Category Archives: Tracer Rounds
Tracer Rounds – Uses for Wargaming
Seeing a new way to do things ~
Brant Guillory, 11 January 2016
I had a completely different plan for today’s column, and then I started writing. Remember last week when I said I was going to do this without an editor? This week is one of those weeks where I needed that editor. My first attempt at a column was pretty lousy. I’m a revisit it and try to shine it up for later use, and see if I can salvage something for the hour of work I put in. But that didn’t solve the problem that on a Sunday night I needed something to publish on Monday. There’s nothing like a weekly column to put the abject terror of failure in you. So instead, I am pulling ahead a topic I was planning to write about much later
The professionals talk about wargaming in very different terms than the casual hobbyists do. Don’t get me wrong, the professionals know the difference between a hobby or game and their jobs. Most of them also wargame for fun, and have a huge knowledge of the hobby. But for casual wargamers the professional uses of wargames mainly seem like two cases, and an occasional third.
Tracer Rounds – The Inaugural Column
A new weekly column ~
Brant Guillory, 4 January 2016
So it’s a new year, with an updated look in our forums, and the continuing evolution of our community overall here at GrogHeads. And with the new year, we’re launching a few new ideas, starting with this one, a new weekly column. I’m going to have some regular things I’ll hit each week, but first, I wanted to take a few moments and talk about where this comes from.
First, this needs come clarifying: I’m not “the guy that runs GrogHeads”. There’s a partnership of several of us. We had a few other founders who have left the team for their own personal reasons over the years, but there’s more than just me here steering the ship, and always has been. I’m just the most visible one, because I’m the editorial content guy here, and that also translates into making sure we distribute the content through social media channels. But anyone that thinks that les GrogHeads c’est moi is mistaken.
When we decided we wanted to include ‘front page’ content – regular columns, reviews, AARs, etc – the hope was to recapture some of the intelligent, erudite, and insightful commentary we’d previously been a part of elsewhere. It was a high bar to shoot for, and it would be foolish to claim we’ve cleared it regularly, though not for lack of trying. Personally, I was hoping for the front page to become the “Grantland of wargaming” which is crazy-hard to do with our budget, which consists of a handful of free games, some pocket lint, and about 11¢. But there’s another reason why it’s so hard.