On Forums, Meltdowns, and Myopia

Change, as we all know, is a constant.  Things come and go in wargaming and on the Internet as in all other areas of life.

In general, it seems commonly acknowledged that the virtual hobby community has been splintering as new social media platforms appear, each catering to more specialized interest- Facebook, new rule-specific fora, blogs- what have you. 

I don't see that in itself as being a bad thing, but it has been making me take a look at La Bricole, and for a long time now I had been wondering if the time has come to close it down.  

Traffic had been slow to non-existent in recent months, and I'm responsible in large part for the slide.  I have to admit to myself that I haven't done nearly as much as I could have done- if at all- to reverse the trend.  Partly this has been due to the law of diminishing returns- the fewer the posts, the less people visit, so that then fewer people could be bothered to post- me included.

This was not helped by the dreadful- and poorly handled- migration to Yuku, who have almost killed the site for me in terms of trying to administer it. It resurfaced with a clunky interface, is unattractive, and has been horribly unreliable.  I found myself "locked out" of my own forum on many occasions, faced with disappearing avatars, and almost nonexistent communication- or piss-poor people skills with Yuku staff when it did occur.  Before the migration, we had a lively and active forum for its size.  

So what with traffic decreasing alarmingly I found myself getting my Napoleonic fix on other fora out there, primarily TMP, and was on the verge of closing down La Bricole for good.

But these days there has been no joy at TMP either.  That is another forum in decline, but for very different reasons.

I had been a member there since the turn of the century, and at one point was even a subscriber.  But no longer.  Over the years TMP has inexorably been getting further away from what it originally did best, serve as a place people could get together to discuss gaming.

Somewhere along the line I feel the site has lost its way. For a long time I just held my nose, and tried to ignore the antics and nastiness that went on, but it has reached a point where just sticking my head in the sand, turning off the more poisonous boards, and hoping the noise would go away is no longer an option.  No use me pretending that its just a harmless hobby site.  It's not. 

Some of the stuff being posted there now is plain toxic.  I know I'm not alone in thinking the moderation (sic) has become increasingly capricious and erratic, alternating between the heavy handed or alternately the non-existent.  TMP's FAQ has more rules than you would find in an old SPI mega-game, but it doesn't appear to help- there are still more dramas and meltdowns than all other hobby sites combined.  

Ultimately it's just not a healthy pool any more for me to want to swim in.   

There are a lot of decent posters there for sure; talented and enthusiastic people I like, and for whom I have a lot of time- you know who you are! 

A number of boards seem in danger of becoming no more than echo chambers, safe-spaces where those of a certain political slant can spout off drivel to their hearts content- especially given the purges that have been taking place of late.  I really don't want to know what the politics of other gamers might be.  Gaming for me is a hobby, a place to put all the real-world crap aside for a bit.

Weird scenes inside the Gold Mine, and I no longer want any part of it.  It's been very frustrating watching the decline, but hey- Bill's house, Bill's rules.  It is his right to run the site the way he wants it- and it's my choice as to whose company I wish to keep.  Thank you for your service, TMP- but I have better uses for my time.  

Fortunately, there are some much more professionally administered alternatives out there, such as the LAF,  TWW or The Guild.

So as that door closes, I need to keep others ajar. Bottom line- I have decided to keep La Bricole going.  

I will keep it as if for now, and will endeavor to try and post there regularly (when it lets me!).  Perhaps traffic will pick up, who knows.  But by August it will get a reboot, and I will start it up again using a different forum platform- probably PhP-BB, but I'm open to alternatives.  

It will take a very long time to build up an active membership again- should it ever do.  But now that I'm through with TMP- and I know for sure that I am not the only one-,  I still believe there is room for a wargaming forum with a focus on Napoleonic Wargaming- without the sandbox spats!  I'll give it a shot anyway and see what happens.  

And the most active wargaming forum of which I'm a member happens also to be the smallest, so it is not just a matter of numbers.

*****

Finally, confessions of an aging grognard: I've been finding the eyestrain creeping up on my during painting- a result of spending a lot of time at computers, and the consequences of having well over a half-century's worth of birthdays behind me.

So I ordered an Optivisor from Front Rank.

Definitely an improvement for making out the detail, and well worth the money. And it creeps out the cats. 

Somehow a regiment of French Chasseurs à Cheval had- fortuitously- found its way into the box, evidently for ballast (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it...).

And that's probably the last unit of French I "need". I do hanker after Mirliton's mounted bandsmen, though.

French Legere Officer

Officer of Voltigeurs, French "legere" (light infantry). Converted Front Rank miniature.

Front Rank do make light infantry, but in the 1807-12 uniforms only. This regiment was wearing the more practical (and to me at least, more elegant) uniform of the 1812 Bardin regulations.

But as the "legere" were proud of their elite status, I wanted some officers wearing vestiges of their earlier, more flamboyant uniforms.

In this case, I modelled a busby ("colpack") and bag ("flamme") from epoxy putty- the original figure came wearing a shako- and added a plume from a Front Rank Russian.

With Tamiya epoxy putty or similar, a small drill and a few paper clips you can do wonders!

French Legere Officer (2)

Rear view of above. I'm rather proud of the "flamme" blowing in the breeze!

Amazing the difference in lighting can make on an image. The brown looks completely different. The front view is closer to the original, although the blue has come out considerably brighter than it appears on the actual miniature.

Of course these haven't been varnished yet, which tends to deepen the colours anyway. Tokyo's humid summers mean that it may be a while before I get to spraying them.

French Voltigeur

Voltigeur of light infantry. Wounded, but still more than willing to fight on for "The Little Corporal"- La patrie en dangeur!

I very much enjoyed painting this figure. The smooth surfaces on the Front Rank minis make them easy to paint, and the well-sculpted greatcoat provided a great palette for shading, lining and highlighting. I'm no fan of drybrushing except for feathers and furs!

I have to admit I still haven't decided how best to base my skirmishers- individually would be best for the "Sharpe Practice" rules (recently released by the Two Fat Lardies) that really look interesting, but I want to play "General de Brigade" as well. I'll probably procrastinate on basing them for a little while longer yet.

Carabinier

French Carabinier (as grenadiers in light infantry regiments were known). Those banded shakos are buggers to paint (lots to be said for campaign shako covers...) but do look good when done carefully.

The hardest things to do are the straps around the backpack- these caused considerable grief, but I think I have the hang of them now- paint the straps first, and then the rest of the backpack around them!

French Command Stand- 28eme Legere

Getting that new cellphone camera at last gives me the chance to post a better picture of that command stand I painted last year (!)

Another Front Rank conversion, the fifer is wearing a magnificent white colpack with red flamme. A uniform of pure fantasy, on the rationale that the regiment's well-heeled colonel had the money to spare for outfitting his "tete de colonne" as he saw fit.

I have no evidence that any such uniform was worn by those of the 28th. And if someone DOES come up with evidence to the contrary... c'est la vie, I have no intention of repainting anything. If that bothers anyone- well, tough truffles.

M. le Capitaine's log, supplemental.

It was pointed out to me on another forum that the flag shown here is the 1803 pattern, not the 1812 tricolour that would have been used in 1813. My answer- I know! Most of my infantry and cavalry will have the later pattern flag, but for variety- and because it is pretty- a few regiments will be flying the 1803 pattern, on the assumption that they were not around to receive the new colours or were immensely proud of their old ones for sentimental reasons and were not willing to switch! Stranger things have happened in war.

For the record, I subscribe to what I call the "Roly Hermans" approach to miniature painting. Inspired by history, I like my units to reflect their historical antecedants, but I am willing to turn a blind eye to the occasional artistic touch for the sake of aesthetics (as no doubt were the artists of the time). At the same time, I still like such touches to remain within the boundaries of plausibility (even if stretching them to the limit!).

Likewise, my miniatures are a lot less muddy and dishevelled than they should be after plodding through the wet fields of Saxony! After all, we are already making compromises in that we are using 24 miniatures to represent batallions of 600 or so men.

Command Stand (rear view)

Rear view of that command stand of the 28th legere. Here you can see the "Chef-de-Bataillon" of the first battalion of the 28th, the fearless and much-decorated Jean-Etienne de Bricole, as he urges his men forward for Glory and l'Empereur! Flag by GMB. 

Note the dreaded backpacks and blanket rolls, with all those goddam straps...