Discoveries in the Lead Mountain

 

We had gotten to the part of the afternoon where the cigars and VAT 69 Whiskey had come out. 

The Brigadier and I were rummaging through the lead pile here in a remote department of the Duchy when - "Aha!" quoth he. "I remember these little fellows!"

He triumphantly waved aloft a small packet. We peeled off the browned and unadhesive tape, and carefully brushed aside the decayed remnants of some foam peanuts to reveal the undercoated figures.

Fortunately I was familiar with the Stadden back catalogue and I knew them for the Frenchmen they were. 

"Ha! These will paint up a treat, dear boy!" He pressed them into my hands. "Santoigne Regiment, American Revolution. There's a jolly good picture in young Mollo's Blandflord."

"What ho!" he cried. "Have those done by Christmas and I'll have a shiny sixpence for you my boy!". With a hearty slap to my shoulder he poured himself a port for the road and vaulted into his MG. As the gravel spurted from under his tires, I reflected that I had not - yet - completed the first Company of the Erbprinz Regiment.

Is the Old School Wargaming Yahoo Group Dead?

Everything has it’s time on Earth and in time that allotted span must come to a close.

Has this happened to the Old School Wargaming Yahoo Group?

Consider:

Is there really anything NEW happening there?

Once upon a time the group was a real clearing-house for information. New members were being put in tough with like minds, a very great deal of information was being exchanged. Old miniatures lines were being evaluated, old books re-read, ideas being shared; it was a melting pot for ideas.

What is happening there these days?

It seems to me that we are going around and around in circles to the point that the group is becoming a caricature of it’s old self.

All too often we get this ridiculous self-image of the OSW member as a florid-faced retired Colonel type of figure, slurping the port and brandy whilst inflicting his foul cigars upon those about him from the comfort of his leather-padded chair.

How many times must we have the debate on what it means to be Old School? The argument always resolves on the inevitable suggestions of hail-fellow-well-met versus reminders that the old schoolers had their rather glaring faults as human beings? Everyone then just realizes that they want to have fun playing with toy soldiers.

Is the problem one where the topic is too limited? There is only so much self-indulgent “Old Schooling” that a group can chew over before all the juice of the topic is vanished?