Nathaniel's Ambo Scriptorium
Knights! There are about 70 here but I only need 60. This probably looks like some strange fetish collection or OCD dark hoarding, but I don't think it is. I hope not. In truth, I need these for my current WIP and I acquired most of them in one haul. More on this to come as it develops and it is shaping up pretty well so far.
No, not (just) the ancient aliens guy with the hair from History Channel...
While reading the rules to the old SPI game 'Conquistador,' from S&T magazine no.58 Sept/Oct 1976, and looking at the credits, was surprised to see Whitley Strieber's name under acknowledgements.
What? How? Why?
All I can gather from google is that Strieber was working in advertising in NYC during SPI days. Must be a study in nerdiness here we're missing out on. Who knew whom, I wonder.
* - In case the name doesn't immediately ring a bell, Strieber wrote, among others, the book "Communion" about his experiences with alien abduction at the hands of the now-famous big-eyed gray aliens. This book along with X-files, media coverage of the Roswell incident and JFK conspiracy theories all made for an exciting period for nerdery in the 1990s.
Warlord Games works with or is part of Osprey Press, a known publisher of history texts. I am entirely new to Warlord Games product line and yet my initial brief perusal of the materials has been somewhat confounding. In barely cracking the covers of a couple of these books I've found some alarming and, to me, entirely new information.
To begin, in the Thirty Years War section of the Pike & Shotte rulebook, page 128 says that events in 1643 led to "...Sweden once more becoming the dominant force in Scandinavia and the Balkans."
Did the Turks know about this? Did anyone consult the Sultan?!
Then in the introduction to the Battle of the Bulge Bolt Action supplement, pg. 9 says that as a result of the Allied invasion of Normandy "...Hitler’s forces in northern France were comprehensively defeated and forced to retreat westward."
Was there a failed German withdrawal maneuver that somehow escaped the attention of the Allies and everyone else in the world including a couple subsequent generations of academics and historians? (Thinking: this'll confuse the yanks and brits, everybody run away from Berlin!)
I realize, after being reminded every few paragraphs, that these rules in no way attempt to simulate "real" conflicts, but then the books proceed to offer chapter after chapter of seeming technical and historical information. If the games are in no way intended to reflect the reality of anything, why the copious amounts of (questionable?) background information? It's sort of a confusing stance in my opinion. Why partner with Osprey Press who clearly do intend their publications to be regarded as serious efforts at history?
If these publications were small press with limited budgets some of the confusion might be understandable, if only regrettable, but these are fairly large corporate entities with large market footprints and with presumably capable and qualified editorial departments. Is this just contempt for consumers, actual ignorance or something else?
Still, the pictures are really nice in some of these books and those alone make them interesting to me. Nice pictures. Lovely toys. The "fun" side of warfare, I guess, to be taken lightly, as they spare no effort to remind the reader. VERY lightly.
Finally, and I do apologize for invoking the following but it's too apropos here to forgo, perhaps the lady doth protest too much. Or maybe she could just do a better job.