it was returned by the general, blah, blah. That usually shuts them up and is a better story than, "it was late and I was tired".

Interesting. I just thought it was called, "Fantasy gaming". [Runs, hides under a blanket.] ;-)

Seriously, fantasy gaming is the same thing. Some of us rely on published game worlds/armies, and some of us make up our own. The only difference here, is that imagi-nations are more historically based, than perhaps most fantasy armies. Actually, though, most fantasy armies are comprised of primarily historical Human army figure types, so we fantasy gamers are not much different than the imagi-nation folks. Cheers!

Sgt Slag, I agree.
The Fantasy/ImagiNations distinction is simply between those whose imaginary armies contain non-human troops from folklore, mythology, Tolkien &c., and those whose human armies follow historical precedent regarding uniform, weaponry and so on.
In practice, many ImagiNations are set post-invention of gunpowder, whereas many Fantasy armies are ancient/medieval in their armament.

I think the idea of creating your own nation – with backstory, geography, uniforms, heraldry, etc – is the appeal

While I have four large historical SYW armies, I also have a SYW Imagination – partially because I want an army with light blue coats on the infantry and brightly coloured guards regiments!

Wow! What a fantastic response. OShmidt I would love an invitation, sadly I will not have the free time this month to attend. Regardless, I will look up the yahoo group and ask to join. Perhaps I will be able to make the event next year. I also agree that Sgt. Slag has the right of it in some respects. Glad I asked the question.

I'd like to second what others, especially OShmidt, have said. regarding history, geography, heraldry, uniforms, imagination, freedom and fun.

There's also a certain satisfaction that comes from creating a plausible, if fictitious, nation. A place like Bongolesia wouldn't be nearly as fun if it had 5,000 SU-33s 10,000 Leopard II tanks. and five aircraft carriers. The fact my imagination was still fielding FT-17s in 1940 is part of it's appeal.

Put simply, it allows you to game a period without doing any research. (This can actually be more difficult than doing the research: Making up stuff isn't as easy as it sounds)

Imaginations have always been part of wargaming. As Otto Schmidt said, many of the founding fathers of wargaming have used imaginations.
In 'Playing at the World', an excellent book (2012) by Jon Peterson, this part of the history of wargaming is explored in depth.

I guess imaginations in miniature wargaming went out of vogue during the 70s, mostly because the idea of creating (fantasy) worlds went to the new spin-off hobby called fantasy roleplaying. Anyone interested in dreaming up new worlds and stories probably went into D&D or other roleplaying systems.

Only since the beginning of this century, Imaginations have been 'rediscovered' in (historical) miniature wargaming (It always was part of fantasy wargaming). Of course, there always have been people that kept the fire awake, but the broad interest in the idea really surged during the past years with countless blogs devoted to the subject.

It is just a fun thing to do, although being boringly unimaginative my 'Imaginations' always have historical prototypes.

Whilst I have done the AK47 thing the various participants look suspiciously like 1960s Kenyans plus supporting British troops any my 1970s imaginary Napoleonic campaign featured real BRitish, Prussian & French formations.

The only one I've really gone to town on are my 54mm Funny Little Wars chaps where it is sort of expected. My lot are pantomime baddies who bear a strong resemblance to 1866 era Prussians.

I think there is a difference (to me at least) between imaginations and using historical troops in a fictional setting.

The former does not float my personal boat as I like the research element to the hobby. I am quite happy to do the latter.

Its good that we all find different ways to enjoy our hobby!

Dear Thread

Of course it's fantasy gaming. But ALL wargames are fantasy gaming. Just depends on what you frame the game to be. Once you bring in dice and allow for "what-If" and Nappy winning at Waterloo or Lee at Gettysburg, the door is open, the lid is off, and heck-- you aren't thinking outside the box-- you've BURNED the box!

It's fantasy gaming except that in this case, instead of dragons and balrogs, and the other fantasy creatures, and you taking them on with a sword, you have an army behind you of your own creation. This can be an army that looks suspiciously like the Prussian Army of the Seven Years War, or the Roman Legions of Caesar, or it can be something else and look like the regiments of my Saxe-Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein in pink coats and brightly colored facings. You can have absolutely ordinary troops, or you can have, as one of my armies does, horse artillery which is simply a wagon with a post in the back with a little mini-carronade for blasing out grapeshot (and which requires a roll on a breakdown table to see if you pop the wheels off the wagon and wind up flat on the ground after each shot.

There are two allures to wargames in my opinion. The first is "Sense of Wonder." which is the "WOW NEAT!!!!!!!" factor when we see some spectacular creation or breathtaking terrain, or really cool thing, and the second is the "Spirit of Play" which is nothing more than the "Let's make believe" factor of new and unexplored lands, or new challenges or "What If What If What If."

"What if I were Rommell, What if we had fanatical troops, What if I What if…" We are tantalized by the possibilities and the allure of wargames has always been the visual treat of armies massed for battles with colors flying and (even if only in our minds ear) drums beating and bands playing, and the idea that we can be in an exciting haunting, evocative new world.

For me there's another side to it.

I've read and studies history all my life. A historian may be a scholar, he may be a buff, he may be an enthusiast, and he may be an investigator, but one thing sll historians are is a coroner of the crimes of humanity, a doxographer of the dreadful and demonic. For the person who engages an imagination it offers a way out. In the buffoonery of absurd leaders, lascivious duchess' princess in distress, bumbling heroes and absurd situations we rescue ourselves from the dolorous reality of real history.

Can ANYONE take seriously the Nazi's in a Mel Brooks Film? Is the whole mystique of "National Socialism" not atomized by watching the The Three Stooges in "I'll never Heil Again!"

In the realm of humor we are allowed to laugh at God and the Devil, and poke fun at the super-serious people who so spread human misery and suffering in the world.

"Sense of Wonder- Spirit of Play" and both of them pure enjoyment.

Otto

Lets not forget re-purposing figures as well. A great way to make use of those figures that have been gathering dust since a particular period is on the outs with your gaming groups. It also allows you to combine troops that historically weren't together. What-ifs can be fun this way.

I had friends that took their WRG 7th armies and used them for D&D battles around particular campaigns.

Dear Ancients Gamer

Right you are! Like all wargamers I have bought glassines of troops of this period and that period where I thought I might get interested in something (like Ming Chinese). Nothing ever came of it and I have all these odd boxes of figures wondering what I could do with them. As I only had four to six of each you can't make a unit of them

Au Contraire!

In my fantasy army I created a regimental gun for each regiment, which, is somewhat accurate. I then decided that these odd boxes would wind up as the "gunners" of these regimental guns. In Saxe Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein I created the entirely justifiable historical fiction that each colonel took to uniforming the gunners of this gun in wild and outlandis "gala uniforms" for the parties and holidys and parades, much like they actually did for the musicians and bands-- as a point of vanity. Thus I turned all those Ming Infantry, Greek Evzones, Theban Hoplites, Indian Naiks, Female Pirates, and odd-lot miniatures into gunners and am painting them up as the gun crews in their "gala" uniforms (in the field they theoretically wear their field dress, but what the heck!

Oh, by the way, os as not to unbalance the game, the "guns" these regimental gunners use are small howitzers which throw a shell too small to be any real danger, and in fact, the gun is used as a mortar to fire the fireworks shot off on the Princess' Birthday. They have no damage factor and can't hurt anything! They simply stand around and look pretty.

Of course along with the Spring reviews there are costume parties and the competition is intense among the regiments to see what new and extrabagant get up they can manage.

Of course the campaigning season in my imaginary world goes from April 1 where all officers have to start getting back to where the army was in winter quarters, and real campaigning begins on March 4. (March fourth-- hup two three…) and ends on October 15, so that everyone can get home for Oktoborfest, harvest festivala and the holidays. which carry through to Carnival.

This is the great thing about War Games. It can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a rigorously historical as you wish, as complicated as you wish, as simple as you wish, as fanciful as you wish and a rudimentary as you wish.

Imai-Nations are only the middle edge of the hobby and unlike many other hobbies or past-times the only ones governing our play is ourselves. There are no "authorities" no "big names in war games" no "regulating bodies" or sanctioning agencies and you can do whatever you want to do, and here's the great thing, it can all be fun!

This is the secret of miniature war games. The reason it is this way is that miniatures, unlike the "shake out the box" board gamers can use the same soldiers, the same scenarios the same boards and interchange them. Board Gamers can't fight their "Waterloo pieces" on the board for "The Battle of the Bulge" but that's the stock in trade of most wargamers. Miniature wargames has a HUGE learning and preparatory curve to get to the game, but that curve means that the miniature gamer is thrown back on his own resources and his own devices and ingenuity.

You can have something like Heart of Oak which is a highly realistic and highly detailed simulation of Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail, or you can take the example of a new Sailing Ship game from the 18th century I am premiering at "The Weekend" called "Yo-Ho-HO!" It's a sailing ship game, not a pirate game and the fleets I am using I made myself from blocks of wood, printed art, and pasteboard. They are about a foot long! They have simple masts and hulls and I wanted to work in this scale because I wanted to integrate them with land battles and island actions in the straits and archipeligo's of the Mediterranean, and wanted them used in conjunction with land troops. I am using a system ripped off partially from an old Parker Borthers game.

Might work well, might be a bust, but I'm having a ball doing it amd making the ships.

But Imagi-Nations are just one part of the whole miniatures hobby.

I am glad I started this thread.

Please carry on or start anew.

I´m not glad you started this because it is getting to me, and I may find myself Emperor Supreme of Somewhere-ovia!

So I am curious, those of you who do this sort of thing, are your nations within the boundaries of existing continents, or do you also alter the planet?
And do your nations interact with historic nations as well? Do they take part in real wars?

I think I might be hooked at this point.

TJ – I think the answer is: you can choose.

Most of the imaginary states, tribes, armies I have devised and discarded over the years would have been thrashed by even the smallest 'historic nation', so they never went near them.

There's no reason why you shouldn't give Genghis Khan a good thrashing (as if!) with some western knights from a mythical Holy Roman Empire if you want though.

My Bessarabian forces have occupied a more or less roughly geographical equivalent of the historical Bessarabia/Moldova area but have never interacted with 'historical' Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish or Austrian Imperial forces (although their descendants all turn up miraculously in modern iterations of the state – which is doing well in the end of the cold war at present but having some trouble with trans-Dniestrian rebels.)

Weaker, pathetic and indifferent versions of those forces have been soundly thrashed by Bessarabia's finest of course, so how the ancestors of current Bessarabia's cultural melange got there I am not sure. I am sure there are lacunae in my 'historical' knowledge of the mythical Bessarabia, exploration of which will explain all at some future juncture.

Well gee willickers, why do you think that I imagine myself to be der Alte Fritz?

Our group in Brown Deer has been conducting the SYW using historical armies employed by fictional nations since 2005. I have a Prussian army, but it fights under the colours of the Kingdom of Hesse Seewald. Bill is the Grand Duke of Saxe Raschstein (Saxony) allied to the Kingdom of Gallia (France), etc. We generally do not paint fictional uniforms but we have a running story line about this thing or that that builds on the previous games.

Early on, Bill had an 18th Century Valley Girl named Lady Diana Pettigree flouncing about the edges of the battlefield. I started to get annoyed by this so I created the evil Milady de Winter, whose sole purpose in life was to capture that airhead Lady Pettigree. De Winter often comes tantalizingly close to capturing her prey, but the oddest things always happen to intervene to the point that it has become a running joke in our game circles. We have a lot of fun with it.

At times, I have sold off some of my Prussians and am able to do so because they are painted as historical units. The rest of my Prussians fight for Hesse Seewald when we see fit.

Well boys all y´all have to do is reel me in. Of course I knew of this genre, but I never really thought about it until now. The result is I think it is really cool and too much fun to even think about!
So I could have different armies for different eras as well, right? And there would also be my navy to think about, and later an air force. This is going to be expensive,I must start justifying to the wife.

You do know the story of how the Queen's Own Grenadiers got their Polar Bear furred caps right? Well 60 years before our stories setting Queen Anne was sent on a goodwill tour to the Nations north of us. We were hard press at the time by the troops of the Empire and needed all the help we could get.

Will Queen Anne, bless her soul, was always one for believing in the power of the written word. While visiting a small coastal town in the far North she discovered that during the long bitter winters the local pastor had taken it upon himself to teach the children to read. Discovering this and the fact that they only had a few books besides the Holy Book, she right there and there gave enough funds to build a proper school. Then on returning home she did even more by sending crates full of books to that little school. When the town asked how they could ever repay her kindness, she said just have the children send me a letter telling what they learned.

So every year come Spring, bags of letters are delivered to the Queen. Even to this day. Also the townspeople send the furs of 10 Polar Bears to thank her every spring. At first Queen Anne had no idea what to do with them, so they sat in storage. Then one day her 8 year old grandson saw the newest skins and asked why couldn't they make fur caps in white instead of black fur,it would be so grand looking. As a new regiment of Grenadiers was being raised, her son the King had the furs made into tall fur caps and named the regiment the "Queen's Own Grenadiers".

Dear Texas Jack

Yes to all.

It ranges the ful gamut from entirely new worlds and planets (like all those Fantasy workd like Blackmoor, Greyhawk, etc) to people who sequcre some obscure part of Europe to pry open the borders between countries and plop down an imagination in between or carve up existing countries to make new ones, and so forth. Some even have "schizophrenic" natures. For example there are instances where my Schleswig-Beerstein und Saxe Burlap is the Germany of all the "Kleinstaaterie" of Germany save the big lumps of the Hesse's Bavaria, Brandenberg, and Hanover, and a completely different configuration of the mythical map I was telling you about above.

In the histories of the country it deals with neighbors who are all historic, Frederick's Prussia, Maria Theresia's Austria, etc. and I can can have battles with them, BUT it also has battles with totally fictitious realms like Bad Zu Wurst (Who look a lot like the Blue meanies of Prussia) Gulagia (Russia) Flounce (France) and the the Empire of Ikea (Turkey, so called because of their major exports, cheap knock-offs of high class furniture like Ottomans, Divan's Wet Bars). My newest imagination I am working on is the Grand Duchy of the Grand Duke of Gorgonzola, a Mediterranean realm consisting of Venice, the Kingdom of the Two Sicillies, Crete, Greece, Cypres, and other bits of land here and there.

You can mix and match as you please.

In the histories I write, Saxe-Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein takes part in the Seven Years War, but it has a unique roll. As a Princess of the Holy Roman Empire she believes that the problems with Frederick are within the Empire for filching Silesia. This means that when Frederick is campaigning against the Austrians she will aid them, but when French or Russian armies enter the empire, her armies cooperate with the Prussians. It makes it very confusing, but fun. Remember the princess is a flighty teenager.

I also am starting a bunch of ancient armies for my rules "A is for Autochthonous" which will have four primary (societies) Psoriasis (modeled on old kingdom Egypt) Gynotopia (The Amazons), Maidol (Creete and the Minoans) and (Schlockem and Glockamorra) a sort of dissolute middle-eastern state (like Sodom and Gomorrah) only peopled by celts- Irishmen who went a wandering and wouund up in the land of milk and honey rather than the molded over bog off the shores of England. Think of "Carry on Cleo" played for laughs.

It can be whatever you want it to be. The only restraint is your own imagination and if you have fun/.

I also do it in the modern world, for between the wars and into earlyh world War Two. There are 12 imagi-nations in the campaign system see if you can guess who's who. Fahrvergnuggen, The Workers Winter Wonderland of Freeland WWWF, The Newnited States. Hungland and the Brutish Empire, The 443rd Republic of Flounce, The Fascist MOnaarcy of Fanabla, Bandrika (the hard one, you have to have seen the Hitchcock move the Lady Vanishes) Terramasu, The Empire of Fu-Manchu and chain of Chinese Restaurants, Ikea, La Republica Banana, and the Grand Holy Autocratic, Democratic, Federal, Socialist, Anarchist, Theocratic Republic of Putzland, Long Live Marshall Soapsudski!

Like I said, think Three Stooges-- everywhere.

For the latter ones I even made my own tanks. For the Heavy Tanks for the WWWF I wanted those five turreted monstrosities, the Russians had in the early war. I didn't want to pay $120 USD and more for them in 1/72 so I made my own. I took two KV chasis, cut off the rear just before where the treads picked off the ground in the rear and the front and gloed them together. Then made a long deck on which the 6 turrets could be placed. Two 47mm guns en echelon complemented by 2 mg turrets int he same manner. Then a large circular turret with th 75mm short gun, and on top of that another small machine gun turret. Of course I had that long deck and I decided to put two stacks on the deck and make them coal burners. The rear is taken up with four boat davits filched from a ship model kit with two Kosmoletz tractors hanging from them like lifeboats.

Now… maybe a double machine gunn tail gunner….

It looks so cool! I'll send a picture when I finish.

Im sure someday Osprey will make a book about them.

To give me a break from my historically painted Napoleonics, and to recapture some childhood fun of individually mounted figures.

The freedom to paint what I like when I like is a very powerful motivator. I started wargaming like that, so my initial Napoleonic armies were whatever troops I liked the look of (now you know why there are so many Imperial Guardsmen and Scots Greys out there), but I gradually got old and boring about it. My Imagi's let me re-capture some of that youthful folly, and not have to worry about button counters.

The cod histories I write are for the enjoyment of my brother, as they are poorly disguised attacks on his family and their habits/disasters, whilst being glowing pen potratits of mine As such, I do not share them as they would be meaningless to others.

Imagi-nations can be applied to any period, past, present, or future. It can contain any elements desired, including SF's aliens (Alien vs. Predator; Grays; Cylons; Klingons; etc.), or Tolkeinesque fantasy races (Elves; Dwarves; Drow; Orcs; Centaurs; etc.). You decide.

As far as designing your own armies, yes, it is much more challenging than researching historical lists. There are no lists to research, unless you are using some fantasy armies already published; Gary Gygax's "World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting" had army lists for the many nations in his gameworld. That is all a part of the challenge, and the fun.

One complaint I have heard from Napoleonics fans, is that so many gamers have more of Napolean's Old Guard figures than ever existed, historically! They have lamented that those figures never get any table time… Historically, they rarely appeared on the battlefield -- so screw history! Put together your own battles, and let the uber-troops shine! That is the fun of Imagi-nation games. Cheers!

Thanks fellas, the enthusiasm in this thread is certainly contagious! And OSchmidt, you present your nations very eloquently.

Now to start planning…

Dear Texas Jack

If you need any help or assistance or even someone just to sound an idea off, don't hesitate to ask. My private e-mail is sigurd@eclipse.net

Thanks, I might just take you up on that!