Liyla and the Shadows of War - human impact and the purpose of wargames

Some time ago, I went to a book event in London where Paul Mason was interviewing Molly Crabapple about her book Drawing Blood. Paul was also promoting his book on Post-Capitalism. I found the experience a little surreal, as I usually attend Sci-fi and Fantasy book launches, and the audience was very much a mix of social activists and artists.

When talking to Paul after the event, I mentioned how at times Molly had mentioned "the artists here will know..." or "the activists here..." and that how my brain had got to thinking that as probably the sole wargamer in attendance, it was rather unlikely that there'd be a reference to "the wargamers in the room".

Paul said something that will stick with me for a long while.

"I haven't wanted to wargame since the last time I went to Gaza."

So, it turned out that Paul knows Richard Barbrook, who is a member of Class Wargames. (My wargaming readers might recognise one of their other players - the name Mark Copplestone jumped out at me!) They use wargaming as tool for teaching about their political beliefs and explore games to further their understanding of the world.

I was reminded of this more recently, when I spotted on twitter a bit of a kerfuffle about the computer game Liyla and the Shadows of War. In short, Apple originally refused to publish it as a game on the grounds that it was political, but did reverse this decision on appeal, and you can now download it here. (Android had no such problems and it's available on that platform here.)

While it's a computer game, there is very clearly a purpose and a message to it as well. It is very much from the perspective of civilians caught up in a modern war. If you stop to think about how easily your character dies if you make a mistake, it can make you stop and think about the reality of what being caught in a modern war as a civilian might be like.

I've also been reading Lost Battles by Philip Sabin recently. Professor Sabin was one of my lecturers when I was in university, and he explores using wargaming from an academic perspective to look at ancient battles where details are scarce or believed inaccurate to get a better understanding of what may have actually happened.

So, I can see the 'value' of wargaming, outside of the fun it can be, in the learning it can bring, either in terms of understanding ancient history, or in helping understand or communicate modern political issues.

And yet.

"I haven't wanted to wargame since the last time I went to Gaza."

I don't play historical or modern games - I'm entirely a sci-fi / fantasy gamer. The fantasy and science fiction games I play are for the tactical challenge or the artistic aspects (particularly world creation). Death and suffering are understandable high stakes or hold an emotional weight that underpin those aspects. But I am starting to consider - are we trivialising these things?

War is innately horrible, and in our games which we play to amuse ourselves, we downplay that, because we are not monsters. We don't dwell on the loss, the gut-wrench of the death of a loved one. Even the 'dark' games are sanitised from the real experience of war, because a real war is not fun.

I don't have an answer to this. It's something I'm still thinking about.

I didn't ask Paul what he saw the last time he went to Gaza. I didn't want to know the answer.

Art

 I want to tell a bit of a story, but it doesn't have a start, middle or end. The words are a jumble in my head, the sentences could come in any order.

I'm sitting at my computer desk, in an uncomfortable dining chair because my wife is using the one office chair in the study for Actual Work. I'm drinking peppermint tea and recently finished a cupcake with a flower design on, and the middle of the flower was a smartie.

So, currently scoring around 'moderate adult'.

Sometimes, I walk home from work. My job can be pretty stressful at times, and it's a good way of clearing my head. It takes about an hour and a half or so, and I usually end up listening to some podcast or other.

I'd been listening to the Independent Characters latest podcast, which talks about oil washes and different paint brands, so I was feeling a little bit in an artistic mood. I'd also chatted a little to a couple of people at work about miniature painting and very much in my head was feeling like the painting I do is art (irrespective or not of whether it's any good).

Then I started taking photos of things. It started with a parked up post office van which had some interested sun fading on it in the yellow street lights. You don't see 'faded red' as a paint job very often - I suspect because it's really quite difficult to do. Perhaps it's something I'd like to try one day. The dust pattern along the bottom of the van was also pretty interesting from a weathering point of view as well.

Then the Independent Characters podcast finished up, so I decided to listen to the Radio Free Burrito for the first time. In it, Wil Wheaton talked a bit about some art he was thinking about involving old film, projection and so on.

This got me thinking a whole bunch about the art projects I've never gotten around to doing. When I was at school, I was one of those kids who constantly had grandiose plans I never followed through on. One of my teachers did push me over a cliff on that once by then signing me up to direct and produce a play on my own. That was good for my soul. I need pushing into things, I think. I'm inherently pretty lazy.

I took a bunch of photos with light and shadow and machinery and things. I've put some up on a Tumblr account I created a while back I've never been quite sure what to do with. I don't really know if anyone reads it. I don't like the interface. I'm not sure really why I have it other than for posting photos I want to be able to find later but don't want to leave on the blog because I think that they'd be filler that would kill traffic.

But tonight, I'm thinking about art and writing stream of conscious and I don't care about my traffic stats. Which is weird. I usually do. I mean, I don't, but treat it as a kind of score for how well I'm blogging and how good my content is. Rubbish view scores are a motivation to up the quality of my content. Competing with my past self, really.

Oh. Things I mean to do that never have. Write a blog about fiction and books I read. Write actual fiction myself. Do that painting project where I follow all the painting tutorials in the old GW Masterclass book.

Everything is a bit of a muddle. I think the weekend will be focussed in on sorting out little things I've not finished. Making things more ordered. Tidying. My mind is stressed and having trouble focussing and little successes are needed to give that little happy bump of 'done' and 'organised', rather than the big project of doom which takes a lot of effort to get done. Remember the lazy thing? But I need some success about now.

What I do is art. Be that writing on the blog, photos I take or painting miniatures or telling stories. Is it good art? That doesn't matter. It's art, and I did it.

William Blake Mosaics, near Dark Sphere - Lambeth, London

It seems I'm oblivious, because it took me a while to notice these.

They are just around the corner from my local gaming store, Dark Sphere. I took some photos of them when I finally noticed them back in April, and scheduled to put the photos up once I'd finished all the Salute stuff.

Sadly, it seems that someone decided to steal some of the mosaics. The sign explains that the abstract pieces are done by local children until the originals can be recreated.

I'm not sure which, if any, of the remaining mosaics are "originals" or reproductions done after the theft.

This ceramic plaque lists the artists who worked on the mosaics.

I do not know all the William Blake references in the pictures.

I hope you liked the slightly off topic post. If you like this sort of thing, you should potter over to Tears of Envy. She posts many eclectic things.

This week, Finished Puppets and Saints Alive

Painting wise, I'm very pleased to have finished painting the Marionettes who work with Collodi. I just need to finish the Wicked Dolls, then I'll start work on basing them all.

As you may be able to spot in the background, the Wicked Dolls are also progressing a little bit, although one had a horrific mould line that I'd missed, so he's been pulled off his base, had the mould line removed, and then re-undercoated. He should catch up with some base coat soon.

Finally, in the background, our errant little Herald finally has the first colours on him which aren't pink! That certainly feels like an achievement, and I hope to keep his progress creeping along, even if it isn't quick. Just doing a little bit on him every time I sit down to do something else seems to be working quite well.

Today, I went to the National Gallery. It was not a hugely well planned trip - it was a rescheduled trip to meet up with a friend to go and see Sir John Soane's Museum, but we had not checked until recently to discover that, in fact, that museum is shut on a Monday.

During our wanderings, I noticed that the queue for Saints Alive, the Michael Landy exhibition, was quite short. So we dived in...

The exhibition is only on until 24 November 2013, and if you have any interest in art, I recommend going. Those with an interest in 40K should also consider going, as a lot of the work is a mix of Renaissance religious art and gears, injected with a wicked sense of humour. That should sound familiar to anyone who has more than a passing interest...

The donation box included a statue of St Francis, who smacked his head against a crucifix every time you gave money. There was also a "St Francis Lucky Dip" where you could win a T shirt. My companion did, and she was inordinately happy and excited about this. The irony was not lost on me...

This is Carlo Crivelli's painting of St Michael. It is interesting, but wouldn't really stand out to most wargamers. This is where Landy's genius has come in. His sculptures are based on collages of bits of Renaissance art, made into massive sculptures - most of which move, make massive amounts of noise, and eventually destroy themselves from people interacting with them.

This is Multi-Saint. The legs are from the St Michael painting by Crivelli, as is the devil he's standing on. And this is where, suddenly, things come to life. You suddenly realise that the ornate turquoise armour with lion-faced knee pads is pure, unadulterated awesome. The photo doesn't do it justice. Landy has taken a painting and made a sculpture from it. I could entirely imagine and slightly more gothic version of these on a Dark Angel, or even Lion'el Jonson's armour when Forge World finally do him.

Landy has, in some ways, shown me a way - there is genuine inspiration which you could take from museums and paintings and put into your miniature painting. Miniature painting is artistic, and while it is not the sort of thing you expect to see at a gallery, outside of Warhammer World, perhaps there is inspiration to be taken from it?

The influence of Durer on early Warhammer art

This weekend I went to see an exhibition of Renaissance art at the Queen's Gallery. Specifically "The Northern Renaissance, Dürer to Holbein".

St Eustace, by Dürer

As I was ambling through the collection, chatting with companion and perusing each piece in turn, I realised that a lot of the work was rather familiar in its look. Fortunately, I habitually scan read from the corner of my eye the explanatory notes art galleries and museums put out in their effort to make me look devastatingly clever.

It became apparent that the work that was causing me wonder if I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up at a Warhammer World art exhibition was instead the work of one Albrecht Dürer. Having returned home and used Wikipedia to look such things up (it never lies!), both John Blanche and Ian Miller cite Dürer as one of their influences.

What I found fascinating was how obvious the link was, not looking at Wikipedia at the time, that there was a link.

Take the St Eustace picture earlier in the blog. This is one of the more tenuous links, but if you look at the castle in the background, then, say, one of the early WHFRP illustrations for the Enemy Within campaign, you see that the castle designs are very similar indeed.

Death on the Reik, by Ian Miller

Some of the other illustrations continue the pattern. Dürer's Sea Monster has similar castles in the background, but also wouldn't have looked out of place in the Mighty Empires rulebook or a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement.

Sea Monster, by Dürer

More background castles show up in John Blanche's Nuln, which was the front cover for The Enemy Within.

Nuln, by John Blanche

 Then you come across a few examples of the more fantastical Renaissance stuff like the picture below. The devil and death would be at home in a Realm of Chaos illustration.

Knight, Death and the Devil, by Dürer

 The influence doesn't end with the early stuff. Look at some of the detail on this woodcut.

Large Triumphal Carriage, by Dürer

The style should really look familiar... If you go and look at the Empire War Altar, you'll soon see some striking similarities in the ornate design, use of Latin mottos and similar.

All in all, I found making the comparisons interesting. The exhibition was excellent and well worth the time and money if you are so inclined. This wasn't the only idea the exhibition gave me, which may lead to a further post in the future.