For likely my last post of this (relentlessly crap) year I have jumped on board a nice diverting little ditty circulating on Blogs wherein one highlights three books that have influenced your wargaming initially and/or over the years.
Certainly before I was playing in a Wellsian 'chuck stuff to hit' style on the floor with all sorts of Airfix figures and kits.
First up has to be my very first set of 'proper' wargame rules Operation Warboard which I obtained as a 12 year back in the day (ie 1976) and which very much set me on the course of the bottomless pit of miniature wargames.
Have re-read several times and it still has a great set of playable old school core rules and background info.
Lots of stuff about converting Airfix (and other) plastic figures kits due to limits of availability and most of the photos of games by author and his son used unpainted figures and vehicles with very basic terrain pieces (including chalked on roads/rivers) compared to todays items !
Second on my list is not strictly a single volume but the magazine Battle.
I discovered this excellent mag around 1977, before it was amalgamated into Military Modelling (another contender) and it broadened my horizons beyond WW2 and 20mm plastics.
Eye watering pics of colourful metal figures from all periods just blew my impressionable tiny mind.
Last but not least it has to be the Piquet series of rules (that lead directly to my favourite Field of Battle and suchlike) that showed me a much more open and flavoursome style of wargaming compared to the more traditional and somewhat staid types.
Bit of a 'love 'em or hate 'em' set but just such a breath of fresh air and very much a style of game I found myself increasingly drawn too.
There are several others I could have picked that will now get an honourable mention and that is not even considering any historical reference books, movies or indeed board wargames, many of which greatly influenced my wargaming choices and playing time and expenditure over the years.
In no particular order of merit but are all sets that got me into new periods or types of play:
A fine collection of memorable books / rules, several of which hit my nostalgia button and oddly, I found myself mentioning Ian Shaw’s Combine Arms rules the other day ....... I lived in that set!
ReplyDeleteCombined Arms was my go to set for several years for WW2 with 6mm, all the charts and modifiers seem rather complex now !
DeleteOperation Warboard and Battle were formative influences on me as well; it was probably my first wargaming book I owned (as opposed to borrowing from a library). I remember pestering my mother to buy me a copy of the paperback after seeing an advert in presumably Military Modelling. I spent ages making the machine gun and artillery templates out of clear plastic packaging.
ReplyDeleteNeil
I still have the MG template and the other templates I made for Op Warboard. Some rather interesting measurements and angles involved !!
DeleteNever heard of your first choice, which is interesting!
ReplyDeleteCertainly Piquet and then Field of Battle reinvigorated my wargaming life when it came out circa 1996.
Good Lord, will it be 25 years as of 2021 now?!
Yep time surely flies by !!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes!!! Battlegroup Panzergrenadier makes the list! Thanks SS - how much do I owe you? ;)
ReplyDeleteDB
A copy of O Group would suffice :-)
DeleteYes I had the first book too - the author was an ITN reporter or news reader from memory? I never saw Battle, I was in the MM camp, as it was the only mag we saw in my part of Scotland - nearest hobby shops were miles away too, although back in those days, we had multiple sources for Airfix or Matchbox kits in a small town of 10,000, whereas today, certainly here in NZ, model kits are virtually invisible unless you go to a specific, specialised model shop... my son has never put a plastic kit together in his life, whereas I did my first simple Airfix around the age of ten I would imagine. I think I may have had the WRG 1685 rules - to be honest, if 40 years of wargaming, I have only ever purchased one or two rule sets - I either wrote my own based on multiple books or I was supplied copies by friends who wanted to play a certain set...and thats still my modus operandi today - I would rater spend my limited defence budget on figures!
ReplyDeleteThink Gavin Lyall was a writer of thriller novels and probably why book was so readable. Here in N.Ireland we had a few model shops back then and Airfix stuff was available in toy shops and some newsagents. Mail Order for most other stuff and of course all online nowadays.
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