Confusion In and About Warlord Games Publications
~ a lighthearted critique from a newb ~
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!)
Or perhaps an aborted large-scale amphibious frog-man
operation for the seizure and occupation of the Atlantic Ocean?
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.
