How Far Will You Go?

A long time ago, I wrote a piece on this blog entitled ‘World Wargaming’, in which, as I recall, I mused on how, as wargamers, we concentrate on those bits of the world which we find interesting, have information about the forces and wars, and can find toy soldiers for. This is all fair enough, I think, but it does beg a few questions about the scope of wargaming and also, how we (or I, in this case) might implement a wider context for our games.

As you might imagine, if you have been paying attention, this matter has been rather brought back into focus by the 1600-Something campaign. One of the things that the scope of that activity yields is an increased awareness of those forces in the world that did not make headlines, and which usually get ignored. This includes local forces, most famously the English Trained Bands, but most early modern political entities, I imagine, could not manage without them. It also includes political entities which are not much in the consciousness, such as Moldova, North African states, assorted nomadic tribes, and other players who had become minor by the time of the campaign, such as Mongols, Tibetans, and so on. There are also forces, the lack of which indicates a lacuna in our (or at least my) knowledge, such as the bulk of Africa and South America.

As I am considering extending the scope of the campaign to the rest of Asia, some of the problems have been highlighted. For example, at present, I am setting up for an Ottoman against Persian wargame. So far as I recall, I have never put Persians on the early modern wargame table and, at least in 6 mm, I am not aware of any Persian figures, at least specifically. And here we arrive at the second problem alongside ignorance: lack of figures.

Now, I have, as you may recall, used Aztecs already as Siberian tribesmen. It is hard to criticize, because few people know what they looked like anyway, and there are, as far as I know, no suitable figures. I also think that in a solo campaign, in particular, you cannot afford to get bogged down worrying about the specifics of figures and their suitability. As someone said to me once, ‘stop worrying and get the toys out’, or words to that effect.

As I have gone through the rebasing of my Far East and South East Asians, I have discovered some of the compromises I made in the past. Chinese troops crop up in a variety of places, particularly their shot and archers of various sorts. As it happens, my Ming infantry are a bit thin on the ground, but the same figures turn up in the Vietnamese and Koreans (at least), so I do feel justified in beefing up the Ming using them.

But how far can I go? If I need some extra archers, are my Wars of the Roses longbowmen suitable? If they are, is it just because they are 6 mm figures, and therefore, as someone once sneered to me, ‘interchangeable’? If not, then is one bow-armed figure much like another? What do we mean by ‘a historically accurate figure’ anyway?

For the Persians, I am, of course, refusing to be deflected. While I would usually mine the Ottomans for suitable figures, that is not really an option this time, as that is who they are fighting. So I have generated the army using North Africans. This might, of course, be a massive dose of colonial hubris. But, on the other hand, better to be represented than not, I suppose. The troop types are roughly commensurate – eastern-style cavalry (spahi), militia, and some shot. The shot gave me a few problems, admittedly, and eventually I delved into my early Renaissance collection for some WotR Baccus handgunners, who had already been painted and based for Grenadines in the Reconquista campaign. I have no idea of the state of Persian missile troops in 1602, and the specific mechanism of firing is less clear on these figures than on Peter’s more recent ECW figures. They will, in my view, do.

I suppose a lot of this comes down to how much, as a wargamer, I will let myself get away with. My ECW armies, particularly the infantry, stand proxy happily for most European states of the time. While the purist might object that I should, at least, change the flags, and they are probably right, that would, in my view, be rather gilding the lily, as next week they will probably be representing another nation’s armed forces. In a game with another human entity, I suppose there might be more objections, but surely the game is the thing, rather than the exact representation of an army whose numbers, let alone clothing or anything else, we cannot really know.

The final problem I have with my expansion, which is still the subject of some head scratching, is the map. I have my European map, printed on A3 paper, which is working nicely. I am moderately familiar with Europe. Moving into Asia, however, poses challenges, such as the wastes of Siberia and the vastness of China, let alone my lack of knowledge of the nations of South-East Asia. I am also wondering whether to try to print it all on another sheet of A3, or to have two separate maps with the respective edges having the same provinces at the join. I can foresee some problems with that, however, as missing invasions or opportunities along the join would be annoying.

As you may be able to deduce from the above, my rebasing project is moving on. The South-East Asians are drying from having their bases glued, and the last major quantity of figures, the early Renaissance ones, are started, or at least the first batch are. There are a few more odds and ends I have not quite decided about, such as dragoons (who do double duty as forlorn hopes) and some Indian and Tibetan militia, who look like they need extra figures. But, angsting about figures and maps apart, progress is being made. But how far would you go repurposing figures?