"Miniature Wargames Magazine gone downhill." Topic

I stopped buying magazines like MW years ago. The reasons were many, including those mentioned elsewhere. I also decided that what I was spending on a couple of magazines a month which often gave me nothing of lasting interest, could be better used buying informative reference books on uniforms, tactics, and campaign history and such like that would give me a lifetime of use. Besides if I wanted pretty pictures, reviews and news, I could get all on the internet. The reviews were more likely to be independent too.

For quite a few years, I received WI on a monthly basis from a gameshow. It was quite good. However, about three years ago I noticed that so many of the articles did not interest me anymore. They were about things that I had no interest in, things like post modern. I would get frustrated, but then it dawned on me that maybe the editor was moving in the direction of where the hobby currently is. So, maybe I was no longer his target audience. Once i figured that out, I stopped getting the magazine and concentrated on just being the dinosaur I was. However, a few months ago, a good buddy put me on to WSS, saying it had a throwback type of feel. I found him correct. Interesting insights from luminaries in the hobby, excellent scenarios, great stuff. Anyway, WSS is a good one.

I think you make a good point: those of us who have been in the hobby a good few years are really not the target audience for the articles on painting figures or modelling buildings and terrain – unless the author is offering a radically different way of doing these things, which they usually are not!

And if we are not interested in embracing the latest set of rules or new subject matter/period for a game, but are content to continue wargaming in our preferred way, we are even less likely to be interested in some of the contents.

That, IMHO, applies to all the magazines in varying degrees, not just to MW.

In some ways I think it is a pity that Henry Hyde sold out Battlegames to MW and couldn't have gone into partnership with WSS instead and make that into a monthly publication instead by combining two bi monthly magazines, especially as he now somewhat ironically has a column in the magazine. MW would have either sunk or swum without him, either way it wouldn't really matter to me as I've never really rated MW as a wargames magazine I'm afraid and I've been reading it,( or flicking through as it has become lately) for many, many years. I presume Warner hold the Battlegames title name now for good?

Good grief, reading some of the comments here is deeply depressing. Thank God I no longer edit a paper magazine.

@volleyfire
Clearly you missed the numerous extensive messages (including here) that I posted all over the internet and to subscribers at the time I sold Battlegames to Atlantic Publishers in December 2011. That was the _only_ offer on the table for the magazine itself – the most WI and WSS could or were prepared to offer was a position as a columnist, which would hardly have paid the mortgage. Neither of them offered to buy the magazine outright, let alone keep me on as editor/designer too.

And no, Warners DO NOT own the Battlegames name – *I do*. You can't copyright a title, but they dropped using it as soon as I left and I have picked it up again and have been using it consistently ever since, unchallenged. They never understood my notion of 'the spirit of wargaming' and still don't.

As for John Treadaway, give the man a break. I've sat in that chair and trust me, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. He doesn't own the magazine and is largely following orders about content and style handed down by the multi-million pound turnover owners (Warners) in terms of the type of content contained in the magazine – which is why I quit. Decisions are made over your head and handed down as writ, and all you can do is try to comply as best you can whilst not alienating the readership. In fact, I note that in recent issues, the amount of historical v genre content has INCREASED.

At the end of the day, any editor can only publish the material sent to him by contributors, and that goes for the photos too. Back in the day, the early MWs and WIs were built around the fact that Duncan was a keen photographer with his Newark Irregular chums helping out, and the magazines were built around that. That ended when MW went to Iain Dickie, then Andrew Hubback, and then to me, and now John – all of us reliant on contributors providing not only the articles, but also their own photography. Like me, John does his best to get around the show circuit to photograph pretty games, but it's a lottery as to whether any relevant articles will come along for which one can use those images. This is why I ran not one, but TWO series of articles about photography for wargamers (still available via my Gladius Publications Payhip site).

Nostalgia is fine, and most of us have moments of missing the magazines that were around when we were young and enthusiastic about the hobby (indeed, I started Battlegames because I missed Practical Wargamer). But times were different and magazines to a great extent *were* the hobby back then, the only forums for the exchange of ideas and discovering the sources of figures, terrain, painting techniques etc. Now, they compete with the Internet, and the ones doing best embrace that and deliver content and discussion online as well as offline.

I did my bit as a paper magazine producer and salute those who still have the guts to do so, especially in these challenging times. I have been privileged to be published by WI and WSS and they both do a fantastic job for their respective audiences – as does MW and its sister publication TTG. And, as someone above said, use it or lose it. Stop whining about the lack of content you like and do something about it by contributing the stuff you do like and encouraging others to do so. That's the win-win.

All of those complaining about the demise of paper magazines might be interested in the fact that I am offering a digital alternative in the form of a Patreon gig: see patreon.com/battlegames – indeed, a significant number of TMP members are also patrons. Podcasts, videos, digital downloads and general online stuff. Check it out, you might like it.

Henry, former editor of BG & MWBG, now patreon creative.

Henry's comment that:

"…all of us reliant on contributors providing not only the articles, but also their own photography. Like me, John does his best to get around the show circuit to photograph pretty games.."

may suggest one reason why more people don't submit articles to the magazines – the emphasis in them, and in the mainstream hobby generally, upon photographs of figures painted to a very high standard upon diorama terrain.

Many wargamers, myself included, don't possess such armies or terrain as appear in the glossy magazines, so learning how to take professional quality photographs would not have much point.

Surely it's more important that wargames are easy and entertaining to play, that they portray their historical or fantasy settings as 'realistically' as pleases the players, than that they are merely 'pretty' to look at?

When I peruse the pages of a wargames magazine or website, I'm looking for interesting ideas, not eight pages of overly detailed instructions on how to paint a 28mm tall plastic elf…

@battleeditor

Ah yes Henry I am afraid I probably read all the posts you put out about Battlegames back in 2011 (was it really that long ago??)but my memory being what it is (frazzled most of the time due to overwork) couldn't recall any of them, my sincere apologies.

Arthur 1815,

If the pictures are full of mediocre painted stuff there is no point showing it.
You seem very anti quality pictures say of the brilliance of a Bill Gaskin , John Ray etc as you tell us constantly that you can never achieve
a fraction of their inspirational work. any magazine that followed this puritanical approach soon fail.
what next do we get art galleries to take out all the great pictures that none of us could ever paint and put 10-year old children pictures instead so we can achieve something more realistic.

The mags are generally crap because the writing is so poor . Blaming the work of the contributors is a poor showing . It is up to the editor's to pay the right people who are gifted to produce decent stuff not rely on this cheap approach. If they can't then they must wonder why their magazines fail.

Terry Naylor, I have to agree with arthur1815, who cares about picture of figures and or terrain that is unatainable and quite frankly uneccessary to play the game. The pictures are daft close ups you never get in a game assuming you are playing seriously not just chatting and roiling die without much concentration.

Perhaps the magazines are targeted more at the painter than the player in which case its no wounder I nolonger bother. Too many pictures and not enough gaming content for me. And why print on expensive paper, cheap newsprint is fine. To me its the text not the pictures. Magazines need to fill a slot not covered by the net and to me thay have singularly failed.

Thanks, UshCha! These days I tend to follow blogs of gamers who produce interesting ideas, rather than simply showing their painted figures, and subscribe to Lone Warrior – which doesn't feature long articles on painting, yet shows no sign of failing.

Terry Naylor, I have no objection to people painting their wargame figures to an extraordinary high standard if it gives them pleasure. I don't enjoy painting or paint to such standards, and don't care for the implication that somehow I 'ought' to do so.

What bothers me is the extent to which the pursuit of such standards has 'hijacked' mainstream wargaming so that it seems to be more about painting and military modelling – a hobby in its own right – than the historical realism or playability of the game, new ways of gaming, ideas for scenarios, games and rules.

I know I've said this before, but it bears repetition: no one ever suggests that a chess game is better for having elaborately modelled and painted pieces rather than the classic ordinary wooden ones.

arthur1815, this post is like a revolving door as you've brought us round to the common denominator which rears it's ugly head every time, the 'them and us' argument. This is where the hobby falls into two camps, the camp where the punters have deep pockets, possibly great painting skill themselves or can afford to pay for it, and time or the money to buy someone else's time. Then there is the other, and possibly the majority camp which contains those who don't have the funds, the time, the skill or ability possibly, or a combination of those things. I know someone will have a go at me about this but that's how it appears to me. Someone from the camp of the deep pockets will deny there is any such thing of course. Whilst it is commendable to want to raise standards and showcase the hobby, this view is somewhat introspective because the only people who see this showcasing of the hobby are fellow gamers, and not all fall into the deep pockets camp by a long chalk. The pursuit of such high standards does seem to have hijacked mainstream gaming, to the point where you feel duty bound to do the same, well I do at least. Perhaps articles with fewer pictures and more words would help. I remember the days of Battle magazine (yes I am harking back to the misty eyed golden days quite deliberately) where the articles featured line drawings, pretty basic maps, and b/w photos, usually quite small in size, alongside articles which were far longer than we get today.The thing was, these articles worked, and they inspired gamers just as much as a lot of pretty photos of beautiful figures do today.

Why can't it be both .Please no Luddite mentality .

Good written articles , creative thought , impartial not articles just to promote products.
Great pictures ,
Nothing new ,Duncan McFarland was doing this back in the 80s , with many inspirational articles.
Both go together , why would you want to be uninspired by crap pics , seems a self fulfilling madness.

Duncan's mag over 30 years ago was better than anything know and did great pics and clever creative written pieces.

"why would you want to be uninspired by crap pics" seems to assume that photographs of neatly painted – but not to a professional or diorama standard – figures on simple, stylised terrain are "crap" and uninspiring.

On the contrary, photographs that show toy soldiers painted neatly, but without applying several shades of paint, ink washes &c. that will not be visible at normal viewing distance, and simple, 'old-school' style terrain can be inspiring precisely because they show what anyone interested in the hobby can achieve without an enormous investment of time, money and effort. They present realistic targets at which people can aim. This is what many of the pictures in books by Featherstone, Grant and Wise did.

May I suggest you look at recent examples of Portable Wargames on Bob Cordery's Wargaming Miscellany website

link

You will see different approaches to the scenery, all of which are aesthetically pleasing and practical without being diorama standard modelling. Just because you, personally, prefer the latter does not make them "crap".

I'm not suggesting that wargames magazines should not contain photographs of expertly painted models, but that they should not be presented as they were an inherent and essential part of wargaming. Other approaches are equally valid.

We both want creative, inspirational articles that are not simply promoting the latest figures or rules. We just have different opinions on the importance of a certain type of photograph.