P.A.P.E.R. FOR GOD'S SAKE ! ?

Mention you are interested in paper soldiers and you will meet incredulity, scepticism or ridicule.

Most wargamers have not considered paper soldiers because they have never seen them or never considered them serious model soldiers for serious wargaming. After all wargaming is much more than playing with toy soldiers.

Actually, in the final analysis it is not. Wargaming is playing with toy soldiers. There, I said it.

Not that playing is to be sneered-at. Play is a serious psycho-social-motor training exercise for Homo Sapiens sapiens to keep his/ the more sensible female kind life skills up to scratch.

But lead figures ? Or plastic(infinitely superior)? A three-dimensional model is better? Well one can only see them from one angle at a time anyway. Also they have to be painted. What about the scale reductions down to 6 or even 2mm. What is there to see there ? If the larger figures are used we see problems of cost cause a shrinking effect where battalions of 8 or 10 models are deployed. And some of these figures have odd proportions. Scale them up to real life and it would create some very odd humans indeed.

If we accept that the model soldier is a token in an abstract game then a paper soldier is actually equally valid as a lead figure. To argue against this is to argue for increasing the detail and realism of figures towards little cyber-men ? Little cyber-men one can buy clothes for ?

However, the issue is always clouded by those who do not realise they are playing dolls' houses in a masculine mode. Having god-like command of a lot of men you have dressed and can send to their doom as you will is the male version of setting up a little family in a house with all relevant clothes and domestic objects. YES IT IS! Wargaming started with blocks of wood. It is the game which mattered most. Subsequently the blocks of wood have got in the way as they have transformed into a myriad highly detailed little men.

What of two armies that meet where both have figures from widley different manufacturers. The figures are different sizes and 'styles'. Then they are based in different styles and to differentiate them further one is painted by an impatient long-sighted player, the other by a gifted micro-artist. Is there nothing to be said for both sides having exactly the same presentation aesthetic?

If one considers that paper soldiers are a step back from the obsession with building better little men, back towards the game, back towards using 'good enough' gaming pieces then one's perspective can alter somewhat.

We are not jumping so far from the doll's house as to return to the flat-earth world of map and board wargaming (nice thoiugh it is on occasion) but paper soldiers allow one to retain the unconfined possibilities of the wargame table and the megalomaniacal delights of seeing one's massed forces take on the enemy hordes in their sunday best whilst at the same time having saved much time, effort and money in fielding the little sods.