"Be grateful for what you have while you have it." Topic

Dear List

Sad news today. Model Railroad Craftsmen went out of business August 22nd. This was a great magazine for the scratch builder and terrain maker, always having useful tips and ideas and projects the gamer could adapt. For the model maker it was far better than Model Railroader. My wife worked there for two years, being laid off two years ago. She saw the handwriting on the wall. Like so many efforts in the hobby industry the real spirit of the place died with the founder, Harold Carstens, who had several other hobby magazines in the RF controlled airplanes etc. . His son's heart just wasn't in it.

This sad day makes me think how many of the "institutions" we have in our own hobby which will evaporate in the future, immediate and near. "Far" does not seem to be an adjective to couple with "future" when it comes to these things in war games.

This is one of the reasons why, even with things like TMP and all it's faults, and some firms who seem bent on being nasty, I am willing to overlook a lot simply because there's nothing behind them. They're all we got. Everyone today sneers at Scruby miniatures. I remember when that was the only game in town. I've been in the hobby long enough to know that the things we once had we don't any more and that everyone had a bad word to say about them till they were gone, far outnumber what we have now. Avalon Hill, SPI, Scruby's, tons of others, whole carloads of "fanzines" and ticky tacky newsletters, Ral Partha, Game stores….

So treasure your game stores, your cranky and lackadaisical vendors and manufacturers, your ticky tacky magazines and the like. They won't be around for long and once they're gone-- you're gonna miss em.

Oh yeah, the same thing goes for your friends in the hobby.

I felt the same way when MWAN and The Courier went out of business.

Very, very true.

I find that aging is an accumulation of loves lost: to death, or madness, or distance, or jealousy or for no reason I can fathom. I see that it's important always to be ready to make a new friend, find a new interest, take in a stray animal, make a new start. One day I won't be able to do that any more. Then I will be ready for my life to end.

Tunnels and Trolls, solo adventures coming out every so often. Most of them left things to be desired, some were impressively good entertainment, and Danforth's illos were always fun.

Lines and lines of historical miniatures now forgotten by most.

Shops gone, too many to mention.

Gamers gone, ditto.

Life, the universe and everything, always changing, coming and going. Today is a gift, etc. Amen….

Och! OS it is the old hobbyest lament and yes we do lament, but others start anew and the cycle starts again.
I lament those little mini tin cars that I had as a youngster and the sun always shone brighter then too, the great thing though is the fondness of memory about them.
We need a depository of all these mags though.
Cheers and remembrance fondly of toys past and to the present though to the future.

It's always sad when a small outfit folds up or can't be continued any longer.

BUT

no one is irreplacable. Someone else will usually step up and do what they did. Maybe it won't be as good. Maybe it'll be far better.
Maybe it'll be a little different.

Cycle of gaming life and rebirth :)

I want to add one caveat here.

This is not a fin de siècle, après mois la Deluge, old farts rant here. Thankfully the human spirit is resilient, and many times, though often with a long hiatus, the lines, games, magazines are replaced or someone else takes them up. We have newer miniatures and in many cases better miniatures and newer games and better games etc., and there will be newer younger gamers to replace those of us who fall by the wayside. Many of them will have the same attitudes and the same quirks as those gone, but this is no cause to be blasé or indifferent.

The prospect of replacement does not in any way diminish the sadness of loss for those things that have been so dear to us for so long and only highlights the gratitude we should show to those along the way who do so much for us.

I doubt Any of the firms and magazines out there catering to our hobby make enough money to ensure their owners the life style to which they would like to become accustomed and many do it simply as a labor of love with a bit of ego tossed in on the side. So let us be grateful to them and treasure them when they are with us.

We will feel loss when they are gone.

Otto

Dear O, Yes, the things we had taken for granted in the past (MWAN, Courier, Scuby) have been put to bed, but in their place newer and stronger venues have arisen. On their best days MWAN or Courier probably reached less than 500 people. During the course of this day, many more viewers than that will read these words and comment instantly.

The good old days weren't always so timely.
Example:
MWAN Jan/Feb issue.
Dear Editor, French wore blue uniforms.

MWAN March/April issue.
Dear Editor, That's wrong. French wore white.

MWAN May/June issue.
Dear Editor, Blue!

MWAN July/August issue.
Dear Editor, White! White! White!

So, perhaps as old ways die newer and better forms of enlightenment rise up from the ashes and move forward.
For example this very forum.
Years ago, forum meant a gathering of old Romans.
Today it means that you can join in on any number of topics on the Internet till your hearts content.
Can anyone argue that the old print 'zines were better than TMP? Progress marches on.

As for Scruby…Thanks Jack for all you did, but by todays standards your figures are, shall we say "lacking."
Never before have so many choices, as far a figures go, been available to so many. With a few cliks of my mouse I can order any scale from any period and have it delivered to my home within a week or so.

Years past…not so much. You sent a check or money order through the mail and waited by the mail box for months on end.

Sorry to see the mag go under O, but most of what it was publishing can probably be found on the 'net for free. This is the coming curse for all print publications. Their time is past.

Sorry to hear about that and thanks for the wise reminder. I remember my dad bringing me a stack of that magazine when I was a kid and into railroading. It will be a loss to that hobby.

It's true that change is inevitable and new things will come, but that should not make us flippant about what we have and what we lose. Some things will not or cannot be replaced and should be treasured while we have them.

I miss the original War Room here in Georgia. Playing generic rulesets with good people. Nipping over for stellar Chinese at the Golden Buddha, then back to rolling dice. Seems like those weekends would last forever.

Good things do come back around eventually. Even though they are not quite the same…all the recent 80s reboots have been nostalgic. Especially the toys as I was still a youngin' then.

@Great War Ace

Tunnels and Trolls is making a comeback:
flyingbuffalo.com/tandt.htm

Dear Cloud captain.

The key is excitement.

If you can still become as excited about something in gaming NOW as you were THEN, that's a good thing. If you can, as you grow older you have TWO self creating mind-drugs to zone out with- nostalgia AND excitement. Once you can link these two together, that is, the wonderful feeling and memory of the old (growing ever more glittery and sparkly over time) and the vivid anticipation and eagerness for the new, can make a marvelous combination. This is one of the reasons I do Imagi-nations. One gets the best of both worlds at the same time.

I still have my old collections from the 70's and use them.

Doesn't mean I'm not hankering after Minden's and the wonderful stuff being put out by Jim Purky.

That's the key, never becoming jaded or dismissive, or forgetting what was great.

Otto

Oh yeah,

one other thing. Anything old is still wondrous to the person who does not know it's old or has never seen it before.

I have four huge book cases of old board games in my finished basement. I kept only a hundred or so of the classic games of yesteryear, those that were noteworthy or exemplary of a certain game style.

I recently introduced a friends daughter and fiancé to minis. They had heard of it, they are D&D and modern born gamers, both twenty-some things-- when I had them over for the game they were prowling around the basement and saw the board games. "Oh I have this!" they would say or even better "Oh I've HEARD of this game, but I can never find it." They also say, things like "Oh, this is Talisman, I saw this in the game store…" and then I say" Oh but it's not the Talismen you saw in the game store, its the old talisman,-- the original Talisman, the Talisman of Talismans, the one God made on the Monday after creation. with the Quest, Dungeon, City, and Timescape modules as well." It's like unpacking the crown jewels to see them.

Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly…

I'm always amazed at the power of games to engage.

I need an CD of organ music, Bach's Toccata & Fugue" when I do this.

You also need the visuals.

That's the key, nostalgia, and excitement, and the new.

@OSchmidt

Agreed :) Imagi-nations are a great way to breathe life into an old project or collection that has fallen by the wayside.

I have been thinking of taking all this 1/72 WW2 stuff I have laying around…parting it out between noble houses…painting all the uniforms livery style…and having a War of the Roses-esque go at it.

Dear Cloud Captain.

Well, if you're interested I have all my 1/72nd modern WWII stuff parceled out into Imagi-Nations which I use my own rules for. They're called "The Shattered Century" (in "omage" to Robert Conquest's "Reflections on a Ravaged Century." The game is a hypothetical Imagin ary world from Between the Wars and into early WWII.

The game is an ARMY level game (no-- really! Army level) the game envisions a battle like between those --XXXX-- boundaries you see on maps in the books we read. You are the commander of the army. It has an integral campaign and battle rules. It's not for most, there are only three types of tank, for example, heavy, medium, and light, and it's written wildly tongue in cheek (there are 12 powers with names like Fahrvergnuggen and WWWF (Workers Winter Wonderland of Freeland-- guess who? There are others like Bandrika, Terramasu, NewNited States etc., all satirical parodies of the real powers. Uses land, sea and ari.

If you are interested send me your snail-mail postal address to sigurd@eclipse. net, and I'll send you the basic rules to look over, if you're interested and want to noodle around with it more, let me know and I'll send you the decks of cards and battlefield markers and other stuff you need.

The best way I can describe the game is that the table top is NOT like most modern games, getting down into tactical detail, and it's not like a stop action film of small scale combat. The best way to describe it is that the table top represents a table top somewhere in a gorgeous chateau 30 miles behind the lines where everyone in the room is a general or field marshall and the only colonel to be seen is the guy who takes the coffee order, and the pieces are counters on that map, moved around by nattily dressed WACS, and the only manifestation of the muddy, bloody, gassed over hell you've consigned your troops to is the gentle tinkling of the crystal in the chandelier as the barrage reaches it's crescendo 20 miles way.

You'll have to scrounge up your own WACS though.

I miss Polk's Hobby shop in Manhattan. It's been gone since the late 70's. It had one floor for model trains, another for slot car racing. The ground floor had various plastic model kits and in the back – toy soldiers, mostly 54mm. That's where I found a copy of Joe Morschauser's "Wargaming with Military Miniatures" (couldn't call them toy soldiers then) back in 1963.

And the rest is history…

Polks Hobbies, The Soldier Shop on Madison and Duannes Toyland in Schenectady where I bought countless bookcase games, Heritage Lord of the Rings figures and 1/700 scale ships as a kip. My God. Destroyers were only $1.59 USD. And who can forget being able to go and visit Minifigs in Pine Plains and have lunch with the owner(I'm afraid his name escapes me at the moment) while they casted up your order.

Dear Visdtagames and PVT641

Steve Carpenter was the owner of Minifigs. I know him well.

Ahhh Polks Hobbies! Four floors of solid toys! I remember that in new York City. As a small boy the first time I went there I thought I was in heaven (see,, I WAS, but I didn't appreciate it then).. toys of all sorts jammed into the shelves and up to the ceilings. I won't even begin to list them, they were all there… toys from the 30's and 40's modern toys, all toys.

There were all sorts of other toys on the other floors too!

Actually I think the place was actually an inter-dimensional rift, a place where time and space do not run in absolute parallel and it was one of those places where the inside was larger than the outside, and if you found the right door, or pushed the right sequence of elevator buttons you would go into a parallel dimension which opened onto other toy stores on other planets and in other times…

I remember the chess sets… it was like treasures from the Taj mahal.

@cloudcaptain: well I'll be swizzled. There's stuff there I never heard about….

I miss Atacktix in Denver/Aurora Colorado. I went there for many years from the first day they opened their doors. Bill, Tom, Doug, and many others over the years taught me so much about gaming and miniatures.
There was something special there while it lasted.

I grew up in NYC and hit Polks on a regular basis. The trick was to get into the basement where all the good stuff was stored.
If you were a "regular" there they let you prowel around
downstairs.

The boxes of Atlantic that I carried out of there would fill my van every trip. Now those were the good old days.

The first wargame figs I ever saw were Heritage 15's WW2 American and ACW (?), at "The Tin Soldier" on Salem Ave in Dayton (@1976ish). Still have both and game with them as well. Still have my Mikes Models 7YW figs and Heritage Roman, Gaul, Spanish and Carthage DBA armies. I still would rather have the old figs to anything new.

Scruby Miniatures are available from Historifigs.

historifigs.com/oldsite
tabletoptalk.com

Old Minifigs "S" seem to be available by contacting John Cunningham's operation at his email address CunnJoh(at)aol(dot)com.

I was stationed in Maryland in the early 90s and would visit the AH warehouse in Baltimore. Shelves full of stuff that I kick myself for not buying. I did pick up some goodies, but not nearly enough, especially when my paycheck was nearly all disposable then :)

Sorry, forgot to provide an "S" link:
link

With credit to Nicholas Guild (The Assyrian and Blood Star)…"You shall say goodbye until your tongue sickens at the sound."

On the other hand, those sorrows are the contrast to sharpen the joys you find in good friends, loves, and the company of fellow gamers – along with all those "other" things, whatever they may be.

Institutions come and go…but, if we're lucky and try really hard to make sure every one of us can become the best that they can be – the most "you" you can be – then it all will keep moving higher. I think our hobby is just one example.

Sorry to see them go, but "onward and upward".

Amen Ashurman.

YouTube link

I, too, miss Attactix. Gaming in Denver hasn't been the same since they closed.

I've been a subscriber to RMC for the past 30+ years. The scratchbuilding focus/articles alone were worth the price.

The Carstens family is trying to sell the various magazines so there is a chance they will continue with a new publisher.

Ah, yes Oschmidt. Steve Carpenter. Thank you for saving my failing memory.

I had heard rumors of Polk's but could never find it.

Dear Snurl1

You had to have the right treasure map, the one marked with the "X". Not the Bodoni Bold X or the Amazone BT X but the good old Times Roman Bold X. You also needed a talisman of finding and the Necronomicon would have helped too.

I love the old S ranges, had a few hundred Crimean when I was a freshman in highschool. And they can be had again. Also still love the classic 25mm mini fig napoleonic lines. But they are prohibitive for cost and P and H .

I agree with a lot of this…

Except when it comes to "some" of the stores.

Many of them seems determined to drive themselves out of business….