Military Modelling Magazine...

[Harry Faversham]

Both MM magazine and it's online forum have left us forever...
another part of our childhood rides off into the setting sun.

 

[Von Trinkenessen]

It was the comic that got me started.
As you say Harry "another part of our childhood rides off into the setting sun."

[Belligerentparrot]

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, in rural New Zealand, I inherited a large pile of late-70s to mid-80s Military Modelling magazines when a distant relative (who I'd never met) was killed in a road accident.

I didn't really understand them at the time (though I played with lots of plastic soldiers), but I think that is what got me into the hobby. Some things I remember fondly, off the top of my head, even after 30 years:
- Reading the early Citadel ads, and wondering what "Space Marines" and "Dark Disciples" were, and thinking they must be AMAZINGLY COOL. But there were never any pics.

- The wargame scenarios. There was a great ACW one involving a trainload of enemy arriving unexpectedly at a junction. And a great medieval one involving a princess's litter and a bunch of brigands.

- The Hyperboria (?) campaign.

I also remember one of the mini companies would advertise with some line drawings of a very scantily clad woman in peril (don't think it was citadel, tho it may well have been an artist's representation of one of their horrible torture pieces). Not all changes are for the worse.

Haven't thought about MM for decades, but the memories clearly aren't too far below the surface

[vexillia]

Gone but not forgotten - https://web.archive.org/web/20180501000000*/http://militarymodelling.com/

[black hat miniatures]

I think that the problem is illustrated by the fact that all the comments I have seen about milmod closing are : "I USED to avidly read that...."

[mcfonz]

To be honest, I think most magazines of this type will struggle over the long run.

The internet now provides a massive shared experience of the wargaming hobby community and there are some amongst it that are better in some aspects than things you will see in magazines.

I used to buy them for the nice pictures and painting, but again. Better can be found online I feel. Even amongst the membership of LAF.

I also think a lot of mags struggle to cover the breadth of the hobby. And in some ways it could be considered to dilute and water down a mag. How do you cover all periods of historicals, fantasy, sci fi, steam punk and everything else in one mag?

It's hard to please all, and yet is there enough demand to specialise more? Most seem to cater for mainly historicals with the odd article on other genre's.

Yet in my gaming experience the genre's that seem to be most popular are not historicals.