What wargame rules have influenced my World War II wargaming?

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.

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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.

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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)

Barbarossa 25

I bought a copy of Frank Chadwick’s BARBAROSSA 25 when it was first published in 1988, and I’ve read it many times.

I would rate it as being almost as influential in generating my long-term desire to re-fight the Axis invasion of Russia as reading about Lionel Tarr’s wargames The book outlines how Frank Chadwick devised a bathtub campaign of the invasion with everything being scaled down by 1:25 … approximately. (This seems to have been done so that the maps from the board game FIRE IN THE EAST could be used as the campaign maps.) I was so taken with the concept that I bought the tabletop rules that the campaign was designed to work with (COMMAND DECISION) and even painted and based a two-battalion Hungarian infantry regiment (with supporting artillery) to use with them.

I never used my Hungarians, and I even lent them to another wargamer for a time. They eventually ended up in my shed … from which they were rescued some years ago. Some have even been recently renovated and now form part of my newly-flocked Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collection.

They are now awaiting their turn to have their bases flocked ... which should be in the very near future.

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BARBAROSSA 25: COMMAND DECISION CAMPAIGN MODULE was written by Frank Chadwick and published in 1988 by Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) (ISBN 0-943580-98-6).

Spring cleaning ... and Salute 2019

Every so often the feeling that I really ought to have a bit of a tidy up comes upon me. With the change to British Summer Time, the general improvement in the weather, and with Easter just a few weeks away, I decided that I needed to do a bit of Spring cleaning.

Tidying up my toy/wargame room didn't take very long, so I moved on to my computer. Over the years I have stored all sorts of stuff in files, and I decided to sort and rationalise the file structure ... after I'd backed up the existing files onto a removable hard drive!

As one can easily imagine, there were quite a few files of photographs I'd taken during our cruises and a lot of files relating to wargames and wargaming ... including drafts of several sets of rules. Going through them was time-consuming, especially as I found one or two forgotten gems.

Some of photographs will be featured as blog entries over the next few weeks. As to the drafts of wargame rules ... well most of them have been published over the years, but one set that has not been made public, stood out. It was the original version of RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES.

A developed version of the rules – RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED – were featured in some of my earliest blog entries and published in DONALD FEATHERSTONE'S WARGAMING AIRBORNE OPERATIONS (edited by John Curry and published by the 'History of Wargaming' Project [ISBN 978 1 4092 8647 9]).

The latter combined:

• A card activation system
• Move distances (converted into hexes) from Lionel Tarr’s rules
• A combat system that drew on that used in Donald Featherstone’s published rules

The original RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES were somewhat different, with far more reliance on the use of playing cards to generate randomness. For example, if a unit in cover was hit, a playing card was turned over. If the card was black, the cover prevented the hit from being effective whereas if the card was red, the cover was ineffective, and the unit was hit.

Looking at them afresh over ten years later, the rules do have much to commend them, and some of the concepts and mechanisms I used when creating them might well be the basis of a set of rules that, when combined with elements of my PORTABLE WARGAME rules, I could use for my much-planned solo Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project.

Its certainly something worth thinking about.

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As regular blog readers will have noticed, today is the day that SALUTE 2019 is taking place at ExCel in Docklands. ExCel is almost directly north of where I live in south-east London, and I can actually see the building from the top of my driveway.

Getting there by public transport would not have been very difficult. I could have taken a bus to Woolwich Arsenal, followed by a journey on the Docklands Light Railway to Customs House or Prince Regent stations via Canning Town. The journey time would have been between forty-five to sixty minutes, depending upon the time I had to wait at various places to catch a connection.

I could have gone ... but I have chosen not to because – due to other commitments – I would only have had just about enough time to get there, queue to get in, spend about an hour looking around, and then have had to come home again. I'm of an age when that sort of rushing about is best avoided, as it is far too stressful, and would have reduced the enjoyment I would have had from going.

A new book about Lionel Tarr's wargames

Although versions of Lionel Tarr's Modern Wargaming Rules have previously been republished in WAR GAMES ...

... and MORE WARGAMING PIONEERS: ANCIENT AND WORLD WAR II BATTLE AND SKIRMISH RULES BY TONY BATH, LIONEL TARR AND MICHAEL KORNS: EARLY WARGAMES VOL. 4 (ISBN 978 1 291 19817 1) ...

... the latest offering from the 'History of Wargaming' project – LIONEL TARR’S MODERN WARGAING RULES 1939-1945: THE FIRST MODERN WARGAMER (ISBN 978 1 326 91498 1) – brings together a lot of other material produced by Lionel Tarr.

The contents include:

• A short biography of Lionel Tarr
• Introduction
• Reflections on the Lionel Tarr Game
• The Lionel Tarr WWII Rules: Donald Featherstone's 1962 Edition
• The Lionel Tarr War Game (Kriegssiel) Circa 1939-1945 (Note: Originally written in February 1947, these rules were revised through many drafts until June 1967)
• The ORBATs for Lionel Tarr's Russian and German Armies
• RETASOL: Tarr's Solo Wargaming Eastern Front Campaign
• Wargaming the Battle of Stalingrad
• Air Wargames
• Attack and Defence in Modern War Games
• The Lionel Tarr Periscope
• The Space Size Continuum by Carl Reavley
• The Lionel Tarr Napoleonic Wargame (Circa early 1960s)
• A W Saunders' Rules for Modern War Games (1957)

I have been looking forward to the publication of this book, and as I sit here with the snow falling outside, I know that I will have an enjoyable day ahead reading this book.

Red Flags and Iron Crosses

Yesterday I happened to be looking back at the first few blog entries that I wrote. They were about the set of World War II rules that I was then developing ... RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES: TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED.

Re-reading about my various play-tests, I realised that they were a better set of rules than I remembered them being. Perhaps I ought to give them another try sometime soon? In the meantime, here are some of the photographs I used to illustrate those early blog entries.

For those of you who like to know a bit more about the models etc. that I used, they were:

• Terrain: Hexon II
• Trees: Cheap model railways trees that I based after adding additional flock to the foliage
• Buildings: N-gauge Hornby model railway buildings
• Walls/Entrenchments: Hovels
• Aircraft: Pre-painted models issued with a magazine part-work
• Tanks: Corgi pre-painted models
• Vehicle: Matchbox plastic kit
• Artillery: Skytrex
• Figures: Various manufacturers including Raventhorpe, Tumbling Dice, Skytrex, and Britannia

Going round and round … and getting nowhere

Over the past few weeks I have felt a general lethargy and lack of enthusiasm for almost everything … including wargaming. It may be a result of the change in the season or it may be the fact that I seem to have had a persistent and bothersome head cold for several weeks. Whatever the cause, I have just not felt much like wargaming.

Looking back over my blog entries, I realised that since COW2014 I have only fought three battles … and they were short, solo actions to test a game mechanism. Is this a sign that my disinclination to fight wargames has been around even longer than I realised?

I don’t know … but I suspect that it might.

One thing that I have been trying to do – without much success – is to revise my PORTABLE WARGAME rules … but each time that I have tried, I seem to be making them more rather than less complicated.

At times like these I find that the best thing to do is to look at the work of the ‘Old Masters’ of wargaming for inspiration. (The ‘Old Masters’ I am referring to include Donald Featherstone, Joseph Morschauser, Peter Young, Charles Grant, Terry Wise, Charles Wesencraft, and Lionel Tarr.) I have been doing just that … and it has helped to raise my spirits somewhat.

One thing that has particularly claimed my interest – yet again – is Joseph Morschauser’s ‘Frontier’ rules. In an article he wrote in 1967 he describes using these rules with his famous Roster System, and having re-read what he wrote several times, I think that it points a way forward for me. What is more, it has given me the feeling that I want to try them out … and if it cures my lethargy, so much the better!

The Battle of Novagrad (My Featherstone Memorial Wargame)

The following is a battle report of my Featherstone Memorial Wargame. It was fought using the latest version of RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES – TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED, a set of wargames rules that were inspired by the early rules written by Lionel Tarr and Donald Featherstone.

I designed the battlefield using Cyberboard ...

... and set it up using my Hexon II terrain.

The opposing forces were the Germans (who are advancing) ...

... and the Russians (who are defending).

The Russians have been tasked with holding Novagrad 'to the last man and the last bullet!' and are heeding Comrade Stalin's order 'Not one step back!', knowing that to do so will probably mean death to those that retreat ... and to their families as well.

The battle began when the Germans began their advance through the village of Mayalova ...

and on towards Novagrad.

At this point the Russian anti-tank unit fired at the leading German tank unit ... and missed!

The Russian field gun unit (whose fire was being directed by the troops in the forward defences) also opened fire on the leading tank ...

... and destroyed it!

The Germans reacted by turning off the road and attacking the nearby Russian defences ...

.. with quite devastating results.

The Russian anti-tank unit could not engage the leading German tank as it was outside its arc-of-fire, but the Russian field gun unit did fire at it ... and missed!

The Germans then split their attack in two. Whilst the tanks and half the infantry moved forward on the left, the rest began to advance on the left of the road.

The leading German tank unit moved into close range and engaged the Russian infantry ...

... and caused further casualties.

On the right the German heavy machine gun unit (which had not moved) fired at the Russian troops who were manning the nearby defences ...

... and despite the fact that it was firing at long range, it wiped them out!

The Russian response was to move two of its infantry units forward.

The Germans maintained their advance and on the left ...

... they overran the Russian defences, killing the remaining defenders in the process.

The Russians response was to open fire on the leading German tank unit with both their anti-tank gun and field gun ... and missed!

The German advance continued inexorably ...

... and the sound of the tank engines was soon joined by that of a Ju87 Stuka!

The leading German tank unit engaged the Russian field gun unit ...

... and killed half of the unit's personnel.

At the same time the German heavy machine gun unit that was to the left of the road engaged the Russian anti-tank gun unit at long range ...

... and wiped out the unit's soldiers.

On the right a firefight took place between the advancing German infantry and the Russian infantry occupying the defences.

Both sides suffered casualties as a result of this firefight ...

... and when the right-hand German heavy machine gun joined in the fighting ...

... the Russian defenders were wiped out.

The Stuka flew straight towards Novagrad, diving down as it did ...

... and wiping out the remaining personnel of the Russian field gun unit.

The remaining Russian troops charged forward to engage the Germans ...

... but they were wiped out in the subsequent fighting. Novagrad was in German hands ... but their victory had come at a price.