As many regular readers know, one of my leisure time reading activities includes re-reading old war game publications. Usually War Game Digest, Table Top Talk or Miniature Parade. I’ve been doing some research, focusing on Tony Bath. As such copies of War Game Digest has been on my reading table. The issue I was reviewing last night was from 1957. It includes a number of short pieces written by Mr. Bath (these will be part of a future post) as well as several other articles of interest (also to be featured in future posts). Jumping the the point of today’s post, we get to the ‘From the Mailbag’ section. I read two items of interest.

The first from Ted Haskell:

…One of the best ideas for measuring ranges we have found is the pencil-compass, such as is sold in dime stores. The best ones have a scle stamped on the side. It measures up to six inches, and will quickly measure off cavalry moves, artillery ranges, grenade busts, etc…….

Now, why didn’t I think of that? I’m sure many of you have already thought of this, or perhaps even use this in your games, but for me it was a brilliant idea. I don’t happen to have an old pencil compass, but I do have my drafting set from High School; it no longer needs to sit, forgotten, in a draw! The compasses can come out and be used on the war game table!

The next is from Orson Munn, Jr. (I always enjoy reading his old battle reports):

…As a comment, may I say that I think many of the readers (of W.G.D.) are going through a phase that we will all go through and eventually grow out of. Some of their rules are so complicated that their games must take days to play! Even with over 200 flats to a side we seldom take more than four hours for a game… My only advice is to keep the game’s rules simple, and don’t try to get too many different complications into it… Supplies, Doctors, grenadiers, sappers, light infantry, militia, line infantry, foot and mounted artillery, light and heavy artillery, spies, and other things all can be used at one time or another, but I am afraid what is most needed is about 12 players to a side and a lost weekend! … My advise to the initiate is to simply use infantry, cavalry and artillery and keep the game clean and fast…

Of course this was written back in the days before movement trays, so some of the extra time spent with special rules can be and has been recovered with the use of movement trays. However, the overall sentiment is one that I share: We play games and games should not be overly complex. Keep it simple and most of all have FUN!

As mentioned earlier, my recent reading has uncovered more material for TTT posts, so you can look forward to some material form Tony Bath and of course Jack Scruby.

Lastly, another new project I’ve taken up concerns Tactical Problems; I’ve been wanting play through these and have finally decided how I will do it. If I’m counting correctly, I should have plenty of N-Gauge Napoleonic figures painted and ready to do battle. While the figures will be based, they will be counted as individual figures (18 to 24 figures per unit). The forces will be French vs. Spanish/British for the most part, but I can pull in enough Austrians so I can mix things up on occasion. Using N-gauge I’ll also need to scale down the playing area, since most Tactical Problems were designed for an 8 x 6 table it will be easy enough to scale things down to fit on the smaller of of my table sections (6  x 4). The other positive side of using N-Gauge is that Ill usually have enough terrain pieces to make the table look, at least somewhat respectable.

  It never fails. Whenever I jot down a list of war game projects it seems that very shortly thereafter I’m distracted from my list by some bright shiny game project! Such was the case late last week. I had recently picked up a copy of The Best of The Dragon. Sitting by the fire I picked up the copy and began to read. The first articles were nice pieces on Metamorphosis Alpha. A game we played when it came out; one that we played, but didn’t sink too much time into. As such the articles were a nice reminder of an old game. There were numerous articles on Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), but it was an article by Gary Gygax (On Dungeons & Dragons) that captured my attention. In a nutshell it was about the origins of original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D) . No article covering the beginning of D&D can be written that doesn’t touch on the connection between Chainmail and D&D. It was the mention of Chainmail that was my distraction.

  As may be known, Chainmail is one of my obsessions. OK, maybe it isn’t all that bad. It is however one of my favorites and it is really easy to get lost in reading and planning war games using the rules. That is exactly what happened. A quick trip out to the game room; to return with my well read copy of 3rd edition (sadly, my copies of 1st & 2nd editions are still missing – missing since the move from California). The next next task was to grab my Kindle and load up the PDF version I have (I wish Wizards of the Coast would make that available again). Armed with two copies of the rules I began to read (two copies make it very easy to look at text on one page and refer to tables and such on another page). This reading reminded me that I had a retyped version of the Geneva Medieval Miniatures rules from the April 1970 issue of Panzerfaust. I originally retyped these back in the late 1970’s as my copy of the April 1970 issue was in very, very sad shape and I really liked the rules. The typed pages were forgotten for many years, but at some point in the late 1990’s I retyped them into a plain text document/file and added them to my archives. Again the file was forgotten until a year or so ago, when I was working on another post concerning Chainmail (not yet published, as it needs some more work). OK, so to get back on point, I rooted around and found my text file and began to reformat it. The goal being to save as a PDF that I could keep on my Kindle and use as a reference when studying the rules.

  Rules review more or less complete I started to think on what type of game I could set up, given my currently painted figures. About the only 25/28mm [suitable] figures I have make up my Norse army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHF) – and yes, this army dates back to when the Norse were a real and supported army. Since these are mostly old Citadel Miniatures historical figures they will work just fine for a Viking themed game. I can add similarly themed figures to these from my miscellaneous Scruby and Bloodaxe figures. I do have some 54mm plastic knights and such. I even have a castle! Not sure I have enough figures in 54mm, but perhaps the man-to-man rules could be used for a small skirmish game. The other possibility that came to mind is that I have numerous painted 15mm figures. Mostly these are based for De Bellis Multitudinis (DBM) and for the most part are gathering dust. Perhaps a few tweaks for distance/range and these figures could be pressed into service? I will have to think about this, but it seems very do-able.

  Now that I know what I have handy in the way of miniatures it is time to seriously think about some scenarios. Of course I can always just ‘do’ a standard meeting engagement type scenario. Or just borrow from one of my (many) copies of WHF – there are always a few nice scenario suggestions to be found in these rules books. In any event, I’ll look to use balanced forces for the first few games and see where things go from there.

  My Chainmail adventure has caused my previous (unpublished) post to float to the surface and with my current level of energy I may be able to finish the article before too much longer. Perhaps as soon as I receive (should be in the mail on its way to me in the next couple of days) the last of the research materials I need to complete the article? We shall see how much new information I uncover.

  Look for more Chainmail related news in the coming days.