This weekend, the question of what, precisely, constitutes an "imagination" came up in an online forum of which I am a part. To be fair, the issue originates from further afield in a Facebook group that I am not a member of, but I weighed in with my own view. The following was in response to the question posed yesterday (Sunday) morning by an exasperated member of my own rather more gentlemanly town square, who had been met with a strident response to information he shared about his (admirable) hobby activities on said FB group. Here is, more or less, what I wrote:
To my mind, the concept of imagi-nation(s) is a
broad one. It can range from historical refights or what-if
scenarios/battles/campaigns between armies of a particular era, to
completely made up combatants operating in a quasi-historical setting,
to the rather generic red and blue forces of the Prussian Kriegspiel
that examine a particular tactical problem, task, or exercise. And then
there are near endless variations thereof. Think too of Charles S.
Grant's various Tabletop Teasers, Stuart Asquith's refights of famous
tabletop encounters, the exploits of The Wargamers back in 2005-2007 (as
detailed in the much missed Battle Games), and many others.
Whew! That was a mouthful.
And that ignores our fantasy-scifi cousins who deploy armies of Skaven (sp?), Orcs, space marines, or what have you. Certainly imagi-nation in spirit there.
We might make the argument that ALL wargaming, even so called
historically-based games, to one degree or another is imagination. Even
if we do not don silly hats made of folded newspaper, who among us does
not hear distant trumpets, drums, and the thunder of cavalry formations
passing by as we set up and maneuver our legions and brigades of plastic
and tin men across the table? And all without the fear of sudden
death, or other horrors of the real thing.
For the record, I've
always preferred the term "fictitious armies." But I'm an outlier. And
who would have suspected such opinionated verbosity after just one mug
of coffee on a Sunday morning?
-- Stokes
Comments
Kind Regards,
Stokes
Best Iain
Best Wishes
Peter