War, Gaming, and Wargaming

I am interested in warfare.  Reading about it and waging it.  Not big battles of course.  Mostly, me and my friends beating on each other with sticks.  To those of you who think war isn't good, I have a quote for you.  

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.  

-John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

I agree with this quote completely, and would uphold it anywhere.  

I also like gaming.  I play board games often, and have lots of them at home.  But then, one day, I thought to myself, "Why don't they make board games about war?"  Not like Risk or Stratego, but really down in it, your men are all in front of you, games.  So, I look into it, and lo and behold, they make such things, aptly named Wargames.  These are divided into two categories.  First, there are "regimental" wargames, where I have a square piece of cardboard and it represents a regiment and two calvary squads.  These games mostly focus on a large area, such as the Western Front, or the Campaigns of Alexander the Great.   Then there's the second kind, which I mean to play.  This is "miniature" wargames, where each man is in front of you, on its own base.  This makes it harder to play huge battles, but that hasn't stopped some fanatics from playing the entire battle of Waterloo!!  I might write more about this at a later time, but that's all for now!