The Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel

Just under three years ago (it was 16th February 2024), I set up the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel as an adjunct to this blog. Since then I have uploaded over fifty videos, some of which covered topics that had appeared as blog posts and others that did not.

I decided to look at which of these videos had attracted over a thousand viewers ... and the results were very interesting.

• The essentials of the Portable Wargame (15k)
• The Attack on Morobad: A wargame fought using rules from the Portable Colonial Wargame book (3k)
• A Portable Wargame mini-campaign board (2.3k)
• Review and play-test of the Dominion of the Spear and Bayonet rules (2k)
• Firepower!: The Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich: Part 1 - The Rotunda (1.7k)
• The Portable Wargame version of Shambattle: Background and the rules (1.6k)
• Funny Little Wars Lawn Games (1.5k)
• Eric Knowles: A wargaming original (1.1k)
• The Franco Prussian War: The Battle of the Southern Frontier (1k)
• Operation Barbarossa Portable Wargame mini campaign (1k)

The channel currently has just under nine hundred subscribers and has been viewed approximately forty-six thousand times. Of these views, approximately ten thousand were from the United States and just under eight thousand from the United Kingdom.

Chaco: The boardgames

I have had an interest in the Chaco War (9th September 1932 to 12th June 1935) for many years, and back in 1973 I acquired a copy of GDW's CHACO: CLASSICAL INFANTRY WARFARE IN THE THIRTIES.

It was published in 1973 and designed by Franck Chadwick. It was sold in a ziplock bag and comprised:

• A 22" x 28" paper hex grid map of the Chaco Desert (scaled at 10 miles/16 km per hex)
• 380 die-cut counters
• A 14-page rulebook

When COMMAND MAGAZINE published THE CHACO WAR in its twelth issue in 1991, I bought this as well. Afterall, in my book you can never have too many wargames about the Chaco War!

The game was designed by Bruce Farcau and the magazine included an article entitled THE CHACO: WAR FOR THE HELL OF IT ... and on its own, this was worth the cost of the magazine.

Recently – and thanks to the generosity of my old friend David Crook – I acquired a copy of the latest boardgame about this war.

CHACO: BOLIVIA VS. PARAGUAY 1932-35 was published by Compass Games in 2025 and was designed by Frank Chadwick and Marc W Miller, and is a modified and improved version of GDW's 1973 game. The game comes in a heavy-duty cardboard box that contains:

• A 22" x 28" mounted hex grid map of the Chaco area (scaled at 10 miles/16 km per hex)
• 264 die-cut ⅝-inch square counters
• A set of Design Notes, Player Tips, and FAQs
• A Player's Aid Chart that includes a Combat Results Table, an Optional Unit Appearance chart, a Terrain Key, and a Terrain Effects Chart
• A Bolivian Player's Unit Composition Chart
• A Paraguayan Player's Unit Composition Chart
• A 16-page rulebook
• A D6 die

I hope to give this game a go soon ... once I've punched and trimmed the counters.

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After receiving the latest boardgame about the Chaco War, I decided to make a list of the books I own about the war.

• THE CONDUCT OF THE CHACO WAR by David Zook (1960)
• THE CHACO WAR: BOLIVIA AND PARAGUAY, 1932–1935 by Bruce Farcau (1996)
• AIRCRAFT OF THE CHACO WAR (1932-1935) by Dan Hargerdon and Antionio Luis Sapienza (1997)
• THE GREEN HELL: A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE CHACO WAR BETWEEN BOLIVIA AND PARAGUAY, 1932–1935 by Adrian English (2007)
• THE CHACO WAR 1932–1935: SOUTH AMERICA'S GREATEST MODERN CONFLICT by A M de Quesada (2011)
• THE CHACO AIR WAR 1932–35: THE FIRST MODERN AIR WAR IN LATIN AMERICA by Antionio Luis Sapienza (2018)
• THE CHACO WAR 1932–1935: FIGHTING IN THE GREEN HELL by Antionio Luis Sapienza and Jose Luis Martinez Pelaez (2020)

It's a longer list than I expected ... and doesn't included several magazine articles that are filed in my clippings file.

New YouTube video: A visit to the site of the Wormoudt Massacre (28th May 1940).

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel about what I saw when I visited the site of the Wormoudt Massacre (28th May 1940).

It lasts just over four minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

Nugget 384

The editor sent me the latest issue of THE NUGGET on Sunday, and I sent it to the printer (Macauley Scott Printing Company, Welling, Kent) yesterday. I hope to collect it and post it out to members of Wargame Developments by next Monday.

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IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the SECOND issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2026-2027 subscription year.

If you have not yet subscribed for the 2026-2027 subscription year, please request a PayPal invoice from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on how to pay by bank transfer using the information on the relevant page of the website.

Soldiers of the Queen (SOTQ) Issue 195

The latest issue of the Victorian Military Society's SOTQ (Soldiers of the Queen) was delivered early last week, and since then I have been reading each of the articles in it.

The articles included in this issue are:

• Newbury's Russian Gun Question by Tom Allen
• National Army Museum Templer Centre
• Sikkim - The British Military Expeditions of 1860 and 1888 by David Howell
• The Battle of the Handub and the Reconquest of the Sudan by Richard M Crowell
• Regulations for officer and their servants in the Palace Hospital near Scutari, where Mrs Willoughby Moore was 'Superintendent of the officer's war' by Mike Hinton
• Book Reviews by Harold E Raugh Jr
• Officers of the Victorian Military Society
• Myth and Reality: Military Art in the Age of Queen Victoria Tuesday 1st July 2025 to Sunday 1st November 2026 at the National Army Museum.

Yet another excellent collection of articles and I can see myself re-reading all of them again and again.

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Interestingly, we live near to Welling, Kent ... which also has a Russian gun on prominent display at the main junction in the centre of the main shopping street.

The Russian gun in Welling is a 36-pounder carronade (calibre 6.75 inches and weighing 17 cwt). It was captured during the Crimean War (1853 to 1856).

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The annual cost of membership of the Victorian Military Society is:

• UK: £30.00
• Overseas: £40.00 [except for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore: £43.00])

My opinion remains that this magazine and the membership of the Victorian Military Society is well worth the cost of the annual subscription.

New YouTube video: A visit to Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg

I mentioned in a recent blog post that I had visited Minatur Wunderland in Hamburg, and I have just uploaded a new YouTube video about what I saw to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

It lasts approximately twelve minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

A visit to Bluewater

On last Monday evening I was suddenly struck down with a very bad dose of gastroenteritis ... which is no fun at the best of times and very unpleasant when - like me - one has a stoma. This laid me low for two days, and I meant that I missed my usual weekly game session at the local club, Dice of the Hill.

I was feeling somewhat better by Thursday morning, and as a 'reward', Sue decided that we should visit Bluewater, the large shopping mall that is about 25 minutes drive away near the southern end of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford. This would not have been my first choice as somewhere to go after being ill, but she wanted to go there ... so we went.

Whilst Sue was paying a visit to the Bluewater branch of Boots, I wandered across to the former branch of WHSmith, which is now named TG Jones. As I looked along the shelves, I found the wargame and railway modelling sections and chanced upon a copy of the September issue of CONTINENTAL MODELLER ...

... which I bought because it featured several model railway layouts that I thought might provide me with some inspiration for my own railway modelling. In particular, it included one set in an imagi-nation, the Grand Duchy 0f Mittenberg.

Whilst I was standing there, a man of about my age appeared in the same isle in a wheelchair being pushed by his wife. I was in their way, and I asked if I could hand anything to him. He replied that he would like to see the latest copy of WARGAMES, STRATEGY& SOLDIERS magazine ... and this led to us have a short but very interesting discussion about wargaming in general and magazines in particular.

It was as a result of this that I picked up a copy of the September issue of WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED and decided to do something that I haven't done for a long time ... and bought it!

I'd like to say that when I got it home, it confirmed all my prejudices regarding the glossy, mainstream wargames magazine ... but truth be told, there were several articles that I enjoyed reading! These were:

• Trouble in Tibet
• The Sea Fencibles
• American Invasion 1812

I met up with Sue after my visit to TG Jones, and she then took me to the branch of Flying Tiger Copenhagen ... where I found several sheets of what they called decorative moss.

These were 25cm x 35cm and cost £4.00 each and I immediately bought two as they will make ideal wargaming fields.

So, my trip to Bluewater did prove to be rewarding, despite my initial reluctance to go!

New YouTube video: The Portable Wargame version of Shambattle: The ‘One Day War’ playtest

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

It lasts approximately ten minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

Seventeen million hits!

Earlier today I noticed that my hit counter had passed seventeen million hits.

It would appear that the AI bots are still regular visitors to my blog and probably account for the majority of hits it has received. If only I got paid every time they visited; I'd be a rich man by now if that was the case!

New YouTube video: The Portable Wargame version of Shambattle: Background and the rules

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

It lasts approximately nine and a half minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

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A PDF of these rules can be found on the Portable Wargame Facebook page.