AN INTERLUDE: WARGAMING PRE-HISTORY

The title of this post refers to the pre-digital, pre-internet, pre-computer days. Pre-history as in the days of film and camera, when we could not easily record, and less easily share, wargaming experiences. Wargaming pre-history,  in other words, when the day to day activities of average gamers went unrecorded, outside of what made it to the few magazines and newsletters.  Personal pre-history, in the sense of being a long time ago, when I experienced my first wargame magazine: 

In an earlier post, I shared a bit on my foundational experiences in the hobby. In this post, dear reader, I shall inflict upon you the experience I had upon encountering my first wargame magazine, Wargamer's Digest, Vol 3, No 1, November 1975 (pictured above). I picked this up at THE hobby shop for me then, Hobby Horse, a small local chain in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, where I grew up. 

Unlike many other gamers of my era, I did not come to the hobby through Featherstone, Wells, or Grant. At that time, I was not even aware of the scene across the pond. I would come to these sources later. I came into the hobby via the local scene, which I thought was typical of the scene everywhere. Picking up this magazine turned out to be a turning point: it was my portal into the wider hobby. The impressions from this magazine remain with me still, and I find myself thumbing through it every now and then and reliving them (and so will you if you don't stop reading now!)...

On the inside cover was a full page ad for Empire of the Petal Throne. This was quite arresting, not only for the art and description, but because it had hex maps. I eventually would get a copy, only to find out that it wasn't an actual "wargame." I can still recall the smell of the rubberized maps (and their vivid colors).  Nevertheless, opening this magazine and seeing this advert was like seeing another world at the time.

(By the way, you can clix pix for BIG PIX, as usual, in this post)

Then came the cover blurb, explaining the fascinating picture on the cover, along with table of contents and what would later become the familiar face of  Gene McCoy, editor and owner of the magazine.  I came later to understand that he had been a tanker in the US Army, which explained much about how he approached material (as well as some of the line drawings that would appear in the magazine, that were lifted from US Army field manuals).   Nevertheless, he was a major figure in the hobby then, and he was certainly an authority figure to me given that I was reading a specialist magazine of which he was the editor and owner (simpler days). 

The first feature was a collection of pieces about re-enactors. Although I trusted that they were in the magazine for a reason, I couldn't quite find a way to relate to them. Nevertheless, I was fascinated to see that one of these had happened near where I lived.  Looking at them now, it is interesting to read that the Knoxville, IL event, with 500 US Civil War re-enactors, was listed as the "largest in the country"--if so, things have come a long way since! The Wacht Am Rhein piece introduced me to that German term, and I was also deeply impressed that there were people who had the means to collect and "'play" with actual World War II vehicles. At the time, I was also unfazed by the fact that one of the masterminds behind the event was fitted out in SS gear (like I said, times have changed).

The next piece was a potted history on the Battle of Poitiers. This went on for several pages (which I won't reproduce here). It was well done, and wonderfully informative for me, and the accompanying images of miniatures I found inspiring (did I mention simpler days?), but the piece had nothing to do with wargaming  (typical of many pieces that would appear in WD over the years. The name of the magazine would eventually be changed to Military Digest)..until you came to the "Wargamer's Digest Staff Analysis," which was where Mr. McCoy (I assume) added his insights on tactics, et al (still not really "wargaming"). At the time, I thought that there really was a "staff" at work on this analysis. However interesting this was, turning the page brought me to the REAL REVELATION...

...it was here that I discovered the advert for LOU ZOCCHI!  Just reading the extensive list in the ad made my head spin.  In a few weeks, I would have a Lou Zocchi catalog of my own, which made the advert look skimpy.  The range of options was dizzying.  In those days, science fiction gaming, fantasy gaming, and historical gaming were all in the mix for me, as were board and miniatures games. Lou Zocchi provided not only a merchandise catalog, but a literal catalog of what was out there, especially among the "third world" (as we came to call them) game designers and producers.  I had no idea!  To this day, I still find Star Raider intriguing based on the art in this ad (probably best that I never actually owned the game to dispel the romance). 

Continuing, I then made another major discovery in the "Basic Training" piece. This was a good introduction to Micro Armor, which I would later take up. Looking over the list of rules, I saw that there was a place called Walthers in my hometown that carried one of them (Angriff!).  This would later become the first set of rules I would own. However, this told me that there was a place other than Hobby Horse where I might find things: Oh, Brave New World!  Unfortunately, there wasn't a street address, but my radar had been activated.

Then came the feature on the Graf Spee. One of the first military books I had read was on the pursuit of the Graf Spee, so this fascinated me. I found the pictures of 1:1200 ships with bow wave effects (cotton though they were) quite arresting. This was also my first exposure to a schematic of a naval engagement: interesting and informative...

 ...unfortunately, there was no mention of what rules were used. In retrospect, I would guess Fletcher Pratt. Given my unfamiliarity with all things hobby at the time, I found myself assuming that my ignorance was the issue and regular readers of the magazine would (somehow) know what rules had applied. Once again, the adverts were intriguing, the Fantasy Games Unlimited ad in particular.

In the "Pass in Review" section I had my first real glimpse of miniatures.  One thing I noted was the mix of "wargame" figures and what I would have called "toys" (like the Bachman Mini Plane and the HO scale Cobra gunship).  This was my first sighting of the major figure lines of the day: Heritage, Minifigs, Custom Cast, Scruby, etc.  Pages such as this in the magazines of the day were important sources, and I remember spending lots of time looking this page over.

"The Reader's Service Department" provided a means through which you could order rules sets. Another window opened up for me when I first saw this page, showing the range of rules available with  descriptions of each.  In retrospect, it's interesting to see the original Dungeons and Dragons among them, which at that time was less than a year old.

  
This piece on a the Battle of Azanulbizar from Tolkien completely blew me away.  It says it recounts the events of a game using Chainmail but it is highly embellished and fictionalized, so much so that it reads like a story. I was already primed for Tolkienesque gaming, and this article sealed the deal.  One interesting side note: I noticed the advert for the Ringbearer game from The Little Soldier in Maryland at the end of this piece.  I would pick up a copy of this rules set later on (I forget where). Twenty six years later, I would move to  Silver Spring, Maryland, and while living there I found myself in a rather disheveled little store in Wheaton, MD that had a mixed bag of things piled on tables and shelves from previous owners.  At the bottom, like an ancient layer of geologic sediment, I found old, dusty wargame stuff, with price tags from way back.  This was the remnant, I realized, of the Little Soldier Shop, long since gone.  At a Northern Virginia Gamers Game Day event, I would later make the acquaintance of Dennis Largesse, former proprietor of the Little Soldier Shop, and would game with him at my place periodically after that. I've since moved to New England, but we're still in touch.

This piece on battlefield recovery (which I haven't reproduced in full) caught my eye for two reasons: the use of plastic "toys" (the sort of thing I had seen hanging in bags in stores), and the fact that these toys were moderns. Little did I realize that in six years I would be an Armor Officer in US Army, Europe dealing with the supply and recovery of armored vehicles on a daily basis in ways much more involved than this article ever described. 

Even more significant, though, was the advertisement at the end of this piece. There it was, an advertisement for Walthers, complete with the address! I would wind up going there to pick up a copy of Angriff! as found in the earlier advert.  I had expected a hobby shop, with a focus on gaming.  Instead, I entered into a warehouse with a service counter.  Walthers was (and remains to this day) a major mail order model railroad business. In the small service area, I was surrounded by men the age of my father; these were model train "enthusiasts" (to put it nicely), and they didn't mask their sense of offense at the intrusion of this teen-aged outsider among them.  Worse, the counter person made a big production out of not knowing what it was I was asking for ("An-what?").  Another guy came out, who was only slightly less insulting, and after rolling his eyes disappeared into the back, leaving me standing among the sniggering regulars.  Eventually, he returned with the rules. I was glad to have them, but needless to say I never went back to Walthers.

I was already a hex and counter gamer, and this piece on military symbols really caught my eye.  Once again, I thought it peculiar that the symbols were focused on contemporary military units (what game had these?). Nevertheless, I studied this article and got all this information down cold. In those days, we were much more competitive, and knowing these things would, I thought, be an edge.  Two years later, this effort did provide an edge.  When I was entering college and my first year of ROTC, other new cadets were struggling with theses symbols, but I already had them down.

 Skipping to the end (to the relief of my readers,  I'm sure), I come to the most important find: the "Intelligence Report" and associated pieces at the back of the magazine. It was in this section that I discovered the "Northwest Milwaukee High School Gaming Club"--which was literally about a half mile from where I lived. I called the contact, Dan Banda, who introduced me to Micro Armor as well as 15mm Napoleonics and ancients. I went on from there and the rest is history (well, pre-history).  I never tired of looking over this part of the magazine, seeing what people were looking for, what they were selling, and where they were. Pre-internet, sections like this were the glue that held the hobby together.  Looking at it now, it's interesting to peruse the adverts and see Gary Gygax and Ron Kunz as contact people for gaming in Lake Geneva,Wisconsin.  These were the days when a trip to TSR hobbies meant visiting the front porch of the Gygax household, anecdotes of which, dear reader, I shall save for another interlude. At this point, I will close this rumination. 

If you are still reading this, I salute your patience (or your absence of having better things to do--or both!). 

Exelsior!

RAMILLIES 1815: A TWENTY FOOT TABLE, TWENTY PLAYERS, AND A FEW TOY TELESCOPES

If you have been following along, you will no doubt recall that I have been meandering towards hosting a rather epic (as it has been called by others--let the record show) Napoleonic orgy featuring all of my Prussians vs most of my French. For those who wish to catch up, you may wish to check out the previous post, which presents the context for the engagement. This happened last Saturday (Oct 14), and this post, dear readers, intends to shew what transpired.  I was heavily engaged with running the affair, so please excuse if this report may consist of rather alot of eye candy with some contextual framing tossed in. For those who may want to know how this was done, or who might wish to replicate this madness, I direct your attention to my Ramillies 1815 content page, where I have posted all the game files.   On to the report...

For starters, I used the below text to produce my own versions of maps for the event...

Ramillies 1706 Marlborough’s Tactical Masterpiece Campaign 275 Author: Michael McNally Illustrator: Seán Ó’Brógáin Publication Date: 20 Oct 2014 

...the dimensions of the maps necessarily wound up getting warped quite a bit to fit the elongated proportions of the wargames table. In this case, I had a main table (Ramillies) of 20' x 6', with two adjacent "approach" tables (one Prussian and one French), of 18x5'...

...Above left, the graphic showing the tables marked off in a 1' grid (numbers are entry points).  Above right, the graphic combined into a single map. One feature of the game was that the last foot of each of the approach tables was actually the first foot of the Ramillies table. This overlap took care of any issues with fighting over the gap between tables (which I've seen come up in games that use multiple tables). Speaking of arrival points, each commander had to decide on a primary axis of advance ahead of time, as well as an order of march. Once that was done, units would arrive in accordance with the order of march table. This system abstracts the time/distance effect of formations arriving in columns of march along the axis...

 ...Example: If the Center/North axis was chosen, 1 formation (French Division or Prussian Brigade) would enter on turn 1 (at entry point 3), and up to 2 formations could enter on turn 2 (1 at entry point 2 and 1 at entry point 4). 2 formations could enter on turn 3 (1 each at entry points 1 and 3). As it turned out, both sides chose Center/North, but more on that later.
   
On the night before the game, I set up room and the terrain...

...I had terrain "tents" to assist with both identifying terrain effects as well as objectives for towns. In the above, you can see that in addition to the terrain classification information, the town of Foulx is worth two points for the French (signified by the two blue dots) and one for the Prussians (one gray dot)...

...I started setting up at 6:00 p.m. and wrapped up at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday. I hand't expected it to take so long, so am glad that I didn't try to get the tables set up the morning of!  Aside from levelling the tables and securing the table coverings, I spent a good amount of time ensuring that the entry points were correct (so both sides had the same distances to cover) and meshing where the roads left one table and entered another given that these would serve as guides when units were transferred between tables. Above, the room and tables ready to go the night before.  I must add that the near table in the above left photo is the table mat that I created for this game, spraying patterns on a piece of 20' x 5' duck cloth. I was rather pleased with how it came out (now I have one if I need one again). The others are  Hotz Artworks European Fields mats, and they are superb.  I then returned early the next morning with the troops, and things starting happening....

...players begin arriving and checking out the turf.  We had identified a group of core players for each side ahead of time. These fine fellows would command the major formations and were appraised of the grand schemes for each side. Walk-in players were assigned to them to assist with running the formations. Although there were inevitably some comings and goings through the day, we had twenty players at the peak (that I counted), which was what I had figured for...

...Charlie, the author of Napoleon's Rules of War, briefs the players before the game.  Charlie would assist me in running the game. I then followed charlie and briefed the players on the peculiarities of the Game Day rules and the Victory Conditions. The game was intended as a mini campaign and kriegspiel in one, only without maps. Towards these ends, one of the central tenets was limited player communication. Once a player's formation arrived, he could only communicate with adjacent commands or the army commander via written note, and that was only during a five minute command phase at the end of every turn.  Thus, each player commander would see the other side approaching and have to adjust based on his understanding of the operation. This worked out well; the individual initiative of multiple players impacted the overall schemes of the commanders (for better and worse), and each side clearly was reacting to the other.  Another point was that players could not leave the environs of the approach table until their commands had actually entered the Ramillies table.  And in any case, they could not examine the approaching enemy units except as they could see them across the table (or approaching the table in the distance).  Thus, spying out the approaching forces was a major part of the game.  To assist with this mechanism, I (helpfully) equipped both sides with the finest in Napoleonic technology (what we call in contemporary military terminology "off carriage fire control")....

...each side had four of these magnificent toy telescopes available to scan opposing forces. What they lacked in magnification they more than made up for in flavor...

 ....after the rules briefings, each team broke into their planning sessions. Team Prussia, above left, receives its brief from Bob (playing the part of Gneisenau), and Team France, above right, received its brief from Mark D (Playing the part of Grouchy). Then things got rolling in earnest...

...a few turns in: the Prussians arriving on the approach table (above left). Above right, you can see the French Corps on the approach table arrayed in battalion carre (each block is a division).  Nicely, done, that man, Mark D/Grouchy (seen at the end of the table at the top of the picture)...

  ...Above Left, a shot of a French division marching across the approach table.  Above right, a Prussian brigade marching in from its arrival point...

 ...the first players start taking up positions on the Ramillies table as advance guard elements start arriving there...

 ...meanwhile, the main body players whose commands were still on the approach tables look on to follow developments and adjust accordingly (or not)...

  ...more players start taking up positions at the Ramillies table as more formations begin to arrive...

  ...things are developing, with most players on the Ramillies table, but there remain substantial forces yet to arrive...

  ...a shot from the French side looking towards the Prussians on the northern edge of the battle. This would be a more spread out affair, with room for troops deployed in line, as opposed to the main effort in the center, where you can see the more concentrated forces in columns. Standing in the photo is AJ, of AJ's Wargaming Blog, who also has a report on the game...

...Both sides are now all in, with nothing left on the approach tables.  This did not mean that the approach tables were irrelevant. A breakthrough by either side could force action onto an approach table (which would be extremely adverse to the side that had to defend its approach)...

 ...Above, action on the north end of the table with fighting stretching into the woods and across the Little Gheete River. On the French side, Earl's dice, which had been red hot in the practice games, went cold, and General Dice instead weighed in on the Prussian side (when it rains...).  The Prussians would eventually threaten Autre-Eglise by the end of the day...

  ...the culminating action in the center, with the French Young Guard hitting the Prussian line opposite Ramillies.  This also was where the Prussians deployed one of their two grenadier battalions (seen in the above right, the fellows with the busch plumes). The Prussian line withstood the shock, and they eventually would challenge the French for control of Ramillies (which was contested at the end of the day)...

....On the south end of the table, the Prussian cavalry division has arrived and is poised to impact events, with the dragoon brigade headed for the gap in the French lines (trying to get there before it can be covered), and the cuirassiers threatening the French line south of Ramillies...

 ...but the French Dragoon division is coming up to counter. Unfortunately, we had to call the game before this epic clash was resolved, but it was grand to see it developing!

This game represented an engagement between a full up, reinforced Prussian Armee Korps (five brigades, plus cavalry division and reserve artillery), and a reinforced French Corps d Armee (three divisions, plus corps light cavalry division & reserve artillery, plus a Young Guard Division, plus a Dragoon division supplemented by a hussar brigade).  In all, there were  48 Prussian battalions, 44 French battalions, 48 Prussian squadrons, 44 French squadrons, and 9 batteries on each side.  About right, it seems, for a 20 foot table :)

By all accounts, it was well received and ran pretty much as I had hoped it would.  The game ended before we could name a victor, but it was well fought and all seem to have been productively engaged while there.  I managed to put all of my toys on the table, and it was quite a sight to see them spread out in one game. We played from 10:00 a.m. until 5 p.m.: 'twas a fine way to spend a Saturday, among good friends playing with toy soldiers.  My thanks to all of my compadres in the club for their enthusiasm and support.  I am content. 

And this, friends, concludes my report on Game Day, 2017.  

Excelsior!