So What's Wrong With Imaginations?

A contemplative moment amidst the Battle of Aspern-Essling, done in the SYW manner.

I recently read a blog that has taken a few "swipes" at the concept of "Imaginations" and the blogger saying that his way of wargaming is the best way. Several other blogs have played a similar tune from time to time, so I thought that a rebuttal of sorts was long overdue.

Well, it is OK to have an opinion (even if it's wrong), but we wargamers live in a big church and there are hundreds or more ways of approaching the hobby of playing tabletop games with the Little Men, as many of our wives and sweathearts call them. The term "Imaginations" refers to the invidual's creating of imaginary nations, hence the mash of the words into "Imaginations".

Prussian/Germanian infantry defend a town against French/Gallian attack.

I think that it is rather sad that some people feel the need to put down the efforts of others. For one thing, most wargamers are doing the best that they can with resources and talents that they have. We should encourge them for their effort. For another thing, it can come across as arrogant or elitist for a person to say that his way is the best way of approaching the hobby. And finally, it's a hobby, not a contest.

Some Approaches to the Hobby

* the majority of wargamers like to build historical armies and recreate historical battles on the tabletop in order to see if they could have done any better than Lee at Gettysburg or Napoleon at Waterloo. They might also create fictional battles (and often do) and scenarios for their tabletop wars.

Think about it, if you are playing a fictional scenario that might have happened between the Austrians and Prussians in the Seven Years War, then you, my dear hypocrite, are already engaging in the employment of your imagination to play in a wargame. This is the lane that I choose to play in most of the time.

* an even larger community of wargamers dwell in the fantasy realm of Hobbits, Dwarves, Orcs and other monsters and enemies. This is not my cup of tea, but let us give Fantasy its due because the number of Fantasy gamers and the amount of money that the segment of the gaming industry generates quite simply dwarfs that of historical miniature wargaming.

* back in 2005 or there abouts, Patrick Lewis created a Yahoo Group titled "Old School Wargaming" (or "OSW") that celebrated the "good old days" of wargaming with the likes of Donald Featherstone, Peter Young, Charles Grant and Peter Gilder, among others. Patrick talked about the influence that Charge and The Wargame had on his nascent wargaming career and how it directed him towards the 18th Century. He would fondly recall building armies with simple figures such as Suren/Willie, Staddens, RSM/Pax Britannica, Minifigs and many others.

The book that started it all - Peter Young's CHARGE!

Charles Grant told the tales of battles between Imaginations such as the
Grand Duchy of Lorraine and  the Vereinigte Freie Stadte

"Never fail to celebrate your victories - and dispute your drawn battles - by erecting  monuments and triumphal arches to your own honor. Never fail to preserve and display replicas of every captured color. Such little attention will pierce the think hide of the most complacent opponent"  -- Peter Young

Quite a large number of wargamers were drawn to this new Old School Wargaming thing and the number of visitors on the group site grew and grew. At the same time, the same people caught the bug to create their own little countries and rivalries in the manner espoused by Peter Young and Charles Grant. And before you knew it, there were little principalities, dukedoms and electoral states popping up all over the internet. A kindly gentleman named Jeff Huddleston creating a central warehouse of all these imaginations on his blog titled "Emperor versus Elector". It was a place where the denizens of imaginary nations set in the 18th Century could congregate and carry out their diplomatic affairs with other nations. Jeff added a long list of links to various blogs that updated (not sure what you call this, "streaming" or something like that) in real time. You can visit the site and see when one of the blogs had posted a new entry on its blog. This remains a valuable tool to this very day, and I admit that Emperor versus Elector is one of the first sites that I visit on nearly every day.

Let me be very clear about in my opinion that Old School Wargaming and Imaginations brought a lot of new people into 18th Century wargaming and anything that expands this population is a very, very, very good thing. Period!



Why Wargame with Imaginations?
One acquaintance of my summed it quite nicely, so let me say it in his words:

"I always have a wry smile when those who denigrate imag-nations in their next breath say that it was "CHARGE" or "THE WARGAME" that got them into 18th Century wargaming, or what classics they are! Two of the most imagi-nation centric books on wargaming that I can put my hand on.

I am only starting down my imagi-nation road, but it is one that I have tinkered with on paper for years. Why? Two reasons: First - I love the process of bringing into existence two sides, that have no historical baggage, and Second - an imagi-nation campaign, even just linked battles, is fun to devise and run - even as a solo project."

An interesting observation that checks two of my own boxes - the fun of scribbling on a piece of paper your ideas for creating an army, and it goes without saying, drawing up imaginary lists of figures that I would want to purchase for a new Project. I hark back to Hal Thinglum and his MWAN publication - he had an infectious way of talking about Projects and Lists of Figures that will always stick with me.

The second check box for me is the fact that the two (or more) sides/countries have no historical baggage to contend with. Which countries had good armies and which ones had poor armies? It doesn't matter when the combatants are of your own creation.

The imagination has a wonderful side benefit, that is, over the course of the years it allows you to create characters and watch them develop over time. In my imagination of Germania (Prussia) there is an undercover agent or naer do well named Lady de Winter who works mysteriously around the edges of our games. Lady de Winter has an obsession with collaring a ditzy English heiress named Lady Diana Pettygree. These two ladies have crossed path during many of our games and the competition has a sort of "Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote" feel to it. I haven't enough fingers and toes to count the number of times that Lady de Winter almost captured Lady Pettygree, but she never quite manages to nab her adversary. One of the fun parts of this rivalry is that Lady Pettygree has no idea that some evil woman has it in for her, which makes the whole thing even more delicious.

The infamous Black Hussars of Lady de Winter's personal army of evil doers.

Lady Diana Pettygree is said to have passed this way.

Where I Entered the Scene - My Approach

Circa 2007, I was attending the annual Seven Years War Association in South Bend, Indiana where I was hosting a wargame featuring Austrians and Prussians fighting over something, I forget what. On the table next to me was a game hosted by Bill Protz that featured large 48 and 54 figure infantry battalions fighting in three ranks, just like the actual soldiers would have done in 1757. Bill was hosting an French & Indian War game at the time. I found that as my game progressed, I kept looking at Bill's game and admiring his big battalions.

After both of our games concluded, I ambled over to Bill and told him how interested I was in his game (which won the Best of Show award that year). Bill told me that his game and rules were strongly influenced by Peter Young and his book "Charge". As the conversation continued, I got around to asking Bill whether or not he had ever considered doing this in a European setting. Well, like minds converged and soon we were both building large armies with 60-figure battalions and 12-figure cavalry squadrons. After a few months, we finally had painted enough figures to have a game on Bill's giant 6ft by 24ft game table.

Big Battalions of infantry, supported by equally large cavalry regiments, in one of our Old School battles.

Paying homage to messers Young & Grant, we created fictional countries for our armies. Bill had an affinity for the French and so named his country "Gallia", while my affinity for all things Prussian led to the creation of my country, Germania. The armies had fictional names and nations, but they were in fact French versus Prussians on the tabletop. You see, you really can have your cake and eat it too by having both historical and imaginations at the same time.

What do you do with big battalions? You play in big games!

I have always been rather enamored with Peter Gilder's Wargame Holiday Centre, having visited it twice when it was owned by Mike Ingham. As a consequence, I wanted to fight similar big battles at home and at game conventions in the USA.

Hundreds of Prussian and French cavalry cross swords in an imaginary battle scenario.

On at least four occasions, probably more, I organized large games at a local hotel for our SYW games. We played SYW versions of the battles of Rossbach, Gettysburg, Antietem, Aspern-Essling and Austerlitz with our armies. We often had 20 players in these games, ten per side. We would set up the table terrain and place the troops on the table the day before the game. This way, the gamers would arrive and could pitch into right away. Each battle had to have a Raison d'Etre so I would create a back story to the battle and give a name to each player's general. Several times I went the extra mile and scribbled out general orders and missions for each person on a paper scroll that I sealed with red wax and the letter F for the French and P for the Prussians. We had a lot of fun with that. Sometimes two players on one side had conflicting missions and this had the potential to create even more fun and mahaym in the game.

So I have nothing but warm feelings about Imaginations armies and wargames. I caught this particular SYW bug from Young and Grant. If Imaginations were good enough for them, they are good enouigh for me.

Conclusion

The concept of Imaginations in wargaming has attracted a lot of new people into the SYW era of historical miniature wargaming. Anything that brings in new blood to the hobby should be celebrated rather than disparaged.

As I said earlier, there are many different approaches to the hobby and the diversity of ideas on how to wargame is one of the things that make this such a great hobby.