"Review of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy #70" Topic

Right, the last of my holiday reading!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: This time around the theme is the Wars of the successors (of Alexander the Great). I'm not a big Ancients fan and I know very little about this era so I'm coming to it without any great expectations. Impressive diorama of ancient armoured horsemen with big long pointy sticks on the cover.

EDITORIAL: Guy tells us about his fitness drive for the year and makes a personal statement about continually improving the magazine. What he's done since taking over a rather poorly translated Spanish magazine has been great. Wait a minute…where's the Sun Tzu quote?

MINIATURE REVIEWS: A mixed bunch; Ghurkhas, witch hunters, Victorian commies, modern day cops and ninjas, WW2 machinery and other historical and RPG figures. Quite a lot under review this issue and the photos show you exactly what you get.

THE TERRORS OF TERRAIN: Rick Priestly on terrain, how it can enhance or hinder the wargaming process. The point about having to codify what each terrain piece does in terms of rules reminds me of game design notes in Squad Leader all those years ago. Some interesting points to ponder here.

AFTERBURN: An interview with the guys at 4Ground terrain and, boy, what a doozy! Some people who design stuff for wargaming have interesting views on the hobby but these guys have interesting life stories to tell about how they went from bricklaying and ECW re-enacting to making MDF terrain makes for good reading. Don't skip over this one thinking its just fluff.

CROSSING THE GARIGLIANO: Renaissance scenario French v Spanish. You get some background history (a compact summary, shall we say), OOBs but no maps, unfortunately. Nevertheless it gives you most of what you need to refight it.

V FOR VICTORY: A Pegasus Bridge mini-campaign, primarily with Bolt Action's set in mind but you can easily adapt it for most other rules. There's a map, OOBs (although a bit stylised) and some brief notes for further battles in Benouville. It's fine as far as it goes, but I think it really needed to be part of a bigger feature…the battle is too big in terms of possibilities to be a supporting feature.

CLASSROOM GAMES: A bit of a recurrent theme in recent wargame magazines; how to use games to teach school students. This is well written and should be useful if you want to do something similar if you work in education. A nice touch is playing a wargame and then touring the battlefield afterwards.

THE SECRET SERVICE, GREY SECTION: An organisation for In Her Majesty's Name; cloak and dagger MI5/6 in frock coats, really. Comprehensive given that it's only 2 pages long. Will also be useful for Space: 1889.

TWILIGHT OF THE SUCCESSOR EMPIRES: Part 1 of the issue's theme sets the scene historically. I learned a lot, seeing as I barely knew anything beforehand. Good bibliography as well at the end.

PTOLEMY v THE SELEUCIDS: Campaign rules for the era, centred around two of the Successor kingdoms. You get a campaign map (containing a misprint: the colours are wrong from what's described in the text. Ptolemy is in red on the map (green in the text) and the Selucids blue on the map and red in the text. Other than that, it's a good set of campaign rules to use with your preferred game.

…OK, time for a tea break. Back later.

Crud! Good catch about the mistake in the map. Even with four people checking something… We can fix it in the digital version at least.

Nice review – thanks.

There's a particularly nice church reviewed in the miniature reviews section as well! :-)

I enjoyed the issue, it is my favourite wargame magazine. The feel of the weight of paper adds a sense of luxury, to make the reading even more of a treat.

But I am feeling that the 'columns' are starting to feel a bit like rambling fillers in nature.

I wonder whether it would be better to have 1 column only, but have it service by the present contributors, so they are only having to do a couple of pieces a year each.

In the place of one column, I would like to see something like 'my wargame table', giving a look at an ordinary wargamers table at home and how they go about their wargaming, painting, terrain making etc. Giving something that more of us might relate to – that is not to take anything away from the inspirational photos in each issue, but if someone is using hexes, or has a great compact set-up or a novel way of using a household item to make great walls or rivers or some such – I would like to see that or what rules they are using and why etc. Just a page or two would make for interesting reading.

Interesting suggestion Norm, thanks!

I kind of agree with Norm. I can't think of anything I'd like less than reading about someone gaming on their kitchen table in Surbiton. Good ideas about walls or rivers, on the other hand would be good. A bit like the lady in MiniWargs, or MiniWargsWiBat as we probably now call it. Diane somethingorother.

Some columns are good, some hit and miss. I do think some of the newer columns are maybe talking their time to warm up a bit. Hopefully they will come good. I like to see columns which have something to actually say on issues rather than just recounting anecdotes.

I generally find columns in magazines to be the least useful part and was one of the reasons I gave up reading glossies. Can anyone consistently come up with interesting material, month after month?

I quite like the idea of rotating columnists to create fixture pieces in magazines and the freed-up space used by (more) feature articles. That supposes editors have more article just laying around, though!

…back from the tea break. Dropping some of the columnists? OK, I'd hate to be the person who has to chose between Rick Priestly and Richard Clarke. I don't think either of them are a problem in terms of columns and opinions, in fact I find their pieces to be highlights.

Anyway, let's crack on…

STRATEGOS MACHON: Adapting Dux Bellorum for Ancient wargaming. For the uninitiated, Dux Bellorum is Osprey's wargame rules for the dark age/historical Arthurian age. This is a strange article for me; it starts off complaining about overly complicated rules such as Shock of Impact and then goes off on a potted history about the development of rules for ancient period wargaming. There's a sidebar and more talk about basing concepts and not a lot of this relates to how to adapt Dux Bellorum for ancient wargaming. It's left right to the end, in a rather truncated form, and consists of providing 3 short army lists. I felt this article suffered from departing from its stated intentions and I could have done without all the references to other rules and the history of their development and publication.

MACEDONIAN ELEPHANT RUSTLING: The thing about these ancient wars is that there's often a large cast of historical characters all vying for power so much like watching I, Claudius I'm constantly having to remind myself of who is doing who over. This is a scenario set in the immediate aftermath of Alexander the Great's death and involves Cassander's bid for power using Indian elephants in his army so you get the history, no OOB sidebars but from reading the text you can work it out, some rules for rampaging elephants, a map that's more of a campaign map of the area rather than a battlefield one and the option for a naval supplement to the battle. It could have done with it being more laid out for a wargame than history with wargaming bits thrown in the mix. A battle map, dispositions, OOBs laid out in a sidebar, that kind of thing would be very useful but still you can get a game out of it by studying the text.

THE LAST PHALANX: The twilight of the Succession wars, this has late Republican Rome entering the scene under my favourite love-to-hate him Roman leader, Sulla (I'm a Marius fan). This is a better laid out wargame scenario article with history, OOBs, maps and rules suggestions so that makes this very useful as well.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ALEXANDER: One of the best themed review articles WSS has ever done because there are so many ranges listed here across all the major scales: 28, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 6mm all catered for here. If you're a total newcomer to the Succession wars and you're looking for figures, this is exactly what you need. Well done all the manufacturers for submitting their wares.

WHO NEEDS STIRRUPS? First of the modelling features this issue, the author describes how he created the front cover vignette. It seems that every modeller and painter has their own way of doing modelling so you might find his approach useful.

FREE YOUR MIND AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW: Now I found not much to disagree with here but readers with more refined wargaming palattes might look away now. The author describes his club's journey from playing dry historical battles with half painted figures on plain cardboard terrain to embracing Flames of War, Napoleon at War, Drop Zone Commander, SAGA and all other manner of bling games. And, they're loving it! You can either view his journey as an inspirational tale of embracing the new and paying more attention to the look and the fun of gaming, or else a warning about selling your soul to the corporate and a-historical beast. I enjoy both dry history games and bling games so I say good luck to his club.

STILL EASIER THAN 28s: How to paint WW2 and modern 10mm figures. It's not my chosen scale but there are useful tips to be found.

SPRAY AND WIPE WEATHERING: A road test of Plastic Soldier Company's weathering spray for vehicles and buildings. A very thorough review with a nice sidebar on how to achieve similar effects using other methods.

LET'S FACE IT: A tutorial on how to paint faces on 28mm figures. Useful for newcomers and painting numpties like me.

COUNTDOWN TO LIGNY: This feels like the start of a series on how to do a big convention battle. So this article is about the initial stages of planning a 200th anniversary wargame of Ligny and I feel we'll get semi-regular updates between now and 2015.

LET'S PLAY 7th VOYAGE: A good playtest of Crooked Dice's Sinbad and Harryhausen movie game. It's easy to follow but I have one tip for the playtesters: Don't put the status counters on the table (they complain about it cluttering the gaming area), put them on the character cards. It's easier to follow and looks better (I'm a veteran 7TV player and have learned through experience).

GAME REVIEWS: Detailed reviews of Spy or Die Trying, Charles Grant's The War Game and Kingdom of Heaven.

WARGAMES SHOWS: A lovely piece by Richard Clarke about imparting friendliness and enthusiasm when running games at conventions (regular readers of my reviews will notice I have a penchant for columnists extolling the virtues of friendly wargaming) and he cites the example of Staines Wargamers. I'm biased here as I'm a member of that club and I can attest that the guys who plan and put on these games do a fantastic job and it's a really friendly club (they took me in so they can't be that picky). Heads up, look out for their Schweinfurt game at Cavalier and elsewhere this year…it's addictive!

ARCTIC SCAVENGERS: A review of the post-apocalyptic boardgame. Not my cup of tea but the game is comprehensively reviewed.

BOOK REVIEWS: You get Mega Wargames (a coffee table bling book by the sound of it), one on Marlborough (sounds interesting), a fantastic sounding magazine called Painting War which seems definitely worth checking out and a supplement for IHMN.

OVERALL: Good, very good. A couple of the theme articles are a bit messy in the way they're put together and some of the other scenarios lack proper maps and OOBs but other than that it's a strong issue which makes an entertaining read if nothing else.

Would you get columnists if you only offered them occasional pieces? Over the years I've seen good and bad columnists, they are usually people who have a keen eye on watching the hobby, but it's unusual to get columnists who are actually involved with the hobby, such as game designers in this case. I'd have thought most magazines would be keen to get them on board so an occasional column might see them go elsewhere for more regular opportunities? Not sure how it works.

Maybe it could be like celebrity Big Brother, the wargaming public vote to see which columnist stays or goes? That sounds fun! Who would you vote to keep?

The article on faces sounds interesting, I'm terrible at that, I think they take about 30% of my painting time (and even more in stress) and still don't look good.

I was in my one dependable source for WSS in and around Toronto today, and they actually had both 68 and 69 on the shelves (shows how often the men's hobbies section gets straightened), expect it will be a while for 70.

Thanks for the feedback Ubercommando, that is most useful. We'll look at the issues you've raised.

Regarding Columnists: Yes it is difficult for them to come up with unique material every time. Maybe if I 'crack the whip' they'll dance faster! However I think both are generally a good read with the occasional 'gem'. I'm happy with them, in fact I introduced the 'Irregular', so we could have a third column with guest speakers.

We have experimented with other pieces, such as Mike Evans' excellent "Devils Advocate" in WSS 68. This was deliberately set to be provocative. The feedback I received however was mainly negative – which was a great shame – I think some people didn't 'get it' or perhaps we didn't put the 'provocation concept' over correctly.

I don't believe the columns are 'filler' and I guess I like the conversational style, anecdotes included. If we wanted filler, we could do some nice battle reports or show reports if people would prefer? ;-)

Thanks to everyone who took their time to reply to the thread. This is exactly the sort of critique we need to keep improving WSS. Please keep posting and discussing, I'll be listening!

Cheers,

Guy

Looking forward to it arriving in the post. One thing I'd thought about whilst reflecting on show reports (which are less appealing to an international audience) would be getting the rules and set-ups from some of the better display and participation games. These generally already have a summary of information and simple rules that people could try out at their own clubs.

Sometimes the participation games don't always look amazing but can be great fun. I still fondly recall playing Kill the Teletubbies and the 4 Musketeers breakfasting in the fort games with my brother at Colours(?), years ago…