WHEN I WERE A LAD

Hi.

My Name is Mal.

I have been playing with toy soldiers (ducks the eggs and rotten tomatoes) for practically as long as I can remember. I never was a closet wargamer. I was self "outed" from the start and feel a bit sorry for those who still feel that being a gamer is cause for embarrassment or shame. I think I was about 12 years old when the “Waterloo” film came out and the school book club had as it's quarterly special, the book of the film and another titled “The Uniforms of Waterloo” or some such. I forget exactly as the book sold out and I never received a copy. My interest was piqued anyway and the film confirmed my new addiction. A short while after, I went into town -Scunthorpe- and bought myself a copy of a wonderful book (in French Zut Alors!) titled “L'Uniforme Et Les Armes Des Soldats Du Premier Empire” by L and F Funken, which with my schoolboy French and the assistance of a French mistress, (French mistress, not French Mistress) I could just about make out.

My friends and I began with armies of Airfix highlanders and cuirassiers bolstered by Guards Colour Parties and ACW figures with blobs of wood filler on their heads as shakos. Then we discovered 20mm Miniature Figurines. I collected French, one of my mates the Brits and another the Prussians. We played using Donald Featherstone rules copied by hand out of a library book. Funnily, another group in school were playing ACW, again using Airfix and they declared that Napoleonics wasn't proper wargaming -only ACW. I never did get to play ACW. Except for the odd naval disaster. not out of any other reason than that I prefer the LOOK of Napoleonic figures. Apart from that, I always found myself more interested in our own history than that of the Americans.

I was never really satisfied with those early games played on my friends kitchen floor with barely painted figures, brown paper hills and cardboard rivers and roads so I've been trying to better those early attempts ever since. I hope this will inspire others to try out some of the techniques I've learned in over 50 years of gaming.  

I suppose it was my love of history that led me into wargames and the wargames that led me to look deeper into history. There seems to be the same kind of split between the players of the many rule sets available today as that between my school mates and us -a bit like the Reb and Yankee re-enactors that turn up at the "Triples" in Sheffield every year. I've tried most periods, put on big WW2 display games and even dabbled a bit with Sci-Fi and fantasy (not GW though) and even written rules for some-  including a set called "Dogface" set in Vietgnome -and firmly believe that playing any wargame is better than none, but never ACW. Daft isn't it. My great love has always been Napoleonic gaming and it is to that I have always returned.

The games of today are pretty different to those we started with all those years ago and even those I played during my last bout of the fever. They seem simpler now. "With a Napoleonic flavour" seems more popular than actual "history." Almost "dumbed down," with a concentration more on slick presentation rather than innovation and I do feel that the ubiquitous Games Workshop, having entered the historic games scene through the Perry twins and others, have taken away some of the chaotic individuality, inventiveness and drive of an earlier era. On the other hand, scenery tends to be better now! What I would like to see wargamers aspire to is the kind of quality of scenery regularly seen on good model railway layouts. I realize there is a difference in the durability required but it's possible to come at least close.

A lot of my approach to gaming has been coloured by various places asking my friends and I to put on display or participation games and the effort I expend on getting the figures looking as good as I can. Between these, they have led me to a belief that the table upon which the game is played is as important to the hobby as the game itself. The whole aesthetic is a vital a part of the game as the rules used. I can't get into something played on a bare table with a few bits of card marking hills, towns etc. They lack ambiance and if I can't get down amongst the troops on the table the whole thing seems almost pointless.

Being on a pretty tight budget for most of my gaming life, I've had to be inventive in the construction of scenery and terrain features that looked as good as my limited modelling skills allow. To that end, I intend for this blog to be about constructing all sorts of features vital to a good game and to point the novice gamer, both historic and fantastic to sources of materials and items as cheaply as possible. Most will be in my own chosen scale (15-18mm) but should be easily altered to suit other scales. Don't expect perfection in my work, time and arthritis now preclude that, what I'm aiming at is more a sharing of ideas, methods and resources.

Over the years, I've gone through periods where wargames weren't part of my life, but they are, (unfortunately perhaps) rather like malaria -once it gets into your blood you're stuck with it. You can go for years without playing or painting, but then, one day, something will set off another attack. It can be anything, a film, book, question on a quiz show, somewhere you've visited and before you know where you are, your fingers are twitching towards paintbrushes and dice and it's back as bad as it ever was. There's no cure so you might as well just get painting and enjoy it!

Cheers

Mal