It came as a real surprise to realise that the last time Gary appeared on the show was way back in May 2020! Since then, both he and I have had some major life events—fortunately, Gary escaped relatively unscathed, but changed status (officially at least) to “retired”.
But that hasn’t stopped Gary from being busier than ever, as you’ll hear, including penning this article which is one of the things we talk about in our chat.
The podcast focuses on a number of key concepts that often prove troublesome for wargamers, beginning with doctrine. I wrote a short section on this subject in Wargaming Campaigns, but Gary gives us some very useful definitions of this idea, especially as it applies to the British Army. Listen out for the significance of 1989!
This takes us into a fascinating series of ponderings covering morale and combat motivation, the ‘Marshall Effect’, leadership and the ‘big man’ and even the toll that war takes on combatants including stress and PTSD.
But of course, this is a wargames podcast, so we bring all these strands together in terms of how they potentially affect our tabletop battles and campaigns, including delving into a bit of old/middle school nostalgia, visiting the likes of Bruce Quarrie, as well as modern rulesets such as Chain of Command and Kings of War.
My thanks to Gary for agreeing to come back on the show and for managing to talk for well over 2 hours! I very much enjoyed our wide-ranging chat and I hope that you do too.
Henry
P.S. I’m on the lookout for advertisers, so if you run a wargames company, get in touch!
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