Reply To: Reign of the Neckbeards (or why do historical re-fights).

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Dismissing “historicals” out of hand means you could be missing out on some really fascinating stuff.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted something a little more historically accurate – rather than a hollywood style – in a “wild west” game.  I had some Black Scorpion miniatures and had painted a few up in muted colours and mud-splattered chaps and they looked nice. But I had no idea if they were accurate to the period or not.

It turns out not – for example, the most popular hat in the “wild west” was the humble bowler – not the ten gallon or the stetson. Very few of my minis had bowler hats on their heads! Further research turned out some surprising discrepencies between Hollywood and the real cowboys (that said, I still think Young Guns is a brilliant film – even if they remade it as Young Guns II after admitting the original was “too Hollywood”!)

For example, Billy The Kid wasn’t a hardened outlaw and never robbed a bank (his is actually a really tragic story about a teenager struggling to stay on the straight and narrow). Jesse James isn’t the “American Hero” as romaticised in popular lore, but a sociopathic murderer. Wild Bill Hikok was one of the few cowboys to actually shoot from the hip and Buffalo Bill was a down at heel drunk, with little more than a circus act to his name. Very few “famous names” from the period came into contact with each other as their activities were spread across many different US states (and not all lived at the same time).

Some of the stories I followed up (with visits to an actual library, to read real books and everything) were far more fascinating – and unexpected – than I could have imagined.

I didn’t actually go on to paint any more western miniatures and those game rules never got started. But going through the process of historical research, learning about real lives of real people, who really lived… that was some of the best hobby time I ever spent!