Finally got to read the offending review under the watchful eye of the LoGW 'commitee on Friday night. my comments as follows:
1. On the whole, I found the review reasonably balanced up until the Daily Mail type conclusion where the reviewer's language was un necessary and a cheap shot. I found the reviewer's grasp of Napoleonic warfare a bit patchy too. No idea about the difference between re supplying an artillery battery and refitting an artillery battery. Fundamentally different activities to which reviewer seems blissfully ignorant and got himself a wee bit confused.
2. Poor grasp of mechanisms too. Has obviously set up a few units on a 4 x 4 table and pushed them around for 30 minutes. A strange set up considering the rules are written for Divisional +, ++ and +++ games. Maybe he lives in a cupboard.
3. Does not understand the difference between 'top down' and bottom up' but obviously it sounds good when you write it in an article as it makes you sound like you know what you are talking about and have done a lot of that sort of thing. R2E is outcome driven and focuses on the pre eminent variable of all warfare.. command and control. The mechanisms for most activities including shooting, close combat and morale as so simple as to be almost irrelevant. Again... failure to grasp concept from Bruce and assistant.
4. The mag must be
a. Stuck for copy or
b. Losing money...
It's the only time Editors make ANY contribution to their publications.
5. I know how long it takes to write an article or a review. I'll keep the same piece cooking for weeks sometimes months before I finally submit. Often I can have taken up to 20 visits to a piece before I send it off. The scope of this article was enormous. It tried to compare 4 major rule sets in the same article. This would have included (or should have included) reading up to 300 pages of text, playing repeated games with 4 different set ups and mechanisms, playing the same scenario with each to compare game flow. Truly, I don't think anything like that kind of effort went into it. It looks like a
'Right, there's loadsa Naps rules out.. let's bash out a piece to fill 8 pages' type of review. The comments (even the nice ones) about the other sets could have been picked up trawling various Fora on the Net and do not feature much if any orginal thought or comment. Cut and paste is my conclusion on that.
I would under other circumstances accept most critique whether positive or not (except the drivel you get from some of the addicts on TMP) but in this case I felt Macfarlane and Sidekick's piece was not a planned, even and logic driven piece of writing. For this reason I have posted this long reply.
Just to show I am not a sulky little child whose train set got broken I would say that the issue of MW containing the review was the best I had seen that mag look in years and I would have bought it if I had bothered to pick it up. So well done for pulling a tired, incontinent old lady back from the care home but please, next time you decide to do a hatchet job... at least sharpen your axe and make the cut in the right place Brucie Boy.
Hope to speak with you sometime
....tell you what, what I'll do for you, I'll bring the mag along to Partizan for everyone..errr, I mean for you to look at yourself 
.
