How I Learned to Stop Worrying and (Usually) Love to Proxy

I was one of a number of folks asked on Twitter about whether or not I proxy units in my games and, if I do, if it occasionally bothers me.  My answer was far too complicated for the 180 characters allowed and I hate Twitter threads -- they seem to me to defeat the purpose of the form -- so I thought to write something in this space.

For the unfamiliar, to proxy in miniatures is to declare that a figure, let us say a 28mm fellow shaped into the proper uniform of the famed 57th and painted with equal precision, is for the purposes of a particular battle subbed in to represent a fellow from a different unit.  There can, of course, be degrees here.  When I was first starting in miniatures and lacked the money to purchase the Minifigs I so desperately wanted, I played Napoleonic battles with Green Army Men.  Yes, I think this should be capitalized.  My ever-indulgent father nailed two-by-fours to an 8' x 4' sheet of paneling, painted it green for me, and away I went, chalking roads and fields onto it in different colors and trying to wrap my head around how to stage Waterloo with Donald Featherstone's very first set of rules.  I determined that some of the GAM (those holding their rifles aloft, if I recall) were cavalry, some were infantry, and the mine-sweeper guy was an officer.  This dates to no later than 1982 and my love of the form has never really waned.  

In the decades since I have painted thousands of miniatures covering many scales and periods.  I learned how to interpret an Order of Battle, how to research uniforms (this usually involving buying something Osprey or other), and how to turn wee hunks of lead into proper toy soldiers.  I even briefly toyed with Price August and all that hand-crafted alchemy.  Time and eyesight are both far more rarefied commodities for me now, though, which is why Tabletop Simulator came as something of miracle.  Now, through the shared modelling work of others, my table top has no limits, my armies can be of any size I desire, and I can join with my friends in playing just about any rule set I want.

With this as prologue, then, why, and how much, do I proxy?:

I Now Play with What Tabletop Simulator Provides

Never is far too long a time, but I find it very unlikely I will ever return to painting soldiers.  As a result, I am left with the charity of others -- and they are most charitable.  There are hundreds of different soldiers from different eras available for free in the Workshop and most are of a high quality.  Just about all of them, as I have noted many times in the past, are far better painted than I ever did in the "real" world.  That said, the collection is not infinite.  There is a notable lack of Viet Nam figures, for example, which is a shame, but, even within well-supplied eras like WWII and Napoleonics, the deeper you go the more you lack.  Not everyone is so fortunate as to have his very own Giogio who can be entreated to fashion a purpose-built Joachim Murat.  So I proxy. 

I Am A Gamer, Not A Modeller,

Even when I was peering through a magnifying lens and trying to get pupils onto my 25mm figures, the painting bit was always a means to an end.  I painted when I started because you had to if you wanted to play those sorts of games.  I know many others do -- and bless them for it -- but the craft side of the hobby never had any appeal to me.  I was here to play games with toy soldiers.  Speaking of which...

I Like Far Too Many Periods...Even Within Periods.

Bless always those who can research, build for, and play a single period.  Or even a single period within a period like, say, the 1809 campaign (early rather than late) for Napoleonics.  Of course the Wee Corporal is my first and greatest love, but I like a lot of other periods as well and that requires a certain flexibility vis-a-vis accepting proxies.

Along this same line, I now love testing new, unfamiliar rule sets which, before Tabletop Simulator always threatened the dreaded extended period of re-basing one's army.  These days even "real world" tabletop generals have grown weary of that and have begun preferring rules that either do not require re-basing or, well, allowing one to proxy bases

1809 Hungarians are pretty cool, though...

 Some Games Lend Themselves to Proxies. 

Best example I can think of for this is Commands and Colors.  In the end, all the games in the system are tool boxes.  It is "Light Cavalry" not Hussars and "Light Infantry" not the infinite variations thereof.  It encourages a certain amount of proxy-ish behavior.

Spot the proxies.  I defy you.

 I Love Some Periods More Than Others.

The more I love a period, the more I will want to not proxy.  Why this is so is a matter best left to one of Dr. Freud's descendants.  I just know that it is with me.  Besides, some periods, notably colonials in my mind, feel more "toy soldier-y" and I am far more open to running proxies.  My Sudan battles are rife with them; as is my Isandlwana.

ZULUS!

I Love Big Battles.

It is almost an in-joke.  We do epic.  When one does epic, even, again, in the "real world", odds are he will have to proxy.  I am amazed, honestly, at how little I have to do in the Napoleonic space, but, occasionally, we must.

Leipzig in 15mm for "Blucher".  Spot the proxies.

And yet.

If the figures are there, or if I can wheedle one or two from a friend, I will always prefer to get my units as right as I can from that famous "three-foot standard".  When Giorgio created bicorne 1805 French, of course I had to swap out all the shako'd fellows.  I love learning about these eras and assuredly the aesthetic must always be a part of the calculus.  For me, though, it is ever a balance and I will never let anything peripheral get in the way of playing the game.  Now wherever did I put that bucket of GAM?

 

 

The Idiosyncrasies of Black Powder 2

 

As part of Project: Quatre Bras, we've been making our way through various rule sets covering this battle; largely miniatures.  Last night we played the first four turns of the Black Powder 2 Quatre Bras scenario, and though we struggled a bit over a couple edge cases, found the rules to be what they have always been, viz., relatively simple, straight-forward, free-form, and a fair amount of fun.  That said, I was once again struck by some of its idiosyncrasies and, when I mentioned this on-line, got asked what they might be.  With that in mind, my list.

1.  It is a bloated book.  I doubt there is a lovelier book of Napoleonic rules anywhere, but that has come with some nasty, complicating bloat.  Page after page of figures, anecdotes, inset quotations, &c., mean that needed rules wind up many pages apart.  Flipping through Black Powder 2 to find just that rule you are looking for can be frustrating.  As a side note, the fact that the Blunder table is not on the Q.R.S. is a remarkable omission.

2.  Do not ever tell me to use my common sense.  I will stipulate that a rule writer cannot imagine every odd scenario that can come up on a table crammed with miniatures, but I worry that the authors used that cheap blanket to cover up a number of sins.  Taking only the most recent example:  find me a rule to tell me whether or not units must have room sufficient to change formation, say from column into line or column into square.  I will warrant it makes the most sense to say that you must have sufficient room to make a formation change; very many rule sets so state.  However, when your rules say black letter that a unit with the "Must Form Square" ability must form square when charged by cavalry, what am I to think when my columns are attacked by horse, do not have sufficient room, and yet must form square?

3.  I have never liked its toolbox approach.  For Napoleonics, there is the original rule set and now, I believe, four supplements.  Each of the latter brought a tweak to the rules here and a special ability for a nation there.  If you have none of the supplements -- I have all of them -- there are quite a few abilities that will make no sense to you.  There is a cleanness to Black Powder 2 that I think risks getting bollixed up with all the supplemental lit.  Worse, though, is that all that lit requires a great deal of tracking to keep straight and a fair amount of conversation with those with whom one is playing just to make sure everyone is playing the same game.

4.  I am ambivalent about the crazy swinginess of the command system.  In yesterday's Quatre Bras battle, the French looked ready to steamroll the Allies when, suddenly, they could not get a command roll to save their lives -- despite having a number of divisional commanders present.  One brigade rolled no fewer than three blunders.  Some like that, and I take their point.  Others playing, though, thought it deprived them of agency.  Here, I think, is one of those points where one will decide whether they want to play Black Powder 2.  Can you bear it if the dice turn hard against you?  In fairness, similar concerns were shared regarding Bloody Big Battles.

 We will be back come next Saturday night, but these, and a few others, are those things that I think will ever keep Black Powder 2, from making it into my list of top ten rule sets.