News/Resources/Reviews
13 May 2012
On the 04 May 2012 John Curry sent the following update out concerning his “History of Wargaming” project for those who may not have seen it:
This is a short occasional update on the publishing progress of the History of Wargaming Project. The project has gone digital and about 20 of the books/rules are now available as e-books from the iBook Store, The Nook, or from www.lulu.com. The rest of the back catalogue will be converted in due course. Peter Perla’s Art of Wargaming, a book about the professional use of wargaming (as well as much interesting material about the history of wargaming), is now out in paperback. Donald Featherstone has seen his novel Redcoats for the Raj, back into print and he has completed a new novel, The Badgered Men. Donald Featherstone’s classic book Air War Games has now been updated and is now [again] in print.
In addition to documenting the history of wargaming, I play games professionally. In about two weeks [late May], a new book Dark Guest, training games for cyberwarfare will be in print. I co-authored it with Tim Price MBE.
Posted in Books, Mags, Websites, Community News | 
Tags: Air, Airborne, Battlegames, Book, British, Donald Featherstone, English, Favourite Websites, Historical, Indian, Iraq, John Curry, News, Old School, Rules | 
No Comments »
26 December 2011
DRA60599 - German SdKfz 231 8-rad on the Eastern Front 1941
Dragon Armor has announced in the last few weeks the release of several of their new models planned for the 2011-2012 period, as many will know the Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go and Type 97 Chi-Ha have both been released (there are now 2 colour schemes available for the former and 3 for the latter) along with the U.S. LVT-A(1) with 37mm gun turret, and various German light vehicles such as the SdKfz 222 Light Reconnaissance Car and SdKfz 251/22 Half-Track with PaK40 on board. Most recently has been the release of the Neubaufahrzeug from Panzerabteilung z.b.V.40 in Norway 1940. Now due in early 2012 are the German SdKfz 231 Heavy Reconnaissance Car in early war Panzer Grey (a much missed model from all ranges), and a British Infantry Tank Mk.IV Churchill Mk.III (the 6pdr version that served from Dieppe in 1942 until the end of the war in Italy and to a lesser extent in NWE.
Posted in 20mm Figures & Models, Eastern Front 1941-45, Europe 1939-43, Europe 1944-45 | Tags: 1/72, 1940-1941, 1942-1943, 1944-1945, 20mm, British, Diecast, Dragon Armor, Eastern Front, German, Japanese, Manufacturer, Model Vehicles, News, Normandy, Norway, WW2 | No Comments »
23 December 2011
For those of you who celebrate Christmas I’d like to wish you all the best and look forward to a great 2012 and thank you all for reading my blog!
Posted in Some Other Things | Tags: Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings | 2 Comments »
12 December 2011
My Warlord Games “Rorke’s Drift” box set arrived today… It’s an impressive beast- it was part of their pre-order special on the new Anglo-Zulu War range that’s the premier of their new strategic partnership with Empress Miniatures. At the time I resisted the urge to get the full “Horns of the Buffalo – Rorke’s Drift Collectors Set” which is an absolutely huge collection of toys! This set is the first of their collaborations planned with Empress Miniatures – so you get a swag of Warlord Games plastic figures and terrain pieces, some Empress Miniatures speciality metal figs, and a pair of “4Ground“ laser-cut plywood building kitsetsthe of the storehouse and hospital. There is also a mixture of biscuit box and mealie-bags barricades reported to be historically accurate renditions from the battlefield as well as the barricaded wagons and the stone wall from the Kraal. Add to that 40 plastic Married Zulus & 20 plastic British Redcoats plus 7 assorted metal “Character Figures” (including Chard, Bromhead, Bourne and Hook – the historical version of the chaps – and a mounted InDuna to command the Zulus as well as a Zulu Rifleman in looted red jacket)!
24 November 2011
Indus Indian Irregular Cavalry or Pindari with Bows, although the right-hand arrow looks a bit long?
I recently stumbled across Indus Miniatures – and when they announced a 20% off ‘Thanks Giving‘ Sale I couldn’t resist getting a few – even though they are aimed at the Indian 18th Century to Mutiny era rather than the later NWF (North-West Frontier). Still the quality of the greens looks nice in these pics, and some of the figs are designed to be fairly generic – for example the Irregular Cavalry or Pindari are described as “meant to represent the Irregular troops serving in India for the Princes, Mughals, Europeans, Sikhs etc. They can be used from 1700 till 1850′s. They probably can be used for other time frames as they are quite generic“.
Posted in 28mm Figures & Models, North West Frontier | Tags: 28mm, Afghanistan, Cannon, Colonial, Elephants, Figures, Indian, Indus, Medieval, Pike & Shotte, Victorian | No Comments »
21 November 2011
Sam Mustafa has just announced today that Maurice Lite is available to download at his Honour Games Website. Maurice Lite is basically a stripped down version of Maurice, sans the advanced rules and the more detailed parts of the standard rules, and with a basic starter set of DIY cards to get you going. It will certainly be sufficient to get an initial feel of how the game works and for people to gauge the mechanics. I was lucky enough to have just had my first taste of Maurice too, and I liked several aspects of the rules – but it’s certainly a bit different to what many people may be used to. Incidentally Sam has also updated the status of the full version of Maurice in the last few days.
Posted in Community News, Spanish Succession War | Tags: 1701–1714, 1715-1721, 1740–1748, 1756–1763, 1775–1783, 1789–1799, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, American Civil War, French, Great Northern War, Honour Games, Lace Wars, Maurice, News, Revolution, Rules, Sam Mustafa, Seven Years' War, War of the Austrian Succession, War of the Spanish Succession | 1 Comment »
17 November 2011
“The Future is Clear” Henry Hyde announces, Battlegames will join Miniature Wargames in the Atlantic Publishing stable, and will remain an independent separate publication from Miniature Wargames. Henry will remain in the Editorial roll and all existing subscriptions will be honoured – the next issue, first under the new publishers, should be out at or just after Christmas. You can read more here…
5 November 2011
Henry Hyde
In some surprising and sad news Henry Hyde, editor of Battlegames Magazine in the UK, has announced that he has had to cease publication. Apparently the magazine is in some financial difficulty and Henry is unsure whether he can continue it in electronic only format in a more adhoc manner (e.g. as quarterly periodical or such) or whether he may have to cease publication altogether. You can read the news on the Battlegames Website.
28 October 2011
I recently purchased a copy of Waterloo from Warhammer Historicals – partly because it was on 50% discount, but also partly because initial feedback was quite positive about it’s production quality and content. I’ve had it for a few days but to date have only managed to skim read through it so as yet haven’t looked into the actual game mechanics in detail – but I can say production quality is superb – and on a par with Kampfgruppe Normandy (although Waterloo is not such a ‘heavy’ book.
However John Michael up in Canada has played through a quick introduction to the rules on his Fuentes de Onoro (Wargaming in 28 mm and sometimes smaller) blog – it’s an interesting read and there’s some interesting points illustrated. I have yet to get through the rulebook in detail (and will post my thoughts here once I do) – meanwhile based on John’s feedback in his post above the unit rosters look a bit busy and complex, actually I didn’t pay too much attention to these when I first browsed the book, but it looks like a bit of info to track (including specifics about battalion officers I overlooked previously), so you may not want to be managing more than half-a-dozen units normally.
Posted in Books, Mags, Websites, Community News, Grognard Chatter, The Hundred Days 1815 | Tags: 1815, Historical, Napoleonic, Review, Rules, Warhammer, Waterloo | 5 Comments »
28 October 2011
Sam Mustafa has made an initial announcement of his much awaited new rules scheduled for release early in 2012. These are focussed on the linear warfare of the 18th Century (specifically 1690 to 1790) and named after the famous French Marshal Maurice de Saxe. The rules look to include some new innovative thoughts utilising action cards and feature a “Succession Wars” campaign. And they have been built with Imagi-Nations in mind as well, featuring flexibility of unit ratings and even troop scale! Finally a reason to dust off my boxes of Wargames Factory plastic figure boxes and get on with building my War of the Spanish Succession (WSS) armies – Marlborough here I come! You can download a copy of Sam’s flyer in PDF, about Maurice: War in the Age of Gentlemen and ‘Philosophes’ 1690-1790 here from Wargaming.info. Or you can read more from Sam at the Honour Games website and/or download the flyer from the Honour Games Download Page.
Posted in Books, Mags, Websites, Community News, Spanish Succession War | Tags: 1701–1714, 1715-1721, 1740–1748, 1756–1763, 1775–1783, 1789–1799, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Reason, American Civil War, Duc de Tallard, Duc de Villars, Duke of Berwick, Duke of Marlborough, Elector of Bavaria, French, Great Northern War, Honour Games, John Churchill, Lace Wars, Lasalle, Maurice, News, Prince Eugène of Savoy, Revolution, Rules, Sam Mustafa, Seven Years' War, War of the Austrian Succession, War of the Spanish Succession | 3 Comments »
19 October 2011
Okay – completely off-topic for my usual blog content, however I just had to post this up – basically it’s why we should destroy mobile phones and not use cloud technologies. I absolutely laughed myself silly – I can’t believe this is coming from a former senior member of a government! Technology, well, it’s like black magic …right?
I originally saw this on Mauricio Freitas’ blog.
Posted in Some Other Things | Tags: Cloud Computing, Mobile Phones, News, Technology, Video | No Comments »
18 October 2011
Tony Won's Château d'Hougoumont in 28mm
I’ve recently been talking to Tony Won (a wargamer & historian in Belgium) about various things Dutch-Belgian and Hundred Days related – Tony is a bit of a Hundred Days expert with 30 years effort on the subject, but is also a wargamer who obviously has some very nice models in his collection. Tony (with the help of a friend) has constructed a full 28mm model of Hougoumont and it’s surrounds (using the relatively newly released 3-4 years ago range of buildings from Hovels Ltd) and it can be seen in all its glory in a 27-image slide show at the Hovels’ website – it’s truly a magnificent sight and a must see if you haven’t seen it previously!
Posted in 28mm Figures & Models, Grognard Chatter, The Hundred Days 1815 | Tags: 1815, Belgian, British, Buildings, French, Historical, Hougoumont, Modelling, Napoleonic, Netherlands, Terrain, Waterloo | No Comments »
14 May 2012, 10:04 pm UTC Rorkes Drift Arrives! Hi Mike - I got them from WG in the 'pre-release' special promo direct from the UK pre-Christmas. As John has commented on in this thread they usua...
14 May 2012, 10:02 pm UTC The Hundred Days Continues... Thanks James - appreciate your kind comments. I tried to be fairly smart and cunning about labelling while also getting the maximum info on and cle...
14 May 2012, 10:01 pm UTC Hundred Days British Thanks Glenn. :-)
14 May 2012, 9:58 pm UTC WSS Here I Come - Well Almost! Hi Jim, As I understand it the WF one however isn't the common type, but in fact closest to the "Grenadiers à Cheval de la Maison du Roi" ...
5 May 2012, 4:38 am UTC I take a foray into Vac-U-Form Plastics Great review of our products, thanks so much! We really value all the feedback and take note. Lots of new products on way, do have a look at our we...
18 Apr 2012, 2:40 pm UTC Rorkes Drift Arrives! Also, happy to participate in the enormous multi-player you are planning for when they are painted!