Up and Down the Scales

In the unlikely event that this blog is known in the wider wargaming world at all, I suppose it would be known as a ‘6 mm’ blog, that is, a blog that features 1:300 scale figures in its wargames. Many wargamers, I suspect, might read some of the text, and even appreciate some of the wilder ideas about wargaming, but, on the whole, are not too impressed with the eye candy (can you have eye poison?) on show.

It probably only goes to show that taking photographs of 6 mm figures is a lot harder than with larger scale figures, and also that neither my painting skills nor my ability with a camera are up to snuff. I shall, therefore, keep wargaming with the small stuff and taking bad photographs. All I can say in my defence is that both my painting and photography have improved over the years, from the dreadful to the merely awful.

Anyway, as the astute reader of the blog might have noticed, occasionally larger-scale figures make an appearance. I have, in one of my boxes of shame, a stash of old (over 20 years) English Civil War dismounted cavalry and infantry figures, along with a few French King’s Musketeers types. These were purchased, I imagine (you really don’t think I can remember that far back, do you?) for my forays into role-playing games.

I started role-playing games as a teenager, of course. One of the difficulties was the fantasy setting, and the other was the lack of figures. The former meant that many hours were spent poring over books of rules and cults, trying to figure out how it all cohered. It was only many years later that I worked out that the setting did not need to be more than immediately coherent.

The other issue that I never solved for Runequest (for indeed, that was the RPG of choice) was the lack of figures. Naturally, I could (and did) get some ancient figures. My own was a Spartan Hoplite which, my friends complained, was not actually carrying a weapon, as he had lost his spear somewhere along the way. Anyway, we cobbled together some figures, some appropriate and some not. But unless one of us had a vast sum of money, which as ‘A’-level students was distinctly unlikely, we were never going to get giants, dragon snails or trolls.

Later on, I discovered the delights of FGU’s Flashing Blades game. Remarkably, this is still in print, along with all the scenario books. I have discovered over recent weeks that I use it a lot for Seventeenth Century background and ideas. Refreshingly, as I may have remarked before, it is set not in the France that was, but in the France that should have been. While the sword combat system is a bit complex (I don’t think I have ever played it correctly) a lot of the other stuff is a rollicking good adventure RPG.

Those of you who have read so far will have divined the next step. The large ECW figures are for Flashing Blades and similar systems. I also have in my pile of books the GURPS Pirates modules, and a few renaissance era skirmish type sets of rules – Peter Berry’s Once Upon a Time in the West Country and Once Upon a Time in the West Indies, and someone’s Have Pike Will Travel, which in the best traditions of my wargame stash, is in the ‘it's around here somewhere’ category.

So far as I recall they were all quite fun, in different ways. Flashing Blades was a real role-playing game, with adventurers with attributes like charisma, which could get the young ladies swooning, or at least intrigue the barmaid sufficiently to show the party the back way out of the pub. The others are slightly higher (or lower) level games. There is a lot less characterisation and the scenarios are more wargames, such as escort the wagon across the table, rather than intrigue and scandal. Still, with secret missions and occasional random events, they could be jolly fun games.

Meandering towards the point here, I suspect that often these sorts of games have been compartmentalised, perhaps almost totally, away from serious or proper wargames. In the latter, we conceptualise a few figures as being a battalion or a brigade, or perhaps a company or platoon. There is not much individualisation, there are few fun chance cards, and, hearkening back to a post a while ago, the chance of comedy narrative arcs is fairly small.

It has always seemed to me that there is a good opportunity being missed here. Why not mix the levels of wargaming up? After all, a lot of historical novels count on some individual action in saving the day: retrieving the Queen’s jewels which she has inadvertently given to a rather sweet English ambassador, for example. A more political plot could be ensuring the ambassador and a signed treaty get through hostile land to the destination. The really astute reader may recognise the Corbie battles and skirmishes here.

Without wishing to belabour the point, has anyone any ideas about this? Have you done it, mixed the levels of wargaming, so that the outcome of a skirmish game determines the circumstances of the next full-scale wargame? Does it work?

My own thoughts on the matter, having tried it out a bit, as just noted, is that it can work, but it can be a little difficult to decide on when to switch back to the other scales. I think particularly, given the options for identification with individual figures there are in the RPG and skirmish level, it is hard to get back from that to the army level operations.

On the other hand, Tolkien managed it in The Lord of the Rings, of course. The battles are only really sidelines to the progress of the fellowship of the Ring, or latterly Sam and Frodo to the Crack of Doom. But I have not seen many wargame campaigns that take this line. Have you?