"Wargames Illustrated mag" Topic

Has it got any better – or is it still just a massive advert for FoW ?

I certainly think it has gotten a lot better. You will still find some FOW articles, but they no longer dominate the publication.

Still generally light and fluffy content with appallingly bad English. Honestly… I don't know why I buy it :-).

The mini porn?

Lots of pretty pictures, but not much depth to it I find.A quick flick through and in 5 mins I'm done.

Have hardly bought it since it changed hands – certainly won't be renewing my subscription any time soon. I don't even like the pictures…

I don't play FOW so I buy specific issues with content that interests me. I probably purchase 2-4 magazines per year.

I have looked at almost every issue since they were bought by Battlefront and I still can't figure out this ridiculous myth about it being a Flames of War advertising rag. It is not nor has it ever been. There are generally a couple of articles and some ads for the game but the majority of the articles are almost always about other game systems, eras, and figures. I guess some figure if they say it enough it will become true…

The OP has trotted out the cliché that WI is a massive Flames of War advert. I want to clarify what the reality is: The magazine has now split from Battlefront although it remains on good terms. Even during its Battlefront days the FoW material was never more than a 1/4 of its entire content. It was never solely a Flames of War magazine.

The quality of WI is very variable. The presentation and photography is top notch, the writing veers from generally very good to self-indulgent, off topic and lacking in crucial areas. Often you get slabs of historical text mixed in with lengthy reports of games played.

It is unashamedly a magazine of the new and the shiny. Not just Battlefront products but Perry Miniatures, Warlord Games, Sarissa Precision, North Star, Osprey…. the biggest names, the latest games, all get 5 star ratings and plenty of space to show off.

But Flames of War merchandising magazine? Nope, in fact I suspect a little bit of trolling to accuse it of such.

What always put me off about WI was that it did seem to be an industry magazine trying to entice the hobbyists. Like ubercommando said, "biggest names, the latest games." It is like a big popularity contest. Nothing wrong with that, probably a good way to go if you are trying to make a successful product, just not my first preference. It is good to have WI around. I prefer a hobby magazine or blogs written by gamers for gamers with unique focus or covering niche markets. That is hard to do in an expensive glossy magazine.

Gotta disagree with you on that one nazrat (and uber commando). I looked at every issue (until I stopped bothering) after Battlefront bought it as well and it absolutely was a FOW rag. There was a substantial increase in FOW articles when the mag was taken over (enough so to be the primary content of the magazine), and there has been a substantial reduction in the number of FOW articles since it stopped. Of course they are going to use their magazine to advertise their product.

Well i have the latest issue in my hands (338), the theme is skirmishers. It has a just over 100 pages in it and I count 4 as being FOW based – so that is a 4% coverage.

I never really think of the mag as being BF focussed. Of the three magazines on newsagents shelves, it is the one I buy the least, because for me, too much text is given over to historical text and not enough to actual wargaming and pretty much nothing that looks like a wargame on my table.

I bought this issue mainly because the Perry's were highlighting their new ACW Battle in a Box game and it seemed like a good coffee read.

A lot of us are playing 6mm, 10mm and 12mm and these scales are grossly under-represented in the magazine (though they are not alone in that).

79thPA, show me the issue or issues where there is more than a quarter of an entire WI devoted to FoW. I have all of them from the past 3 years and even when the theme is for a FoW product, it still doesn't get near half the content of the magazine as a whole.

Battlefront bought out WI and, yes, there was a substantial increase in FoW articles but not to the extent that it took over the entire magazine. Going from 0 articles about FoW to about 25% is, yes, a big increase (remembering that 25% is about the peak it ever got) but that leaves the other 75%.

The issue I have in my stockpile that contains the most FoW themed content is the Six Day War/Fate of a Nation one and it still doesn't take up the whole magazine. Arguably, the historical articles on the Six Day War can be used by any game depicting that era, not just Fate of a Nation.

Now BF and WI have split and the number of FoW articles is down to less than 10% of the entire content. It's been going down since the start of 2015. The evidence doesn't back up the claim that WI is largely dominated by FoW. The charges are a subjective, rather than an objective one.

Can I just add that WI's emphasis on commercially successful wargames, new products and elaborate megagames allows it to carve out a niche in the UK games magazine market. If Miniature Wargames is old school and quite traditional and Wargames Soldiers and Strategy more thematic, varied and practical for your average club gamer, then WI occupies the shiny and showy end of the hobby which isn't a bad thing. Between all three magazines so much ground is covered, and I haven't even mentioned the blogs (which for me suffer at times from usually being a single voice instead of a range of contributors).

Uber – I was not intending to troll. I gave up my subscription a while back because I didn't want to pay for a magazine where 1/4 (your figure) of the content was product placement. Some months it felt like a lot more. IMHO it is a great pity what became of a magazine with such a great pedigree.

All magazines are hostage to the supply of good quality articles – they are a demanding entity in that regard and it must be difficult and a constant worry for editors as they probably only ever have a couple of months worth of submissions on hand at any one time.

That being case, FOW type stuff will help the editor ensure a complete issue and really it is down to us, as a body of gamers, to ensure that enough articles are submitted to magazines, so that editors have the widest article range possible to give wide appeal.

I suspect the editors are always up against the reality that the balance between consumer and writers is not in their favour.

I've been looking at wargaming magazines since the 70's and rarely was there ever a majority of articles in any one issue that was of immediate relevance to me . That would be impossible when there is such a broad spread of possibilities.
Pre-internet however that was the only way to see what was going on.

I suspect the editors are always up against the reality that the balance between consumer and writers is not in their favour.

I couldn't possibly comment.

I'm with Ubercommando on this. Even as a competitor, I take my hat off to WI for never having succumbed to allowing FoW to dominate the content to the extent predicted and it's probably been less, frankly, than in the old days when Duncan Macfarlane turned to his pals at Wargames Foundry to provide content – the refrain back in the late 1980's was, as I recall, "Foundry Illustrated, with vast swathes given over to Darkest Africa and other projects. Dan's done a great job at keeping the content balanced, he knows his market well and provides them with what they want. Job done.

An editor can never please all the people, all the time, as an email I have received today has reminded me. One person thinks you've produced the best ever issue, whilst another says it's the worst. You just have to stick to your guns, hold your nerve and produce the best magazine you can with the material you've got.

Back to normal service.

Henry
MWBG