Category: News / Resources / Reviews

And Then There Were 4: WS&S Folds

Final WS&S English Issue No.53 April 2010The various UK Distributors of Wargames, Soldiers, & Strategy (WS&S) sent out word that the magazine’s English Edition has ceased publication (the first word came in late May but I’ve only had confirmation directly from my distributor in late June) – somewhat ironically as it turns out as I had just finally signed up for a subscription at the start of the year (having previously just bought individual issues as and when I saw articles of interest). There was however some sign of a risk of this in recent months as the April issue was over a month late, and there had subsequently been nothing since (so only 1 issue in about 4 months – the first announcement in late May was well past the May issue’s due date). There has been a brief discussion of it at TMP for more information (apparently it was thought the May Issue No.54 would be coming out as the final issue – but looks not to be the case).

WS&S did suffer from editorial issues in the english-language version, some articles did end up nearly unreadable – and this seems to have put some gamers off it in recent years.

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I take a foray into Vac-U-Form Plastics

Amera Plastics Nissen Hut
Amera Plastics Nissen Hut

Some recent discussions on the Crossfire Yahoo Group brought up the old Bellona range of vac-u-form moulded plastic terrain. Many of you will remember these old classics from the days of Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone, and Terrence Wise, the terrain featuring extensively in their books, and later books by other authors such as “Operation Warboard”. For those like me, in countries like New Zealand, this was something you marvelled at in photos and wished you could get hold of… Bellona has long since gone out for production decades ago, although there was some suggestion the moulds had been purchased by someone in recent years to resume production – but to the best of my knowledge this is not the case. However the discussion led to Amera Plastic Mouldings, a company very much in the tradition of Bellona, and producing many very similar terrain pieces to the original Bellona range.

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Wargaming.info Relaunch [April 2010]

Early Mycenaean (or Minoan) Spearmen.
Early Mycenaean (or Minoan) Spearmen.

Welcome to the completely revamped Wargaming.info – the new format is designed to hopefully make things a bit easier to find and to enable me to upload more content more easily and keep the site more up to date. By using a CMS (Content Management System) much of the process is now streamlined and virtually the entire site is CSS based (as well as being W3C & XHTML compliant). You will also find Feeds (RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0) on the main Home Page (which will show the half-dozen most recent items on the whole site), the Blog (which will show all blog entries), and each major section (e.g. Napoleonic’s, Colonials, World War II, showing the items under that category) – so if you are just interested in a specific era (e.g. Colonials) you can just subscribe to the Feed service for that section! I have not put a specific feed icon on any of the pages as your web-browser should display the icon by default for you to click on…

Anyway, I hope you find something of interest and I look forward to significantly increasing the quantity and frequency of updates from now…

Lost in the Wilderness: Napoleonics?

FOGN (Field Of Glory: Napoleonics) is a regimental game where 1 unit is a regiment. It has small units (1200-2000 men for infantry) and large units (2000-3000 men). This means it is an in-between scale game (sort of like Principles of War), where you can change formation into things that look like column, line, square and skirmish but aren’t really (and in practice you stay in one formation for most of the game in FOGN).

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Edward Woodward, Well Known Actor & Wargamer, dies

Veteran actor Edward Woodward has died aged 79, his agent has confirmed. Woodward was famous in wargaming circles (like Robin Williams also) for being a celebrity/high-profile actor who participated in the hobby… Read More at the BBC Website.

The FOG versus DBMM Debate

One of the big challenges facing the club today is the debate in Ancients Gaming between DBMM and FOG. As in many other clubs and wargaming groups around the world at present there is a split between gamers who prefer FOG and those who prefer DBMM – luckily the AWC at least has no odd Ostriches still sticking to DBM (of course there is nothing really wrong with that if its your thing, but its a position causing a 3 way rules-set split of gamers in some areas so doesn’t help unify the scene)!

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Saints & Soldiers, Max Manus, Days of Glory, and Assembly

Saints & Soldiers – Ardennes/Battle of the Bulge – Based on Historical Events – Story of 4 U.S. GI’s whose unit surrenders when cut off on the very first day or two of the German Offensive, but who then escape – in their efforts to elude the Germans and get back to friendly lines they encounter a shot down British reconnaissance pilot, who got a glimpse of the size of the German forces that were advancing before the weather closed in – he is desperate to get back to an HQ somewhere to report as no one may realise how large this attack is, etc… The G.I.’s agree to help him and with just 1 German 98K Rifle with a few bullets and the RAF Pilot’s Revolver (and little food) they strike out for the closest U.S. unit.

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Battlefront releases more Wargames Illustrated news

WI-cover-newBattlefront (Flames of War) have announced additional news about their plans for Wargames Illustrated Magazine, starting with Issue 260 (June 2009). From that issue the magazine’s page count will be increased by 40% (from 80 to 112) and this will be used for some Flames of War specific content as well as new material. On the whole it all sounds fairly positive and promising. You can read more at the press release… The cover illustration on left is a low-res version of a mock up you can see displayed on the Battlefront Poll Page of the possible new format.

 

 

28mm Askari Miniatures Figure Comparison

Askari Italian Gun
Askari Italian Gun

I recently ordered some sample figures from Al Maurer at Askari Miniatures as I was looking at using some of his ranges and wanted to see how they compared with my existing Perry Miniatures & Wargames Foundry figures (that make up the vast bulk of my 28mm Colonial armies), and to get a feel for how they compared to Gerry Webb’s Castaway Arts figs.

Talking to Al about it I also promised to report back to him how they compared, in my opinion, as he advised he hadn’t directly compared them previously since the ranges didn’t really ‘crossover’ (e.g. Perry’s’ Sudan range is 1880’s while Askari’s French & Italians are later, the Italians being in fact 1930’s)…

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Miniature Wargames Magazine: New Format

miniwargames314The latest issue of Miniature Wargames (No. 311 – March 2009) has arrived and in the editorial Andrew Hubback has announced that the promised new format will be implemented from the next issue (April). Miniature Wargames Website.

Update: 26 March 2009 – My copy of Miniature Wargames 312 (April 2009) arrived today and features the new layout and type faces. Definitely an improvement to the appearance and the gradual trend for more of the articles to be of more interest seems to continue at first glance.

An improvement in some of the photos as well – again significantly increasing the proportion that are of the standard found in Wargames Illustrated, Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, and Battlegames magazines.

Battlefront Miniatures acquire Wargames Illustrated & GF9 Miniatures

flames_of_warsmallWI-coverBattlefront Miniatures of New Zealand (the makers of Flames of War) have announced the acquisition of Wargames Illustrated magazine and Gale Force Nine Miniatures. You can read more in their press releases here and here… It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for Wargames Illustrated, and whether Flames of War will become the predominant content of the publication. Wargames Illustrated is the second major UK Wargaming Magazine to change ownership in the last few months – Miniature Wargames was sold by long time owner/editor Iain Dickie to Andrew Hubback around October 2008.

BattleCry 2009

Here in Auckland it’s that time again – BattleCry 2009, the premier Auckland Wargaming Convention hosted (as always) by the AMERICA Club from Auckland University. As always this year includes the 28mm Ancient & Medieval Doubles Competition, New Zealand’s original and first Ancient & Medieval Doubles Tournament – and the only one in 25mm-28mm scale! As with 2008 this year will be played with the DBMM Rules (2007 and previous years having been played under DBM), and Battleline Miniatures will be sponsoring the competition. BattleCry is over the weekend of the 21-22 February 2009. Continue reading “BattleCry 2009”