When To Retire Gracefully

Oh dear. It is very difficult, I suspect, when writing a blog not, at some point, to offend someone. Not only that, but blogging, as with all social media, leaves a permanent record on the internet of all your blatherings. Thus, as some politicians, journalists and other people in the public eye have discovered, a few words dashed off without your usual care and attention can come back to haunt you.

I seem to have inadvertently upset M. Foy, of the Prometheus in Aspic blog. He feels that a post from last November, entitled Vive la Difference was a criticism aimed at him and/or his blog. While he (or rather, a post on the aforementioned blog) was mentioned, and quite prominently, admittedly, in the post, I was doing the ‘philosopher writing a book review’ sort of thing. I am sure you have seen the sort of thing – you read a review of a book and find that the words have little to do with the book in question. Philosophers, in my experience, do this rather a lot. They prefer to talk about their own view, rather than the views of the author. Thus, my post was sparked by the original, and not meant as a criticism.

Be that as it may, hurt feelings are hurt feelings, and I apologise for any impression of criticism which was present in the post. I shall not try to defend it. I do note that it was not the first time I have moaned about people (not M. Foy) laughing at the size of 6 mm figures and claiming impossibility to paint. I doubt it will be the last. I also note from the date of the post that I was probably donning emotional armour in preparation for my annual foray to a wargame show. Such things leave me rather depressed about my hobby, I admit. Finally, I hope the point of the post was that we, as wargamers, should be open to learning from each other. If that was not as clear as it could have been, then mea culpa. Still, an explanation is not a defence, and the apology stands.

I hope we can lay the matter to rest here. A hobby is a hobby; even considering waving handbags at each other at dawn is taking the whole thing too seriously. I hereby lay my handbag down.

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I have started to wonder as to when wargame toys, of various types, might be laid to rest. In my second wave wargaming, I have been going for about twenty years or so, on and off, and have accumulated a fair quantity of stuff. Thus, as many of you may have noted, my "new" 'Wars of the Counter Reformation’ armies are old ones revived. Well, re-based, anyway. On the whole, I do not have a problem with them. I would concede that I could probably do a slightly better paint job on them now than I did all those years ago, but not sufficiently better as to warrant repainting them.

You might have noticed, from the photographs of ‘Whitby Fight’ a few weeks ago, that I have a range of buildings. Many of them are very old, Hovels, card ones. I recall the pain of cutting them out and sticking them,. Often, the pain was real, as you had to ensure that your knife was very sharp to cut them, and small pieces, fingers and sharp hobby knives are only asking for one outcome, really, and that involved blood (among other things, of course, but I do try to keep the blog family friendly).

Now, other buildings I possess are more recent (I think the Hovels buildings were copyrighted in 1980-something), and things have progressed. There are some very nice resin buildings around, and, over the years, I have acquired some of them as well. Even I can, often, make a reasonable paint job of them. They mix in reasonably well with the card stuff, and so I am not particularly bothered by any differences. In fact, the only thing that did surprise me was the light splash (I’m sure there must be a technical term for reflection in flash photography) which the card buildings gave, particularly the tower masquerading as Sneaton Castle. The inner part of that, where the battlements are, was white and proved a bit problematic to get a picture of.

Before digressing further, the point of what I am trying to ask is: when do we pension things off in wargaming? I am sure there are some gamers who are still happily using the figures they bought and painted four decades ago. Similarly, I have little doubt that many are busily buying and painting the very latest models which, it has to be said, have a lot more detail on them than even those of a few years ago.

As a further aside, I have sworn off buying the latest Baccus ECW range. Having seen them in real life, they are way too detailed for me to do them justice. At this rate I shall have to head for 2 mm, just to keep my painting efforts sane.

But the pensionable age of figures, terrain items and rule is a question I have not resolved. As I mentioned, I still recall making the Hovels buildings, and am reluctant, even at this distance in time, to relinquish them and their use. I am not claiming they are particularly good, or beautiful, or anything. But I made them and do not want to let them go (after all, they have mouldered in a cupboard for the last decade or so while I have sojourned in the ancients world). As with the buildings, so with the soldiers. I painted them. I do not need any (well, many) more. I continue to use them.

Rules, I think, seem to be a different issue. I have many rules of a certain age on my shelf. The wargame rule world seems to move on more quickly than casting technology. Rule sets also seem to multiply. I used to have a fairly comprehensive collection of ‘early modern’ rule sets. I doubt if I could afford such today. But I am not sure when I decide to pension a rule set off.

Further, over the last twenty years, historiography has certainly moved forward. My recent reading has suggested that a lot of things I thought I knew about warfare in the sixteenth century is probably wrong. My recourse, as some of you have probably worked out, is to write my own. But things will change again, and they too will be pensioned off.

So, is wargaming a hobby of constant renewal? A quest for the ‘perfect’ set of rules? A desire for beautiful figures of gorgeous terrain? How does it work for you?