|
|
|
OLD
ZINE REVIEWS Pyrrhic VictoryEdited
by Mike Allaway By Stephen Agar
For
fun I had a scan through my old copies of Pigmy for a review of Pyrrhic Victory.
All I could find was a mention back in May 1978 around the time when PV
was launched, which noted that PV had come in for a lot of unnecessary flak and
that Mike had difficulty getting players to commit themselves to playing
Diplomacy. Plus ça change. Despite
a five year break, Mike is now up to issue 92 and shows no sign of fatigue.
Irrespective of this record of long service PV suffered from a very low
showing in this year's zine poll, which I feel just goes to show how unjust the
whole exercise is. PV came 32nd out
of 34 zines. I cannot comment on
whether or not the 31 zines above PV in the zine poll are better or not, but I
do believe that PV should not be judged on this basis in isolation as PV
accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish and therefore on its own terms is a
success. Why we bother to
extrapolate the zine poll results to all the qualifying zines is a mystery to me
- I would have thought that a top ten or so would be sufficient.
Some of the zines that do quite well receive so few actual votes that I
think that it all looks a bit suspicious and/or odd. However, I digress. Pyrrhic
Victory has the atmosphere of a laid-back Friday night in your local with the
lads, a small and friendly group of people talking about sport, drinking,
politics and life in general. OK,
Mike is not your young super-enthusiastic, "I'll get this in the post by
10.45am on the saturday morning after the deadline or commit suicide" type.
He would be the first to admit that he is a bit relaxed about PV.
A one week turnaround may not be unusual - but if you are a relaxed
player, into rugby, cricket, alcohol and sounding off against the government
then that may not matter to you. The
zine is A4, stapled top right hand corner.
There is a different cover for each issue and the format of the zine is
usually a page or two of chat, a couple of pages of letters and five or six
pages of games (all Diplomacy or Diplomacy related). I particularly like the way that Mike interposes a letter
from one subscriber with his own comments and any other relevant comments from
other subscribers so that the letters column is not so much a series of letters
and Mike's replies, but more like a conversation between several people.
I am not a sporty person (a more unfit example of the male of the species
for my age may be hard to find), so I cannot say that much of the chat interests
me when it dwells on sport - but it may interest you. If
PV sounds attractive to you then drop Mike a line, enclose a stamp and ask for a
sample copy. It may be your cup of
tea (or pint of bitter). Reprinted
from Spring Offensive 1 |