Thinking about the Fifth Portable Wargame Compendium

Now that my life seems to be returning to some degree of stability after the recent upheavals due to the renovation of our main bedroom and my hospital treatment, I think that it’s time that I gave some thought to putting together the next Portable Wargame Compendium.

As those of my regular blog reader who follow the Portable Wargame Facebook page will already know, the Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium was reviewed in the August issue of MINIATURE WARGAMES magazine ... some nine months after it was published! This review – which I thought was very balanced and honest – was accompanied by an aside from John Treadaway, the magazine’s editor. A screenshot of this is shown below:

I must admit that when I first read it, this comment rather annoyed me. I thought that is was sarcastic and represented an attitude to wargaming that considers pretty – and sometimes rather tedious and unimaginative wargames that emphasis style over content – as being somehow superior to the PORTABLE WARGAME and similar wargames (e.g. The DOMINION OF ... rules and Neil Thomas's ONE-HOUR WARGAMES).

Well, I can assure my regular blog readers and purchasers of the previous compendia that I will be ignoring the 'advice' that the next issue should have a picture on the cover and sticking to the existing house-style.

The covers of the first four Portable Wargame Compendia. A 'scholarly tome'? I don't know about that ... but to date, they have sold quite well, even though the cover don't have any pretty pictures on them.

I have no idea what is going to be in the next compendium ... but I'll certainly be writing regular progress reports as it comes together.

The Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium … is almost ready to be published!

After a few ups and downs, I can now announce that THE FOURTH PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM has now been submitted to Amazon KPD for publication!

The contents include:

• Contents
• Introduction
• Hoplite: The Peloponnesian War in a Tin
• Gridded Age of Sail Naval Wargames
• The Portable Charge! Wargame (PC!W) … or Recreating the Classic Wargame Rules in a more manageable form
• Belle Époque Naval Wargame Rules
• The Portable Naval Wargame: Russo-Japanese War
• Chubby Mini-Marine War Game Rules
• Building a ‘Chubby Marine’ for Portable Naval Wargames
• Contact!: High intensity modern warfare at Division Level
• The Portable War of the Worlds
• Sci-Fi Skirmish Squared – A Portable Wargame 3 x 3 Variant
• ‘Duae Aleae Iactae Sunt’ (Two Dice Are Rolled): A simple fire or combat resolution system using only two dice
• The Extended Battlefield
• Further thoughts on Portable Little Wars
• The Dominion of … Rules Supplement
• Dominion of … Conan the Barbarian
• Dominion of … the Oar and Ram
• Intestinal Fortitude: An optional rule for the Dominion of … rules
• Dominion of … the Britain’s 4.7-inch gun
• Taking something from the Dominion of rules … and adding it to the Portable Wargame rules
• Appendix 1: Hex and Square gridded maps for the Battle of Blasthof Heath
• Appendix 2: Board and Unit Counters for Contact!

The prices will be as follows:

• Hardback: £27.50
• Paperback: £20.00
• Kindle: £7.50

I hope to publish a PDF edition via Wargame Vault as soon as the printed and eBook/Kindle editions are published … and I am hoping to add an audible edition in due course.

---

STOP PRESS!

The hardback, paperback, and Kindle editions are now on sale on Amazon!

TERMINATED!

I am in the final stages of putting together The Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium ... but I have had to put further work on hold because of the following email I received from Amazon KDP:

As the text of the email shown above is rather small to read easily, I have added it below:

Hello,

We have terminated your KDP account because we found that you do not have the necessary rights to publish the book(s) listed below. If you have documentation proving you have the necessary rights to publish this book, please reply to this message and attach it to your email.

DIID/ASIN: 58756726-Title: The Third Portable Wargame Compendium

We are committed to providing a bookstore built on trust between authors, publishers, and readers, and we take prompt action when needed to ensure a positive experience. As part of the account termination process:

• You can no longer access your KDP Account, Bookshelf, or Reports.
• We have removed your published books from the Amazon Store.
• You are not eligible to receive any outstanding royalties.
• You are not allowed to open a new KDP account.

For more information, view our Terms and Conditions: https://kdp.amazon.com/terms-and-conditions

If you have any questions or believe your account was terminated in error, please reply to this email. To help us respond quickly, please send a single email.

Regards,

Amazon KDP

There is no explanation as to why they have reached this conclusion, but I am at a total loss as to how I can provide the proof that Amazon KDP require.

I will share any updates as and when I can. In the meantime, I am going to find a dark room to sit in whilst I try to come to terms with what has happened.

They’re in the post …

I have been continuing to buy stuff on eBay.

Firstly, I ‘won’ an auction that will enable me to add a further Kongo-class battleship and a Kaga-class aircraft carrier to my collection of Imperial Japanese Navy warships plus a model of the Libertad, an Argentinian coastal defence battleship.

Secondly, I also ‘won’ an auction for a Faller kit of a ruined castle that I hope to use with my Belle Époque collection.

Finally, I ‘won’ the auction for a KATO Pocket Line N-gauge steam loco and two carriages to add to my model railway collection.

I’m waiting for these items to be delivered, hence the title of this blog post. In the meantime, I’m continuing to work on the next edition of the Compendium.

The Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium: An update

I’ve been making slow but steady progress with compiling the next Portable Wargame Compendium. I have recently received several more very interesting contributions and I think that the next volume will really take the whole Portable Wargame concept forward.

At present the contents of the Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium includes the following:

• Contents
• Introduction
• Hoplite: The Peloponnesian War in a Tin
• Gridded Age of Sail Naval Wargames
• The Portable Charge! Wargame (PC!W) … or Recreating the Classic Wargame Rules in a more manageable form
• The Portable Naval Wargame: Russo-Japanese War
• Chubby Mini-Marine War Game Rules
• Building a ‘Chubby Marine’ for Portable Naval Wargames
• Contact!: High intensity modern warfare at Division Level
• The Portable War of the Worlds
• Sci-Fi Skirmish Squared – A Portable Wargame 3 x 3 Variant
• ‘Duo Aleae Iactae Sunt’ (Two Dice Are Rolled): A simple fire or combat resolution system using only two dice
• The Extended Battlefield
• The Dominion of … Rules Supplement
• Dominion of Conan the Barbarian
• Dominion of the Oar and Ram
• Intestinal Fortitude: An optional rule for the Dominion of … rules
• Appendix 1: Hex and Square gridded maps for the Battle of Blasthof Heath
• Appendix 2: Board and Unit Counters for Contact!

The Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium: An update

Whilst I was on our recent cruise, I was able to do some work on the next edition of the Portable Wargame Compendium. I still have more articles to add to it, but currently the Contents page looks like this:

It has a distinctly nautical flavour at present ... but I hope that fact will not put off too many prospective purchasers.

The Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium: A progress report

I have been doggedly working on the next edition of the PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM (the fourth) and I have so far laid out three articles and have at least twice that number to do.

It takes time to do this as I have to edit each article and then choose the best way to lay it out on the page so that it is as user-friendly as possible. This sometimes involves minor re-writes so that there is a consistency of language used across all the articles. For example, using the term D6 throughout rather than d6 and dice roll rather than dice throw.

This may sound a bit picky ... but I think that this sort of consistency makes the publication a much better one and is well worth the extra time and effort I have to spend putting the compendium together.

It’s back … but it’s not as bad as it was … and it’s helped me set some wargame-related priorities

That pesky virus/bug is back again, but its effects are somewhat reduced!

I half expected that this would happen as several other people have mentioned this boomerang effect in blog posts and comments … and in several cases, it lasted on and off for several weeks.

As part of my strategy to cope with the debilitating effects of the virus/bug, I have decided to set myself three wargame-related priorities, one short-term, one medium-term, and one long-term. There are, respectively :

1. Complete the next Portable Wargame Compendium by the beginning of November so that it can be published in time for Christmas.
2. Write a set of World War II rules for the Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War that I can use with my vehicle and figure collection.
3. Complete renovating my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War collection.

This means that I don’t expect to do very much with my Belle Époque collection for the next few months … although that might well change if my interest in my medium- and long-term priorities flags at some point.

Thinking about the Fourth Portable Wargame Compendium

I have had several requests for information about the next PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM … so I suppose that it’s about time that I started work on it.

As people who have read one or more of the previous issues will know, I rely on contributions from the numerous users of the various PORTABLE WARGAME rules and I am therefore issuing a request for suitable articles. For the first time, I’d like to include articles that relate to the ‘DOMINION OF …’ rules as well because although they aren’t part of the PORTABLE WARGAME stable, they are very much portable wargame rules.

I cannot pay for contributions BUT any author whose article (or articles) is accepted and published in the next Compendium will get a free copy of the hardback and softback editions, a free PDF edition, and a credit on the Amazon webpage.

If you would like to contribute to the next PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM, please contact me at theportablewargame @ gmail.com … but leave out the gaps in the email address!

Third Portable Wargame Compendium ... has now been published ... at long last ... I hope!

I understand that despite several problems arising from the use of AI by Amazon KPD to check my manuscript for plagiarism and copyright infringements, the Third Portable Wargame Compendium is now on sale with Amazon (in hardback and softback editions) and Wargame Vault (in PDF format).

The prices are:

• Hardback: £27.50
• Paperback: £20.00
• PDF: £7.50

The hardback, softback, and PDF editions are all over 135 pages long and are in full colour.

Third Portable Wargame Compendium: The final draft is currently being proofread and checked

The final draft of Third Portable Wargame Compendium is being proofread and I hope that it will be published by next weekend.

The Third Compendium will include the following articles:

• Modifications to the Ancients rules in Developing the Portable Wargame for fighting medieval battles
• Constantinople Beleaguered ... a PW3x3RW campaign idea
• A simple English Civil War campaign system for Portable Pike and Shot
• Simple English Civil War 8 x 8 Campaign Rules
• Some suggested improvements to the Brigade-level Portable Napoleonic Wargame Rules
• Developing the Napoleonic Brigade-level Portable Wargame
• Ideas for developing the Portable Napoleonic Big Battle or FP3x3PW Rules
• Wargaming the Flagstaff War – New Zealand 1845 – 1846
• Towards a Portable Gettysburg
• Sham-Battle and the Portable Wargame: Melding two concepts to produce a set of mini-campaign rules
• Some well-known scenarios revisited
• Big Battles, Small Armies
• A simple framework for narrative campaigns
• 6 x 6 Portable Wargames

The following images show the first pages of each of the articles;

Third Portable Wargame Compendium: The final article has arrived

The final article for the next Portable Wargame Compendium has arrived and I spent yesterday adding it to the draft text. I will be sending off for proofreading later today and once any errors have been rectified, I start the publication process.

The Third Compendium is going to include the following articles:

• Modifications to the Ancients rules in Developing the Portable Wargame for fighting medieval battles
• Constantinople Beleaguered ... a PW3x3RW campaign idea
• A simple English Civil War campaign system for Portable Pike and Shot
• Simple English Civil War 8 x 8 Campaign Rules
• Some suggested improvements to the Brigade-level Portable Napoleonic Wargame Rules
• Developing the Napoleonic Brigade-level Portable Wargame
• Ideas for developing the Portable Napoleonic Big Battle or FP3x3PW Rules
• Wargaming the Flagstaff War – New Zealand 1845 – 1846
• Towards a Portable Gettysburg
• Sham-Battle and the Portable Wargame: Melding two concepts to produce a set of mini-campaign rules
• Some well-known scenarios revisited
• Big Battles, Small Armies
• A simple framework for narrative campaigns
• 6 x 6 Portable Wargames

This looks as if it is going to be between 130 and 140 pages long ... and I hope that it will be published by the end of August.

The Third Portable Wargame Compendium: An update

Work has been continuing on the next Portable Wargame Compendium. I am awaiting two more articles (another about the Napoleonic Wars and one about re-fighting the Battle of Gettysburg), and once those have arrived, been added to the existing draft, and proofread, I will be beginning the publication process.

The Third Compendium currently includes the following articles:

• Modifications to the Ancients rules in Developing the Portable Wargame for fighting medieval battles
• Constantinople Beleaguered ... a PW3x3RW campaign idea
• A simple English Civil War campaign system for Portable Pike and Shot
• Simple English Civil War 8 x 8 Campaign Rules
• Some suggested improvements to the Brigade-level Portable Napoleonic Wargame Rules
• Ideas for developing the Portable Napoleonic Big Battle or FP3x3PW Rules
• Wargaming the Flagstaff War – New Zealand 1845 – 1846
• Sham-Battle and the Portable Wargame: Melding two concepts to produce a set of mini-campaign rules
• Some well-known scenarios revisited
• Big Battles, Small Armies
• A simple framework for narrative campaigns
• 6 x 6 Portable Wargames

This looks as if it is going to be the biggest compendium to date ... and I hope to publish it by the end of August.

The Third Portable Wargame Compendium: Another progress report

The current draft has been proofread by the incomparable Arthur Harman, and it is already ninety-three pages long. It is worth noting that the First Compendium had 108 pages and the Second Compendium had 132 pages.

At present, the Contents looks like this:

I know that there are at least two more contributions in the pipeline, and I hope that the Compendium will be ready for publication somewhat earlier than I expected.

The Third Portable Wargame Compendium: A further progress report

Since last Friday I have been working on the next issue of the PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM, and its draft is already ninety pages long ... and I know of at least two more articles that are being written for inclusion in this issue.

To date, Mark Cordone has contributed articles about:

• Adapting the PORTABLE ANCIENT WARGAME rules from DEVELOPING THE PORTABLE WARGAME for use in the Medieval period.
• His BIG BATTLES, SMALL ARMIES rules.
• A framework for narrative campaigns.
• Developing the 6 x 6 PORTABLE WARGAME.

Archduke Piccolo's contribution relates the story of his BYZANTIAD campaign and includes an excellent campaign map and campaign system as well as two well-illustrated campaign reports.

I will write further progress reports as and when I can.

A quick video update ... and the camera didn't break!

I have been continuing my experiments with making YouTube videos. This time I used my iPhone to make a 'short', and for the first time I showed my ugly and very hairy face onscreen ... and the camera didn't break!

Hopefully this will not put too many people off and I don't lose too many subscribers to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The Third Portable Wargame Compendium: A progress report

I spent quite a lot of Saturday working on the Third Portable Wargame Compendium, and to date it now has three articles.

One of these was written by me and re-examines six wargame scenarios that were included in three of the first wargame books that bought ... H G Wells’s LITTLE WARS, Brigadier Peter Young and Lieutenant Colonel James P Lawford’s CHARGE! OR HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES, and Donald Featherstone’s WAR GAMES. I have drawn suitable square and hex gridded maps for each scenario and included both the original Orders of Battle and suitable PORTABLE WARGAME Orders of Battle.

The other two articles were written by Arthur Harman and are entitled:

• Ideas for developing the Portable Napoleonic Big Battle or Fast Play 3 x 3 Portable Wargame Rules
• A simple English Civil War campaign system for Portable Pike and Shot

I have several other articles in the pipeline and hope to publish the latest Compendium by September.

A quick update

Despite the fact that is was very cold in the conservatory (which is where I am currently living 24/7), I managed to get some work done on both the Third Portable Wargame Compendium and my next YouTube video.

I also applied to my local Adult Social Service Department for reablement. This can be defined as being free short-term support that helps people to regain their skills, abilities, and confidence to manage everyday tasks and to live as independently as possible. This support in delivered at home by a team of professionals, usually led by an occupational therapist and can include rehabilitation, the provision and use of specialist equipment and technological devices, and physical changes to the home environment (e.g. stairlifts, grab handles, slopes).

I am hoping that if my application is successful, I'll begin to regain some of my mobility over the next six to eight weeks. Once I can walk (even with crutches or other walking aids) and can climb stairs, I will no longer need my carers and can begin to live a much more normal life.

I've started work on the Third Portable Wargame Compendium

As I remain immobile and am not likely to be able to walk unaided for some time, I decided to begin the preliminary work on the next (and third) Portable Wargame Compendium.

I have several promises of articles and I have started writing one of my onw in which I look at some of the scenarios included in the earlier wargame books (e.g. The Battle of Hook's Farm) and 'convert' them so that thy can be used with the PORTABLE WARGAME rules.

So far I have drawn maps for three such scenarios:

• The Battle of Hooks Farm from H G Well's LITTLE WARS.
• The Action at Blasthof Bridge from Brigadier Peter Young and Lieutenant Colonel James Lawford's CHARGE! OR HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES
• The Battle of Sittangbad which is also from CHARGE! OR HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES

Drawing the maps takes some time but it is keeping me entertained during my enforced immobility. I also plan to add the three battles from Donald Featherstone's WAR GAMES, giving a total of five scenarios and ten maps that readers might find useful, especially those who like well-tried and tested scenarios.

To whet the appetites of potential purchasers, here are the two maps I have drawn for THE BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM.

Miniature Wargames Issue 485 September 2023

I subscribe to Readly and one of the magazines I can read online is MINIATURE WARGAMES. The latest issue was of particular interest because the PORTABLE WARGAME is mentioned twice.

• Portable Middleton by Arthur Harman is a small Portable Wargame scenario for the Battle of Middleton Cheney 1643.
• The Second Portable Wargame Companion is reviewed by Chris Jarvis in the magazine’s RECCE section.

I might buy a printed copy of this issue if I happen to see it on sale as some of the other articles look interesting, including one by Arthur Harman about edible casualty markers!