[The following appeared in The Herald-Sun in 2002. It was based on an AP wire story that I expanded with local quotes (and which I had to practically rewrite due to certain inaccuracies). Because I wrote more than half of it for my newspaper, I got the byline credit.]
Have fun storming the castle!
Miniature wargame enthusiasts take their hobby -- and history -- seriously
By J.P. Trostle
Joey Miller, 47, is used to people asking him why he still plays with toy soldiers.
"Basically, I tell them I never got over being 12 years old," said Miller, a civil engineer and land surveyor.
Miller, a resident of Hoover, Ala., may be officially past the G.I. Joe stage, but that doesn't stop him from getting together with buddies on Sunday afternoons and re-creating a fantasy that boys have embraced throughout history: commanding an entire army.
Miller is a member of the Birmingham (Ala.) Wargaming Association, a group of men who take toy soldiers -- in this case, historically accurate, painted lead figurines -- seriously.
"My wife thinks it's about as fun as watching paint dry," Miller said. "But it's a great way to spend three hours."
Traditional wargames allow players to refight great battles or re-create conflicts throughout history, from biblical times to WWII and beyond. Some sets of rules are easy enough: a game can be played in an hour; others may take days to play, and are so detailed and sophisticated the military uses them to teach and test strategy and tactics.
While enthusiasts could play any of the hundreds of board or computer wargames that have been published (and they often do), historical miniature gamers are drawn as much to the aesthetics, presentation and accuracy of the playing pieces as they are to the competition.
They collect legions of meticulously sculpted figures ranging in size from about 1/4 inch in height to six inches or more (the two most popular scales are 15 millimeters and 25 millimeters - about 1/2 inch and one inch respectively), and deploy them on sometimes elaborate tree-lined, model-laden landscapes resembling model railroad layouts.
"Painting and collecting model soldiers was what first drew me in," said Raleigh resident Chris Hughes, 41, who has been gaming since his grandfather introduced him to the hobby when he was seven. He eventually taught himself how to sculpt his own figures and today makes his living creating figures for his company, Sash and Saber. Hughes' specialty is the "Horse & Musket" period (1600-1900), covering everything from the English Civil War to cowboys in the Wild West.
A couple of times a month, Hughes hosts a game night at his house for a local group called the Triangle Simulation Society. TSS also schedules occasional weekend afternoon games at Hobby Masters in Raleigh and Cerebral Hobbies in Chapel Hill. Every September, members hold a small weekend-long convention that brings together 300 participants from across the Southeast.
The group is "loose-knit ... with no dues or official membership," and anyone with an interest in military history or miniature gaming is welcome to attend an event.
"We play just about any period: naval, Napoleonics, Spanish Civil War, WWII." Lately the group has been running an American Civil War game with their own rules, "Butternut and Bucktails."
Creating your own set of rules is a long tradition in miniature wargaming.
While the hobby has officially been around since 1913, when H.G. Wells published "Little Wars," a book of rules for fighting battles with toy soldiers and "a spring-loaded cannon," it didn't begin to take off until the 1950s. Even then the selections were limited, unless you were interested in the Napoleonic era or the Middle Ages.
"Until about 1980 there were a relatively small number of companies," said Hughes. "Up to 20 years ago there weren't a lot of published rules or figures, so people had to make their own." With the advent of desktop publishing, anyone could release their own set of rules, and the companies providing figures, vehicles, buildings and other props have expanded to fill the niche.
"Now you can buy any figure in any scale in any period you desire," added Hughes.
One visit to Historicon, held every July in Lancaster, Pa., is enough to prove this. The largest of a growing number of annual conventions, Historicon is sponsored by the Historical Miniature Gaming Society, and draws upwards of 5,000 gamers from around the world.
In addition to small skirmishes and big battles, conventions have increasingly held miniature events of a non-military nature. Racing games in particular have grown in popularity, from chariot races in eight-foot-long Roman hippodromes ... la Ben Hur, to modern day NASCAR.
Attending a convention is also the best way for anyone interested in the hobby to get started. Not only does it allow players the chance to test out numerous games in a short period of time, they can pick up just about everything they need in the dealer's area.
Miniatures wargaming can be an expensive habit. While rulebooks run anywhere from $10 to $40, figures are almost always sold separately. Depending on the period, size and number of playing pieces needed, an army can run from $100 to $200 - and the units will still require assembly and painting. Painted armies are also available, but can run from $300 to $500 or more.
"Some of the games and sets you see at the [conventions] are mind-boggling," said Scott Allen, a Birmingham, Ala., wargame enthusiast.
Allen is a frequent player on miniature tournament rosters across the Southeast and plays what is collectively known as "Ancients," one of the more popular periods for competition that lumps together eras and armies from 3000 B.C. to 1500 A.D.
"There's a wide range of history to pick an army from," said Vincent Solfronk, a longtime player and librarian at the Birmingham Public Library.
"De bellis multitudinis" ("large battles"), also known simply by its initials DBM, is the most popular of the elaborate Ancients rules. Unlike many other miniature games, where various numbers of people can play, DBM was designed as a two-player game, making it ideal for competitive tournaments.
Gamers choose an army from a period of history and research their uniforms, leaders and tactics.
Joey Miller said he likes to play out the historical exploits of a general named Belisarius, a military commander in the sixth century A.D. under Byzantine ruler Justinian I.
Allen said he likes the history but is drawn to the game more for the competition. His favorite army, an early Vietnamese one from 200 B.C., isn't glamorous but gets the job done, he said.
But as historically accurate as each army may be, some of the clashes become surreal because the armies can come from any period in history, Solfronk said. The image of chariot-riding Roman legions wielding swords against medieval German knights may rankle history professors, but in DBM it's fair game.
The International Wargames Federation is holding its annual DBM tournament in New Orleans in February 2003, and Allen, Solfronk and Miller plan to be there.
"Some of us have become pretty good friends," Allen said. "We see each other every couple of months or so and enjoy playing together."
Allen said he knows war gaming isn't your typical hobby. "We get kind of geeky, but there are geekier pursuits."
--Wire sources contributed to this article.
On the Net:
Triangle Simulation Society: www.trianglesimsociety.org
Historical Miniature Gaming Society: www.hmgs.orgHobby Masters:
www.hobby-masters.comCerebral Hobbies:
www.cerebralhobbies.comWar Times Journal:
www.wtj.com