A box of delights

On Thursday, a large box from my old friend David Crook (the man behind A WARGAMING ODYSSEY blog) was delivered by courier. I was feeling just about well enough to open it and to peer inside ... and what I found confirmed that this was a true 'box of delights'!

I have now had time to carefully unpack the contents which included:

6 x Medium guns (2 different scratch built types [4 and 2] made by Eric Knowles)

2 x Russian 152mm Gun M1935 (Br-2)

2 x Howitzers (Scratch built by Eric Knowles)

1 x Russian 76.2mm Gun

German Fallschirmjäger (including a mountain gun, a 28mm schwere Panzerbüchse 41 (sPzB 41) Anti-tank Gun, an 81mm Mortar, a Heavy Machine Gun, and two motorcycles with sidecars)

German coastal defence troops (including 2 x 75mm sIG 18 Infantry Guns, 2 x 50mm Pak 38 Anti-tank Guns, 2 x 47mm PaK(t) Anti-tank Guns, 2 x 20mm Anti-aircraft Guns, 2 x 81mm Mortars, and 2 x Heavy Machine Guns).

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A bonus was the inclusion of six of David Crook's models, 5 ironclads [4 Turkish and 1 British] and a coastal defence fort.

These will fit in very nicely with my Belle Époque collection and might well encourage me to build some more ships of my own in future.

Eric Knowles: A wargaming original: A YouTube video tribute

Eric Knowles was one of the small group of wargamers who were active in the later 1950s and early 1960s. He was an extensive collector and painter of figures etc., and took part in the famous 1965 refight of the Battle of Waterloo ...

... where he took on the role of Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton.

When he took early retirement from the newspaper industry, he bought Wall Models Ltd., in East Ham, London, and renamed it New Model Army. It then became the focal meeting point for a large number of wargamers – including me – and its basement became the venue for the battles fought as part of the famous Madasahatta Campaign.

Eventually, Eric sold his shop and moved – with his wife Ivy – to Lincolnshire. He remained very active and continued to wargame until he died in 2017.

I have added a video about Eric to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel. It is my tribute to him and everything he gave to the hobby of wargaming.

Wargames Illustrated Issue 428 August 2023

I happened to be in the Bluewater branch of WHSmith when I saw this month's issue of WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED. I had a flick through it and several articles caught my eye, so I bought a copy.

The articles that caught my eye were:

• Loose Files and American Scramble by Andy Callan
• Returning To Old Favourites: One Person's Passion - Collecting Old School Armies by Rick Priestley
• Fashoda Showdown by Nick Buxey
• Citadel to Perry Minis, via Foundry, and interview with the Perry twins
• Making an Acacia Tree by Matt Parkes
• Thane Tostig by Daniel Mersey

I've known Andy Callan for forty-three years, and I know that any rules that he has written will be worth reading, even if they relate to a period of wargaming that I don't wargame.

As a bit of an 'old school' wargamer, Rick Priestley's article - and especially many of the photographs of good old Minifigs figures - really struck a chord ... and it was interesting to see that in an age of super-detailed figure sculptures and shaded figures, how good they looked!

The Fashoda Showdown article looked at what might have happened if the British and French had come to blows on the banks of the Upper Nile. It's a 'what if?' I've thought about refighting myself, and this article certainly made me think about actually doing so at some time.

The interview with Alan and Michael Perry was interesting and informative, and showed how their careers and their sculpting has developed over the years.

The acacia tree has a special place in the hearts of all Freemasons, so this article was a 'must read' ...

Thane Tostig was the brainchild of my old friend, the late Eric Knowles, ...

... and his son William ... although we always called him Bill! It was a fantasy game that featured figures by the legendary Barry Minot, and although I never played any of the games Eric staged, I can well remember seeing the figures being cast in the basement of his shop - the New Model Army - in Manor Park, east London. Daniel Mersey's article does contain a few errors (for example, Eric and Bill were father and son and not brothers!) but it was great to see that Thane Tostig has not been forgotten!

(I devoted a whole appendix to ‘The Quest of Thane Tostig’ or ‘The Quest of Thane Tostig for the Magic Sword Blooddrinker’ in the book I compiled about the Madasahatta Campaign. It included a list of all the figures that Eric planned to release.)

Making the new Madasahatta map even more user-friendly!

Having completed the new, colour version of the Madasahatta map, I decided that I could make it more user-friendly by splitting it into with sections.

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

I hope that fans of Madasahatta (and potential users!) will find these map section useful.

The new Madasahatta Map ... is finished!

Yesterday I found the time to finish the new, colour version of the Madasahatta map, and have added a key as well as the place names.

The original map looked like this ...

... and the finished map looks like this:

I am very pleased with the way it has turned out, and I think that if he was still alive, Eric Knowles would have enjoyed seeing it.

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This was the third of my short-term goals that I have achieved, and I now intend to set myself a few more.

New Madasahatta Map: The basic work has been completed

I managed to spend a bit of time over the past couple of days to get the basic work on the new, colour version of the Madasahatta map completed ... and it looks like this:

I now need to finish off the key and add the location names to the map, and it will then be complete. However, David Crook and I want to add some more detail to the as yet empty northern part of the map. On the original map this is described as being 'unexplored bush country inhabited by the Dodgilot Tribe', but we would like to at least add some geographical features such as native settlements, rivers, and watering holes.

We don't want to rush this, as we want to make sure that what we do add is in line with the sort of thing that we think that Eric Knowles would have included.

New Madasahatta Map: Another progress report

Work on the map continues apace, with more and more of the details being redrawn/overdrawn in colour.

Now that the main features have been added to the map (e.g. the locations of the towns and settlements, the rivers, the main roads, the hills and mountains etc.), further refinements will need to be made. This may require some changes to the original colours used, and the addition of slightly more detail so that it is easier to identify the differences between jungle, marsh/swamp, oasis, and bush.

This will be more time-consuming that might be expected, but I feel that I am now 'over the hump' with regard to completing this project.

New Madasahatta map: A progress report

Over the past few days, I’ve been working on redrawing Eric Knowles’s Madasahatta map using MS Paint. I started by superimposing a new square grid over a digital image of a scanned copy of a photocopy of the original map.

I then filled in all the 'empty' sea grid squares.

Once this had been completed, I used the original map as a guide as I began to draw in the northern coastline of the map ...

... and some of the inland features, such as the borders between different areas, rivers and streams, roads, hills, and oasis/marshland/jungle.

I then continued this process, mainly working down the right-hand side of the map.

Over the next few days, I hope to continue doing this until I have overdrawn the original map, and have the basis of a new, digital, colour version to work with.

Return to Madasahatta?

I've recently been exchanging emails with my fellow blogger David Crook about Eric Knowles' famous MADASAHATTA campaign. As a result, I've agreed to try to update Eric's original map so that we can use it for Colonial campaigning.

I will be using MS Paint as I want to produce the map in colour, and I will be adopting a style that is similar to the one I produced for my ongoing Operation Barbarossa mini-campaign.

I hope to keep my regular blog readers up to date with my progress ... and if the end result is any good, I may even make it available online.

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As a matter of interest, I wrote this blog post using html on my iPad ... and actually found that it was not too difficult.

Perhaps the new Blogger isn't too bad, once you get used to it.

An idea worth pursuing ... has been pursued some more!

Judging by the response to the publication of some of my books in PDF editions, I have decided to add the following to the list:

• THE MADASAHATTA CAMPAIGN (£2.99)

It is now on sale via Lulu.com, and can be found on my author's page.

The Madasahatta Campaign book ... has been published!

THE MADASAHATTA CAMPAIGN has been published and is now available for purchase from Lulu.com.

The book should be on sale from other online booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble within a matter of weeks.

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THE MADASAHATTA CAMPAIGN was originally devised and written by Eric Knowles and has been edited (with additions) by Bob Cordery. It is published in hardback by Eglinton Books and costs £14.99 (ISBN 978 0 244 38509 5).

The Madasahatta Campaign book: A fitting tribute to Eric Knowles

I have just finished reading the printed proof copy of a small, hardback book that I have compiled about the late Eric Knowles's famous Madasahatta Campaign. I created it as a tribute to Eric's pioneering work in the world of UK wargaming, and the book will be published in due course. In the meantime I am having copies printed for Eric's family and friends.

As can be seen from the images of the front ...

... and back covers ...

... the book contains all the background information to the campaign as well as copies of the campaign newspaper and reminiscences of some of those who took part.

A busy fortnight coming up

I've a busy couple of weeks ahead of me. On Wednesday 17th I am giving my talk about Freemasonry in the British Army to Lambourne Lodge (No.3945) in Loughton, Essex, and on Friday 19th I'll be at Boundary Lodge (No.7695), Ashwell House, St Albans talking about the Halsey family of Hertfordshire.

On Monday 22nd I'll be in the Chair at the Veritatem Sequere Lodge (No.9615) meeting at Royston, and on Wednesday 24th I am off to Letchworth to attend the Burns' Night meeting of the Iceni Lodge (No.5975), where the members of the Lodge are presenting a talk (with poetry) about the Masonic poetry of Rabbie Burns ... and I will be eating a traditional Burns' Night dinner!

Whilst all this is going on I have a couple of writing projects that I hope to get finished. The first of these (which is almost finished as far as it can be) is the centenary history of the Hertfordshire Master's Lodge (No.4090), and the second is a book about Eric Knowles's Madasahatta campaign.

The latter book will contain all the background information and the maps that Eric produced along with copies of the campaign newspapers and memories of some of the participants. The book will also have two appendices, one of which will be about Eric's South East Asian naval campaign, and the other will cover Eric's 'Quest of Thane Tostig' rules. I hope that Eric's family will give me permission to publish the book so that it will be available to the general wargaming public and can serve as a memorial to this pioneer British wargamer.

Charlie Muffin

Back in the late 1970s Brian Freemantle wrote the first of what has become a number of novels whose central character is one Charlie Muffin. Charlie is a rather scruffy member of the British Intelligence Service (MI6), and the first of the books in the series was turned into a made-for-TV film by Euston Films in 1979.

During some research I am doing into the life of Eric Knowles, I discovered that Eric had supplied the company with wargames figures and models. These were used in several scenes that featured Charlie's main opponent in the world of espionage, General Valery Kalenin. In the book Kalenin was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, and his hobby was recreating battles that he had taken part in. IT was one such battle that was featured in the film.

The following are some stills taken from the film.

The actor playing General Kalenin is the wonderfully-named Pinkas Braun, and the battle is unusual as it seems to feature German, Russian, and British troops on the same battlefield.

Eric Knowles' funeral

I had hoped to be well enough to drive from London to Lincolnshire and back today to attend Eric Knowles' funeral, but the virus is still hard at work making it very difficult for me to concentrate or to stay awake for more than an hour or so without having to have a short doze. Driving for three hours in each direction was not only out of the question, but would also have been dangerous for myself and other road users.

I hope to attend the memorial event in London for Eric when it takes place in the near future, but in the meantime I am trying to think of an appropriate way to mark his passing. My initial thinking was to make the Madasahatta material that I used to have on my Colonial Wargaming website available again ... or even to re-fight the campaign using my PORTABLE WARGAME rules. Both are possible; its just a matter of decided which to do.

Eric Knowles RIP

Last night I was informed by David Crook that Eric Knowles had died at the age of 91 years.

Eric was one of the early modern British wargamers, and took part in the famous re-fight of the Battle of Waterloo at the Duke of York's Headquarters alongside Donald Featherstone, Neville Dickinson et al.

On his retirement from working for the 'Daily Mirror' newspaper he set up a wargame shop in Manor Park in East London called the NEW MODEL ARMY (formerly WALL MODELS), and it was during a visit to his shop that I got to know him. Eventually he invited me to join the small group of wargamers who met regularly in the shop's basement to play wargames, foremost amongst these being the famous MADASAHATTA campaign.

I visited Eric's house several times, and his family were always extremely welcoming. His home seemed to be full of wargames figures, and it was reputed that they even occupied space in the airing cupboard!

After the shop closed and Eric moved away to Lincolnshire, I managed to see him a couple of times at wargame shows, and he still had a very lively mind and an active interest in wargaming. I understand that in later years he became a guide for visitors to the RAF's 'Battle of Britain' flight, and I am sure that he would have proven to be an enthusiastic and very knowledgeable one.

It is true to say that without Eric's encouragement and advice I would not be the wargamer that I am today. He will be greatly missed by his many friends as well as his family.

Eric Knowles RIP

A can of worms, the death of an actor, and comfort wargaming

Today I have three things that I want to write about. Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has commented on my most recent blog entry. When I wrote it I thought that I was probably opening a can of worms, but I was pleasantly surprised that the comments that were made were all well-reasoned and thought through, and that even if we were not all in agreement with one another, we respected each other’s points of view.

The second thing that I want to mention is the very recent death of that wonderful Indian actor, Saeed Jaffrey. Besides starring in Satyajit Ray's SHATRANJ KE KHILADI (THE CHESS PLAYERS) (see below) and more than 100 Bollywood films productions, he also appeared in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, GANDHI, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE and THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. The latter is one of my favourite films, and his portrayal of Billy Fish, the Gurkha soldier who helps Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine) and Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) to conquer Kafiristan, is a film gem and deserves greater recognition.

The third thing that I want to mention is what I term ‘comfort wargaming’. We all know what ‘comfort food’ is (i.e. food that induces a nostalgic, sentimental, or comforting feeling to the person eating it) and whenever I lose the desire to fight wargames – a feeling that has dogged me for the last few months – I look to what I think of as my ‘comfort wargames’ as a way to reinvigorate my appetite for the hobby.

So what are my ‘comfort wargames’? The answer is simple; they are either World War II wargames fought with lots of 20mm-scale figures and model vehicles using simple old-school rules or colonial wargames set in some imaginary late nineteenth century European colony or colonies. The former harks back to the wargames of my teenage years whilst the latter evokes memories of Eric Knowles’s famous Madasahatta Campaign.

As the slow process of sorting out my wargames room gradually comes towards a conclusion, I am looking forward to fighting a couple of ‘comfort wargames’ to revitalise and reinvigorate my desire to wargame.

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SHATRANJ KE KHILADI is set in 1856 and focuses on the events leading up to the British annexation of the Indian State of Oudh and the Great Mutiny of 1857.

The main characters are two aristocrats (Mirza Sajjad Ali and Mir Raushan Ali) who become so deeply immersed in the development of numerous chess strategies that they become oblivious to the pending invasion their country by the British. In fact they are still playing chess as the British capture their city, Lucknow. It is an excellent film, and I have never seen a better portrayal of the life and customs of the ruling classes of 19th century India and an explanation of the methods by which the British East India Company enacted its policy of colonial expansion.

Return to Madasahatta?

One experience that David Crook and I share is our participation in Eric Knowles's epic Madasahatta campaign. It is a topic that usually crops up in any conversations that we have, and once or twice we have even talked about running our own versions.


With this in mind I looked at the initial start-up positions for the various forces involved in the original campaign ... and realised that I probably have more than enough figures to actually do it! If I make one PORTABLE WARGAME unit equal to a company, all I will need is the following:

Garrison of New Surrey

• Port Victoria
• 3rd Battalion, Connaught Rangers (less 1 Company) [3 Infantry Units]
• 47th Mountain Battery (2 x 12pdr. Guns) [1 Mountain Artillery Unit]
• Rumbletum’s Kraal
• 1 Company, 3rd Battalion, Connaught Rangers [1 Infantry Unit]
• Clinkajeer's Kraal
• 1 Squadron, Bengal Lancers [1 Cavalry Unit]
• Fort Chupatty
• HQ and 2 Companies, 1st Battalion, Ludhiana Sikhs [2 Infantry Units]
• Fort George
• 2 Companies, 1st Battalion, Ludhiana Sikhs [2 Infantry Units]

Garrison of Hansaland

• Festung Teufel
• 2 Companies, 1st Battalion Askari Infanterie [2 Infantry Units]
• 1 gun (1 x 88mm Howitzer), Hansaland Kolonial Artillerie [½ Mountain Artillery Unit]
• Festung Askari
• 2 Companies, 1st Battalion Askari Infanterie [2 Infantry Units]
• 1 gun (1 x 88mm Howitzer), Hansaland Kolonial Artillerie [½ Mountain Artillery Unit]
• Festung Amelia
• 1 Company, 12th Marine Battalion [1 Infantry Unit]
• Seemanstadt
• 12th Marine Battalion (less 1 Company) [3 Infantry Units]
• Bluchershafen
• 10th Wurttemburg Artillerie Batterie (2 x105mm Guns) [1 Field Artillery Unit]

Garrison of The Arab Concession

• Port Maleesh
• 1 Battalion, State Guard (4 Infantry Units]
• 1 Battery, Artillery (2 x 88mn Howitzers) [1 Mountain Artillery Unit]

Whoppituppas Tribal Forces

• Hornikraal
• Royal Bodyguard [4 Infantry Units]
• The Elephant Regiment [4 Infantry Units]
• Militini's Kraal
• The Lion Regiment [4 Infantry Units]
• Gindrinka's Kraal
• The Leopard Regiment [4 Infantry Units]

In total the forces involved would be:

• British: 8 Infantry Units, 1 Cavalry Unit, and 1 Mountain Artillery Unit (37 figures and 1 gun)
• German: 8 Infantry Units, 1 Mountain Artillery Unit, and 1 Field Artillery Unit (36 figures and 2 guns)
• Turkish: 4 Infantry Units and 1 Mountain Artillery Unit (18 figures and 1 gun)
• Native: 16 Infantry Units (64 figures)

I have several other projects that I want to finish before I even start to seriously think about re-staging the Madasahatta campaign ... but if and when I do, it looks like if could be a very nice little war to fight!

Doing lots of thinking

Thanks to various circumstances over which I seem to have had little control, I had lots of time today to do little else but think about my numerous on-going wargames projects.

I have almost finished painting the two coastal defence guns that I have built, and with luck they will be in action by the weekend ... but what should I do next?

• Make and paint some 20mm-scale vehicles for my World War II project?
• Build some more coastal defence guns?
• Build some coastal defence forts?
• Build some more ironclad/pre-dreadnought model warships?
• Paint some of my 15mm-scale and/or 20mm-scale unpainted figure 'mountain'?
• Give in to temptation regarding the creation of an imagi-nation based on FATHER BROWN's Heiligwaldenstein?

I am not sure ... but I have a sneaking feeling that the answer may be related to a series of emails I have been exchanging with David Crook about whether or not to use 15mm-scale or 20mm-scale figures for twentieth century wargaming, Eric Knowles's famous MADASAHATTA campaign, and the work done by THE INCH HIGH CLUB.

Nothing is certain as yet ... but the ideas that have gone backwards and forwards have set my mind racing.

Madasahatta revisited

Way back in the mists of time (well at least thirty years ago!) there was a wargames shop in Manor Park, East London, called NEW MODEL ARMY. It was owned and run by Eric Knowles ... and to me it was almost heaven on earth! Not only did Eric have a large stock of wargames figures on sale (mainly Minifigs and Hinchliffe) and the usual wargames paraphernalia you would expect to find – books, paints, brushes etc – but his shop had a basement where a few invited wargamers were allowed to join him to fight tabletop battles. I – and a young man named David Crook – were amongst the chosen few, and we were both lucky enough to have taken part in Eric’s massive ‘Madasahatta’ campaign.

The background to the campaign (along with copies of the campaign newspaper that appeared during the opening months of the year-long campaign) can be seen on my Colonial Wargaming website, and regularly revisit it every so often because it brings back so many fond memories. But that is not the reason why I am currently studying the campaign map with a degree of intensity. The reason lies in a chance remark the David Crook made to me in a recent email.

What David asked was whether I thought that the map could be recreated in 3D on a six foot by four foot tabletop using Hexon II terrain tiles … and whether I had enough figures to re-fight the campaign using the sort of rules I outlined when I fought THE INVASION OF ROHAN wargame in July.

On reflection I am not sure that it is possible to recreate the island of Madasahatta on a six foot by four foot tabletop using Hexon II terrain tiles (the island is a funny shape, with all sorts of irregular inlets) … but I think that it might be possible using Heroscape™ terrain tiles. As to figures … well I have quite a sizeable number of suitable 15mm-scale figures mounted on both single and multi-figure bases so it might be possible.

I am hoping that this is not going to turn into an itch that I just have to scratch … but somehow I think that it might!