Thanks to the fact that the road works that have made my trips to and from work a nightmare for the past two months are now finished, I was able to drive home in just under thirty minutes tonight ... about a third of the time it took me one day last week! Having an hour extra free time this evening gave me the incentive to make the additional activation and unit cards for the slightly expanded version of SOLFERINO IN THIRTY MINUTES that I and Richard Brooks will be taking to COW (the Conference of Wargamers) in July. As a result I now have a set of activation cards for Marshal Canrobert and unit cards for his French III Corps. All I need to do now is to laminate them and then –as the French say – voila!
Marshal Canrobert
I have not commented, but I have followed the development of your Solferino game with great interest.
ReplyDeleteI am especially intrigued by your evolution of ideas on scenery. I think Larry Brom had a hollow square which could contain figures called a 'Bromburgh' and of course Joe Morchauser is shown using flat 'theatre' scenery.
It is stating the bloody obvious if I tell a WD stalwart such as yourself, that mainstream wargames have gone down a very narrow and restrictive, albeit pretty, avenue with their diorama scenery which is in fact of very little use to play a game over.
It is nice to see a resurgence of interest in other styles such as the late Charles Grant's functional balsa wood buildings.
The very first Wargamers Newsletter that I bought had an article on 'The Marne on the Demerera' which was a figure boardgame crossover for the first world war. I was fascinated and longed to try it for myself. I still haven't and forty years on I had better get a move on if I am ever going to!
Anyway, all I intended to say was thank you the posts have been much enjoyed.
John
John,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your very kind comments. It is nice to know that so many people get pleasure from reading my ramblings!
I love the spectacle of seeing well-painted figures moving across a beautifully crafted terrain, but I sometimes wonder if some wargamers get a bit too caught up with the ‘look’ of the game and not the game itself. I think that this is one reason why there has been a movement to try to recapture the style of game played back in the 1960s and 1970s – hence the growth of interest in Old School wargames.
The built-up areas I made for SOLFERINO IN THIRTY MINUTES were inspired by the sort of thing that Joe Morschauser had done (although I did not make the connection at the time – it was more a result of my subconscious coming up with something as I became more and more desperate to find a solution to my problem!) and an idea that I saw at the very first COW. I had not realised that Larry Brom had come up with something similar in the past, but it does not really surprise me as he has had lots of other good ideas (I happen to think that he is one of the less well-known ‘heroes’ of wargaming, and that he deserves much more credit for what he has done for the hobby).
All the best,
Bob