Because they look good

Roleplaying games and tabletop Wargames usually involve a significant tactical element to the game play. So I think it would be a reasonable assumption that most people that play these games would describe themselves as tactically minded. But is this always the case or do we actually make choices (on unit selection for instance) for other reasons?

In a recent email exchange between myself and The Evil GM we got to discussing this very subject. "Back in our Wargaming days, if I'm honest there were some units & models I used not because of tactical considerations, but just because I liked the models. Take the Warhammer epic mad boyz for instance - they were almost impossible to control, you just put them somewhere you thought would give them the best chance to be useful and hoped they'd do something. A complete unknown quantity who most battles did sweet FA, but I just liked the idea and always used them. Or the Goff - one of the few mobs I'd painted and I liked the job I'd done so included them every battle whether they were appropriate or not.

In roleplaying, I'm sure I'm not the only GM who tailors a story or battle just so I can use my favourite new models just because I like them. How many of our decisions are hard nosed tactical choices or carefully crafted to drive the story and how many are just because model 'x' looks cool and we want to use it?"

I know I have written more than one D&D encounter around a cool model I have recently acquired. In fact I have even been known to retain some 'secret' models - hidden away, sometimes for years - for use at some unspecified time in the future. I'm also the sort of player who chooses feats and powers for roleplaying characters not because they are powerful but because I think they suite my character. Of course the power gamer might approach such choices from a different perspective but I suspect that many players, like myself, have more aesthetic concerns.

I think one of the reasons this is the case is because those of us that play miniatures based games instead of computer games have a different perspective. Yes we want to play games of tactics and strategy and we want to win, but we also want to play with our toys. For us owning, painting and handling the miniatures is as important as playing the game itself.

Lincoln : A Foreigners Quest

I've just finished reading a very engaging biography about Abraham Lincoln. I'm not normally drawn towards Biographies, the real person is rarely as interesting as the myth or legend you grew up with. But in this book the story woven by the author Jan Morris increases ones admiration for the 16th President of the United States rather than decreases it.

Born in Somerset, England, Morris looks in at Lincoln with a very English eye but also the dry wit that is typical of anyone that hails from the Mendip Hills. From the very first pages I felt that to truly appreciate Lincoln you needed to be a foreigner looking in. That's not to say that Americans don't understand the man but that when writing a biography there is an advantage to being culturally detached and immune from the sentimentalism attached to the life of the subject. The result is a picture of a true giant of history that has both clarity and incite.

I have long had an interest in the history of the American Civil War but I must admit to having remained ignorant of the bulk of Lincoln's story. Born into a poor Kentucky family this unassuming, some might say unhandsome man, rose to the presidency and forged a nation almost through force of personality alone. But it was his speeches - the greatest of them being The Gettysburg Address- that made this gentle man of humble origins into the legend he has become today.

If you read no other biography of Abraham Lincoln I think you could do much worse than pick up this slender volume which is both thoughtful and though provoking. Morris takes the reader on an intellectual journey across 19th century America that blends narrative, history and biography to reveal the real man that would eventually become the most iconic of American Presidents.

50 Followers!!!

Yesterday this Blog hit something of a milestone with its 50th Follower joining our little community. Welcome Joe and all the other new recruits that have become followers in the last few weeks (Robert, Andrath, Berman, jmilesr & others). I'll try not to let you down. Please feel free to comment on anything you read. Feedback is always helpful when deciding what to write about, and it's always nice to know I'm not talking to myself.

Building the Thunderer

My Great Great Great Grandfather, Thomas Hadley, was an iron worker at the Thames Ironworks in Canning Town. The Ironworks was one of the great employers of the area and was in part responsible for creating Canning Town by attracting skilled labour (including my forebear) into the area. The first Iron Hulled vessel (the Warrior) was built here in 1860 and the ironworks went on to fulfil admiralty ship orders for another 60 years. One of the last great ships to be built here was the HMS Thunderer.

Thunderer was a massive ship (22,500 tons) compared to the Warrior and had to be brought down the Thames to Dagenham - my home town - to be outfitted for active service. She served as Admiral Jellicoe's flagship at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 taking part in a shelling duel with a Kunig Class battleship that left the latter burning and sinking. The Thunderer ended her days as a training ship for cadets in the 1920's.

Its strange where history takes us. In the early days of Canning Town the area had little or no sanitation, flooded regularly, diseases of poverty such as Cholera were rampant and child mortality was high. I sometimes wonder what my ancestor - someone for whom the rough realities of life would have been evident every day - would think of our relatively pampered lifestyle in the 21st Century. I doubt if Thomas would have had time for such trivial things as Games.