Joseph Morschauser’s grid-based wargames rules for the 'Musket' period – Some developments

After yesterday’s blog entry about Joseph Morschauser’s gridded wargames rules I got the following email from Ross Macfarlane, the creator of the WITH MACDUFF ON THE WEB website:

Hi Bob, can't leave comments on your blog so I thought I'd drop you a note. Mike Tabor's Historifig site has a copy of a set of gridded Ancients Rules by Joe Morschauser. The mechanisms are quite different (though still using his usual melee and missile fire concepts), but the board looks very similar. Here's the link:

http://www.tabletoptalk.com/?page_id=335

They also have an old Tabletalk bio at http://www.tabletoptalk.com/?page_id=322

cheers,

Ross
http://www.lochsloy.ca/macduff.htm

The entry on the Historifig website that Ross refers to has the transcribed text of the same article from MINIATURE PARADE that I mentioned yesterday.

Comparing that with the text of the ‘Frontier’ rules, it is possible to see that there are common elements and mechanisms used in both sets of rules. However the latter do read like they are the rules that were being used in wargames featured in the famous photographs in Joseph Morschauser's HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES IN MINIATURE and Donald Featherstone’s ADVANCED WAR GAMES (see my blog entry of 16th December 2008) and are not the elusive ‘Musket’ period rules that used a one-inch squared grid.

What I now have are:

• A copy of the Ancient/’Shock’ period rules
• A description of the ‘Musket’ period rules from an article featured on the VINTAGE WARGAMING blog
• A copy of the ‘Frontier’ rules
• A copy of Joseph Morschauser's book HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES IN MINIATURE

Using these sources, a bit of luck, and my experience of game design I should be able to produce something akin to Joseph Morschauser’s grid-based wargames rules for the 'Musket' period.

Once I have done that … well, I can't not try them out, can I?