Nugget 130 ... A particularly good issue

In preparation for yesterday's blog entry, I read through NUGGET No.130 ... and realised that it contained an article that had important ramifications for my subsequent wargame designs. The article was written by Ian Drury and was a report about a session he had run at the previous COW (Conference of Wargamers). The report – which was entitled 'Return to New Stanhall' – described his game about an opposed landing in the South Pacific during the Second World War, and included a complete set of rules.

During the following year I developed Ian's rules into a set of Colonial wargames rules called SCWaRes (Simple Colonial Wargames Rules) that used a gridded playing surface. I demonstrated SCWaRes at a subsequent COW, and I began to be convinced that this was they way forward for my future wargame designs.

A photograph of my very first play-test of the rules that eventually became SCWaRes.

A photograph of one of the battles fought as part of the Mirkat Campaign. The rules used were the final version of SCWaRes.

Over the next few years I continued to develop my ideas, influenced by Ian Drury and Richard Brook's RED SQUARES rules (e.g. REDCOATS AND DERVISHES) and by Mike & Joyce Smith's TABLE TOP BATTLES: TABLE TOP WARGAMING WITH MINIATURES. The end result of this process was WHEN EMPIRES CLASH!

The next major 'leap forward' was my re-discovery of Joseph Morschauser's book, HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES IN MINIATURE. The illustrations of Morschauser's battles fought on a gridded battlefield spurred me on to research further into his wargame designs ... and these researches were incorporated into John Curry's re-print of Morschauser's book and subsequently to my latest opus THE PORTABLE WARGAME rules.

And to think that all this began thirteen years ago!