Henry Hyde has a well-deserved reputation for the maps he has produced for the magazines he edited (BATTLEGAMES and MINIATURE WARGAMES WITH BATTLEGAMES) as well as for other publications such as the Spanish Civil War supplement for the BLITZKRIEG COMMANDER. He has now brought fifty-two of these maps together into a single volume under the title BATTLE MAPS FOR MINIATURE WARGAMES.
The book is split into the following sections:
- Map Index
- Introduction
- The Maps and Notes
- Threeman's Farm: WWII
- Chamla Valley
- Save Lady Jane from McSiggins
- Can I be your Condottiere?
- Trapped in the Birdcage, Salonika 1915-17
- Getting Away With It
- Bridgehead Breakout
- Wildfire in the Wilderness
- Twixt Crescent and Cross
- Plattville Valley brought up to date
- Fighting Withdrawal
- Night Raid on Gravelines
- Salamanca's Siren Call
- Opening Hell's Highway
- A Dashing Rescue
- Granddad's Battle, Lingevres 1944
- Apocryphal Well Revisited
- The Bridges at Monocacy
- Paddling in the Piave
- Problems in the Peloponnese
- By Any Means
- Diamonds Are Forever
- Yakhroma 1941
- Wilson's Creek 1861
- Mongol Campaign in Syria: Ayn Jalut 1260
- Muster Mayhem
- Arsuf 1191
- The Blue Danube
- Command Challenge: Matatitze
- Manzikert 1071
- At the Sharp End
- The Well of Tarka
- The Next River!
- The Defence of Twin Peaks
- Stop Thief!
- Seven Years in Silesia
- Hold the Line! Defence in Depth (Pitzer's Ridge 1777)
- Insurgency
- The Assault on the Aragon Front
- The Fight in the North - Gipuzkoa
- Pontoon
- Wildfire in The Wilderness (2)
- A River Crossing Mini-Campaign
- Battle of the Caucasus Mountains 1221
- Twixt Crescent and Cross (2)
- Escaping Cromwell
- Variations on a Theme of Teugn-Hausen
- The Package
- Turning the Flank
- Win More Wargames 3: a Tougher Nut to Crack
- Command Challenge: Three Fords, Three Ways
- 6mm and the Bigger Picture
- Using the Maps for Simple Campaigns
- About the Author, His Books and Patreon
- Acknowledgements
You will note that two of the maps featured on the list have the same name. This is not a mistake as one map is drawn to show a larger area than the other. This means that one map is ideal for a larger battle and the other is ideal for something closer to a skirmish. For example, 9 is a map of the centre of a town whereas 45 shows the terrain on the approaches to a castle.
It is interesting to note that the maps can be used together to form a large campaign map, and in the section about using maps for simple campaigns, Henry gives an example where thirteen of the maps (18, 20, 19, 49, 46, 43, 51, 10, 24, 36, 15, 4, and 29) fit together to create a campaign map.
As someone who is often looking for suitable maps for wargames, this book is a great resource, and I can see loads of wargamers wanting to add it to their bookshelves. I took it to my local gaming club, and everyone who looked at this book wanted more details about where they could get a copy.
BATTLE MAPS FOR MINIATURE WARGAMES was created by Henry Hyde and published by Gladius Publications in 2026 (ISBN 979 8 2446 9883 1). The paperback edition can be purchased from Amazon for £22.50 and a PDF edition can be purchased from Wargame Vault for £15.00. Purchasers can also buy a PDF of just the maps (and Henry's other books) from payhip.com/gladiuspublications.
I ordered my copy of this book before I discovered that Henry Hyde had actually dedicated this book to me! This is both very humbling and slightly embarassing ... but as I found out on my 76th birthday, it was also a wonderful and totally unexpected present!

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