June Gaming Activities

Maurice

Well, here it is, nearly the end of June, and I almost  missed writing a post. I don't want to let down my dear readers, so I wanted to share what's been going on in my gaming life. Most of my hobby activity this month has been painting (more about that later), but just this past week, my good friend Charles came over to my home to play Maurice, by Sam Mustafa. We played about 3 hours on  Tuesday night, but hadn't played all the way through the second deck. So we agreed to resume the game on Thursday night. How it took us six hours to play a game rated to take only 2-3 hours I don't know, but it was the most fun I have had playing a wargame in ages, and confirms my feeling that Maurice belongs firmly in my top 3 favorite wargames of all time.

We made a lot of errors while playing, most notably my charges on his cavalry at the end of the game. I took away his last morale point on the last turn I could play, as we had no more cards left after that. It was an epic victory for me, achieved by forgetting the rule that infantry cannot charge cavalry, unless the target unit is in a town. But it was still great fun, for my opponent as well me! I didn't get any pictures of the game in progress, but my recorded the second session, which I will link to as soon as it is posted.

American Civil War, home brew rules

On Sunday afternoon, I was graciously invited to join another friend, Glenn, at his man-cave gaming shed, to play  Glenn's home brew version of Battle Cry along with Charles and Nick. 

Glenn has been working on this game for awhile now, and was testing the rules with a historical scenario, Gaines' Mill. This was one of the Seven Days' battles that concluded George McClellan's peninsular campaign in 1862.

If the dice in the second picture look familiar, they are straight from Battle Cry/Command and Colors series of games. What was different about this variant were the cards used to activate units in the game. 

Before the game, I was concerned that in a multiplayer game, I would spend a lot of time waiting for my turn. Indeed, that is exactly what happened the one time I played in a 6 player epic scale C&C Ancients game. Instead, this version had each player on a side draw 5 cards, and each round, each player would secretly select one card from his hand. 

The order of activation is determined by the number next to the clock symbol at the bottom center of each card, with more aggressive actions taking place later in the round (higher numbers). The occasions where both sides have the same activation number were resolved by taking turns exchanging the initiative.

At the end of five rounds (when all the players' cards were exhausted), all the players drew five new cards, and a new turn began. This format worked extremely well for a miniatures game with more than one player per side. Indeed, it could easily be scaled up as large as you wished, so long as your table space and miniatures collection permits. 

While the rules worked extremely well, our host determined that the Union army should start with fewer troops on the table at start, to give the Confederate army the opportunity to attack sooner than historically, and make the scenario a closer contest. The number of CSA units destroyed was overwhelmingly higher than the number of Union units lost.

That's all the miniatures gaming I for this month of June. In addition to miniatures, my wife and I have played at least one game of Catan with our next door neighbors on my birthday. But euro games are not the focus of this blog, so I won't dwell on that. 

Why "Minimalist Wargamer"?

When one considers the miniature wargaming hobby, the word 'minimalism' does not readily come to mind. Collecting rules, figures, and scenery, like any collecting, is antithetical to minimalism. Some wargamers may even tend to be packrats. Clearly, indiscriminate purchasing of figures which never get painted or rarely used is a commonly acknowledged problem. How often do wargamers share stories about their 'lead/plastic mountain', or joke about being immortal because they cannot die until they have painted their last figure?

Since I started miniatures wargaming with Avalon Hill's Napoleon's Battles in 1990, I have collected and painted figures in at least four different scales, in periods from ancient Mesopotamia to the Vietnam War, not to mention naval miniatures as well. I encountered so many different periods, rules, and projects, that the inevitable accumulation of hobby 'stuff' began to cause stress and frustration.

My personal observation has been that the excitement of a new set of rules, or a new army, is so easy to gratify with an impulse purchase. With the growth of the internet marketplace in the last 20 years, this compulsive buying is easier than ever. We  place our order for the materials, but what are we really buying? In all honesty, we are buying the expectation that we will finally have the right figures, finally have the holy grail of rules for our chosen period. But all too often we are then faced with the daunting task of painting all the little fellows, then collecting or crafting scenery, etc. This is not limited to our joyful hobby. The first world epidemic of excessive consumption is powered by the belief that the next purchase we make will finally make us happy, but it never does.

Some time around 2004, while I still lived in a 256 sq. ft. studio apartment, I began to critically evaluate my belongings, both miniature and non-miniature. All the 'stuff' was choking out the life that I wanted: free and uncluttered. I had been watching Peter Walsh, organizational expert on Clean Sweep talk about how our lives are often held captive between 'I might need this one day' clutter (unpainted figures and models) and 'memory clutter' (completed figures or collections that are no longer used). While it was easier to get rid of unpainted figures and unused scratch-building materials, it took longer to decide to give up on painted miniatures. After all, I put a lot of time into painting those little guys, not to mention the money I spent to acquire them! But around this same time, I was helping the widow of a dear departed friend sell off his painted and unpainted miniatures. The painted stuff sold, but not for nearly as much as I thought they'd fetch. And as for the unpainted lead, the effort to sell it was not worth what little I could get for it. So I ended up giving much of it away to close friends, and keeping some myself.

 In the last 3-4 years, I have sold off painted collections I don't use anymore, like the DBR condensed scale army I played with only once or twice, or the Warmaster Ancients army I played with only once before we moved on to Field of Glory. By the time my wife and I moved across country two years ago, I gave away about a third of my painted lead, as well as a substantial number of books. The end result is that I feel lighter and more focused, and able to enjoy other things in life, which I may share here as well. After some 26 years of miniature wargaming, I have come to know what types of games I like, and what new challenges I wish to pursue. I am intentionally limiting myself to keep from getting discouraged by too much painting and not enough gaming. Sharing my choices, and why, as well as showcasing the new things I am painting and games I am playing will be the focus of this blog.

My choices to simplify my wargaming life are not for everyone, and I salute those who bring visually outstanding games to entertain at conventions, or build their own man-caves with 12-foot tables and glass cabinets around the walls. If your things still bring value to your life, then keep on collecting! It is also clear though, that many miniatures gamers also suffer from excessive exuberance in following the latest fads or dream projects, only to decide later that it's all too much. Minimalism is merely a tool to helping me evaluate what I truly want out of this crazy hobby. 

The secret to wargaming happiness in my opinion is sharing fun games with cherished friends in good humor. I hope everyone can find value in what follows.