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)
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