The contents of the second box I found in our storage unit included the following Russian figures and equipment:
10 x BA-64s Armoured Cars (1:76th-scale [?] models given away with a magazine)
4 x Willys Jeeps (1:72nd-scale Italieri Fast Assembly)
10 x Infantry in tunics and side caps (Pilotka)
6 x Infantry in tunics and helmets
3 x Infantry in tunics and fur hats (Ushanka)
I recently paid a visit to our storage unit, and whilst looking for a boxful of MDF bases, I found three boxes containing more vehicles and figures that I planned to renovate and include in my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collection.
The contents of the the first box - which were all from the collection of the late Eric Knowles - included the following German troops and equipment:
18 x Cavalry
2 x Pack horses
6 x Artillery Limbers
2 x 75mm FK 16 nA Field Guns
2 x 75mm sIG 18 Infantry Guns
2 x 7.7 cm IG L/20 (?)
14 x Dismounted Cavalry
11 x Officers and HQ Staff
I began blogging on 18th September 2008 ... almost seventeen years ago.
My second blog post on this blog was about the recent republication of Donald Featherstone's WAR GAMES book by John Curry's 'History of Wargaming' Project and it inspired me to incorporate ideas and mechanisms from both Donald Featherstone’s and Lionel Tarr’s rules into my existing World War II rules, RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES. The resulting rules were named RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED, and John Curry incorporated them into the 'History of Wargaming' Project reprint of Donald Featherstone's WARGAMING AIRBORNE OPERATIONS. (The rules were slighty renamed TARRED AND FEATHERED at Donald Featherstone's request.
During my recent review of the wargaming rules that have influenced my World War II wargaming, I revisited RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES and RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED ... and then the battle reports I wrote about my playtests.
On reflection, this is the sort of wargame that I envisaged fighting using my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collection when I began this blog ... so I suppose that I might have got things right seventeen years ago ... and just 'forgotten' that I had!
On the other hand, the battles I fought using my mid-twentieth-century version of the PORTABLE WARGAME were also great fun, and perhaps the rules are better designed. I’m not sure … but I hope to have fun thinking about (and possibly experimenting with) which of these two to choose for my future Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War wargaming.
I collected the latest issue of THE NUGGET from the printer (Macaulay Scott Printing Company of Welling, Kent) yesterday, and I will post it out to members as soon as I can.
I will also send the PDF copy to the webmaster as soon as I can so that members can read this issue of THE NUGGET online.
IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the second issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2025-2026 subscription year.
If you wish to subscribe for the 2025-2026 subscription year and have not yet done so, please request a PayPal invoice or the bank transfer information from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on the relevant page of the website.
I have been doggedly working on the next edition of the PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM (the fourth) and I have so far laid out three articles and have at least twice that number to do.
It takes time to do this as I have to edit each article and then choose the best way to lay it out on the page so that it is as user-friendly as possible. This sometimes involves minor re-writes so that there is a consistency of language used across all the articles. For example, using the term D6 throughout rather than d6 and dice roll rather than dice throw.
This may sound a bit picky ... but I think that this sort of consistency makes the publication a much better one and is well worth the extra time and effort I have to spend putting the compendium together.
I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.
It lasts approximately seven minutes.
The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.
The editor of THE NUGGET sent me the latest issue on Sunday and I sent it to the printer (Macauley Scott Printing Company, Welling, Kent) this morning. I hope to be able to collect it later this week and post it out to members of Wargame Developments by Friday.
IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the second issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2025-2026 subscription year.
If you wish to subscribe for the 2025-2026 subscription year and have not yet done so, please request a PayPal invoice or the bank transfer information from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on the relevant page of the website.
Last night, Steve Parker - the creator of the ‘Dominion of …’ rules - left a comment on my blog that contained the following news:
Next up is:
- Dominion of the Red and White (Russian Civil War) and
- Dominion of the Back of Beyond.
After that, maybe:
- Dominion of the Trenches - WW1 including Africa, Middle East, Italy.
I expect that these will turn out to be at least as popular as the previous books ... and may well be the most popular so far! (I will certainly be buying copies!)
Since I wrote this blog post, Steve Parker has been in contact with the following additional information:
Just a bit more detail then. The first book Dominion of the Red and White will be similar to my current books with 24 battles from the Russian Civil War, Baltic Wars of Independence and the Polish-Soviet War. There are a couple of amusing tweaks to the activation system and replacement of defeated units that hopefully model these chaotic battles better. Dominion of the Back of Beyond is of course set in the East during this period but set at a lower level with detailed descriptions of the different factions (18?). The lower level allows the different units to include Machine Guns, Tachankas, Armoured Cars, Chinese swordsmen etc. where in the bigger battles they are not really separate units.
Having read this, I am now absolutely certain that I will be buying both of these books!
Over the past week the average number of daily ‘hits’ registered on my blog has seemingly tripled … and I understand that this phenomenon has been observed by other bloggers.
So, why has this happened?
Looking at the stats, …
… it would appear that over the last seven days my blog has attracted lots of new readers from some nations that previously never appeared on the list of ‘audience’ countries.(e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Brazil.) I have therefore concluded that my blog - along with many others - has suddenly become of interest to people or organisations that operate web bots that crawl through the Internet looking for something to latch onto. It’s either that or there a whole new load of wargamers out there who’ve just discovered the delights of my blog!
Whilst I was waiting for my wargaming mojo to return, I spent some time looking at the World War II wargame books on my shelves and thinking about how much they have influenced my World War II wargaming.
The first was Donald Featherstone's WAR GAMES ... and it was both his basic rules and Lionel Tarr's rules that I started using first.
My much battered copy of Donald Featherstone's WAR GAME. I do have a copy in much better condition and a copy of John Curry's reprint, but this volume has very fond memories for me.
In particular, the images of Lionel Tarr's Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War battle around Stalingrad ingrained themselves in my wargaming psyche and I still hanker to fight similar battles in my dotage!
The next was Charles Grant's BATTLE: PRACTICAL WARGAMING.
Once again, the battered cover of this book shows just how much usage it got in the years after I bought it.
The main text of this book had originally appeared as a series of articles in the long-defunct MECCANO MAGAZINE, and its influence on me was mainly the way in which Charles Grant organised his troops into units and sub-units and in his use of ROCO Minitanks. It is thanks to him that I have loads of T-34/85s and sWs half-tracks in my collection although most of them remain unpainted!
When it comes to showing how it was possible to model a whole variety of different military vehicles from the limited resources available at the time, John Sandar's AN INTRODUCTION TO WARGAMING stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries ... and his rules were bl**dy good as well!
Thanks to his influence, I have - over the years - converted all sorts of ROCO and Airfix military vehicles into something that I could not buy off-the-shelf ... as the recent photographs of my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collections show.
Some examples of John Sandar's vehicles, as featured in a book edited by Peter Young and entitled THE WAR GAME. The book was illustrated with photographs taken by Philip O Stearns.
I know that my old friend Chris Kemp (the designer of NQM or NOT QUITE MECHANISED) was also inspired by John Sandar's book, and his rules had a profound influence on my World War II wargaming. The original draft of the rules (which were originally titled PANZERBLITZ OR NOT QUITE MECHANISED) were quite literally drawn many years ago and I have followed their evolution and development ever since.
The cover of the very first edition of NQM. My copy was the first of only twenty!
The cover of the recently published edition of NQM.
NQM led indirectly to the development of Tim Gow's MEGABLITZ!, a set of rules that I had a small part in helping to develop.
I took part in many wargames using these excellent rules, and putting together armies for them led directly to the creation of my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collection.
A Megablitz battle that I staged at a wargame club in Norwich.
Finally, Frank Chadwick's COMMAND DECISION ...
... (and particularly his bathtub campaign book BARBAROSSA 25) ...
...made me realise that I could stage a large-scale Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War campaign if I felt so inclined.
Other books that deserve an honourable mentions include LIONEL TARR'S MODERN WARGAMING RULES 1939-1945 (as recently published by John Curry as part of his 'History of Wargaming' Project ...
... and Gavin Lyall's OPERATION WARBOARD.
WAR GAMES was written by Donald Featherstone and published in 1962 by Stanley Paul (ISBN 0 09 064901 X). It was republished in a revised edition in 2014 by the History of Wargaming Project (ISBN 978 1 2918 5142 7).
BATTLE: PRACTICAL WARGAMING was written by Charles Grant and published in 1970 by Model & Allied Publications Ltd/Argus Press Ltd.
AN INTRODUCTION TO WARGAMING was written by John Sandars and published in 1975 by Pelham Books Ltd. (ISBN 0 7207 0681 3).
NOT QUITE MECHANISED was written by Chris Kemp and published in 2024 by Lulu Inc. (ISBN 978 1 4452 7312 9).
MEGABLITZ! was written by Tim Gow and published in 2002 by Stratagem Publications.
COMMAND DECISION and BARBAROSSA 25 were written by Frank Chadwick and published in 1986 and 1988 respectively by Game Designers Workshop.
LIONEL TARR'S MODERN WARGAMING RULES 1939-1945 was compiled by John Curry and published in 2017 by The History of Wargaming Project (ISBN 978 1 3269 1498 1).
OPERATION WARBOARD was written by Gavin Lyall and published in 1976 by A&C Black (ISBN 0 7138 1646 6). It was republished in 2013 by the History of Wargaming Project (ISBN 978 1 2913 2352 8)
.jpg)
