Inspiration from old wargames books

I managed to spend part of this afternoon looking through some of my old wargames books. The first was CHARGE! by by Brigadier Peter Young and Lieutenant Colonel J P Lawford, closely followed by Donald Featherstone's WAR GAMES, and John Tunstill's DISCOVERING WARGAMES. The first two books are well known, but the latter is probably only remembered by a few old buffers like myself.

Tunstill's book was published by Shire Publications in 1969, and cost the sum of five shillings (or 25 pence). It was a rather fragile 64-page paperback and included some outline rules for the Ancient, Medieval, and Musket eras. It also had eight pages of photographs ... and it was these that caught my attention. In particular it was the photographs of some American Civil War battles in progress that were of special interest to me as the figures were painted in the sort of style I am thinking of using myself for my imagi-world project; a sort of basic 'toy soldier' style, without shading or use of 'dips'.

What is also interesting is that the majority of figures featured in both photographs are Spencer Smith Miniatures ... one of the ranges I am thinking of using for my imagi-world project.

I then realised that a large number of the figures featured in CHARGE! ...

... and WAR GAMES ...

... were also Spencer Smith Miniatures.

I am beginning to wonder if someone is trying to tell me something.

A quarter of a million hits!

I had just uploaded my last blog entry when I realised that the 'hit' counter had reached a new milestone ... a quarter of a million 'hits'!

There have been lots of times when writing my blog has helped me cope with the ups and downs of life, and I would have written it even if no one else had ever read it. I still find the fact that people find reading my ramblings interesting to be quite amazing, but the support I have had from regular blog readers when the going got tough has helped me cope far more than they probably realise.

A BIG 'THANK YOU' to everyone who reads my blog ... and I hope that you will still be reading it in the future. The next big milestone is 500,000 'hits; I wonder how soon that will come around?

The Imagi-world of 1891: Downloads are now available

I have now uploaded copies of the imagi-world map (in both bmp and gif formats) and the booklet that gives the background information about the various nations to my IMAGI-NATIONS website. The booklet is in pdf format.

This is in addition to the same information that is available as separate pages on this blog, and I hope that some of you will find these resources useful.

The Imagi-world of 1891: The Nations ... is now finished ... I hope!

I finally managed to complete the background information to my imagi-world of 1891 this evening, and I have uploaded the text to the appropriate page on this blog.

I have enjoyed the imaginative process of creating this imagi-world. I have tried to draw parallels with the real world of 1891, but have made certain changes that should enable a range of possible scenarios to develop. I know that there are some regular readers who are already planning to use elements of my imagi-world in their own wargames, and I welcome this. If people do use it, it will have made the effort I have put in to the project worthwhile.

I plan to turn the text of THE NATIONS page into a booklet that can be downloaded, and hope to do this at some time over the next few days. In the meantime ...

Read and Enjoy!

Sitting and waiting ... and finding things to do

My wife and I are currently in a state of limbo. Until the Coroner is happy with the cause of death, my father-in-law's body cannot be released ... and until that happens we cannot make any arrangements for the funeral, nor can we begin sorting out his finances and his estate. The post mortem should take place tomorrow, and assuming that the Coroner is satisfied with the results, we came begin making arrangements on Thursday. We have managed to sort out my father-in-law's 'filing system', and the documents are now neatly filed in date order in a number of properly labelled files that cover our dining table.

At present I have some spare time available to devote to wargame-related activity, and so far I have managed to finish revising my imagi-world map. The next thing I want to tackle is the background information that will go with the map, and with luck that should be finished later today or a some point tomorrow. After that I want to think about the number of wargame figures that I need to buy and paint so that I can begin using my imagi-world.

As I want my figures to be painted in the style of 'toy soldiers' (i.e. blocks of colour, no shading, and gloss varnished) I want to use figures that are fairly simple. In the old days my choice would have had to have been Peter Laing figures, but these are no longer available and I have to look for suitable substitutes. I suspect that I am going to end up using a mixture of Essex Miniatures, Irregular Miniatures, and Warrior Miniatures, but I am also considering Miniature Figurines figures as well. I have toyed with using larger scale figures than 15mm-scale (20mm, 28mm, 30mm, 42mm, and even 54mm-scale figures have all been given serious thought) but considerations of cost, convenience, and storage have influenced my thinking to date. That said, the Irregular Miniatures 42mm figures are exactly the right style for the sort of battles that I want to fight and I am finding them to be a very tempting alternative to 15mm.

The Imagi-world of 1891 ... now has some named seas and oceans

I have now finished naming the various seas and oceans on my imagi-world map, and the results are shown below:

I may need to make a few additions and changes, but I doubt if these will be very drastic.

I have still a few more entries to write before the background information about each of the countries of my imagi-world of 1891 will be completed, and I hope to finish this task as soon as events allow.

The Imagi-world of 1891 ... needs named seas and oceans

I have made very little progress on this particular project over recent days, but one thing that I have realised is that the seas and oceans on my map of the imagi-world are unnamed.

Rather than use a mixture of both real and imaginary names, I have decided to use nothing but imaginary ones that reflect the countries that are bordered by those seas and oceans. For example, some of the names I plan to use include the Chindian Ocean, the Chitan Sea, and the Sea of Jippon.

The Wargaming Pioneers

During a break from helping my wife to sort out her father's affairs and selling my father's house I managed to read the latest addition to John Curry's History of Wargaming Project, THE WARGAMING PIONEERS INCLUDING LITTLE WARS BY H.G.WELLS, THE WAR GAME FOR BOY SCOUTS AND THE WAR GAME BY CAPTAIN SACHS 1898 - 1940: EARLY WARGAMES VOL. 1.

That may seem like a very long title, but the book contains so much of interest that anything shorter would not do the contents justice!

The one thing that struck me as I read through the book (and I came to this conclusion before reading Arthur Harman's excellent appendix to the book in which he compares the various rules contained therein) was the fact that H G Wells' LITTLE WARS was not the first book of wargames rules but that it was probably the most well known in a series of sets of rules that were published in and around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. LITTLE WARS is the antecedent of the LIDDELL HART WAR GAME (1935) and CAPTAIN SACHS’ WAR GAME (1940) but it also appears to be the descendant of THE GREAT WAR GAME (1908).

Of particular interest to me was the inclusion of:

• THE WAR GAME FOR BOY SCOUTS (1910) because of it is a more strategic/grand tactical game than the others,
• SHAMBATTLE (1929) because of some of its very interesting game mechanisms, and
• MECHANIX ARTILLERY DUEL (1932) because it features exploding ships, forts, and tanks (!) and appears to be a version of the classic game of BATTLESHIPS but with actual guns being fired over a screen at unseen targets.

I thoroughly recommend this book to any wargamer with an interest in the history of their hobby, and in particular to anyone who has an interest in both H G Wells’ LITTLE WARS (the book contains the full text of the original version) and its most recent development, FUNNY LITTLE WARS by Paul Wright.

PS. I do get a passing mention in the book – and took the cover photograph as well – but I would have recommended it anyway!

Fenwick Travers is no Harry Flashman but ...

I have just finished reading the third and final volume of the Fenwick Travers trilogy, FENWICK TRAVERS AND THE PANAMA CANAL.

In some ways this is the best of the three books as it covers the events of the successful Panamanian revolt against Colombia. Reading the book gave me lots of ideas for possible scenarios that would allow me to include steam railways, gunboats, Marines, South American revolutionaries, Amerindians, beautiful female spies, and South American military units! The book even includes some simple maps that would be ideal for a min-campaign.

The author of the Fenwick Travers books only wrote three volumes, but it would appear that he expected to write more. At the end of this book Fenwick Travers is just about to set off for Japan ... and it is set only a few years before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War so one imagines that Fenwick was about to get himself involved in that war as well.

I have been to … Holkham Hall

As I wrote in a recent blog entry, my wife and I spent an all too short time recently in North West Norfolk. We stayed in one of our favourite hotels, the ‘Le Strange Arms Hotel’, Old Hunstanton.

We have been going there for regular long weekends away for many years, and have found the ambience, the location, and the food very reviving, especially whenever our spirits have been flagging and our batteries have been in need of recharging.

For years we have driven past the gates of Holkham Hall, but have never ventured in. This time we decided to take the plunge and pay a proper visit to the Hall … and we are very pleased that we did.

Holkham Hall was built by Thomas Coke, the 1st Earl of Leicester, and it is located near the north coast of Norfolk. It is built of brick and is an excellent example of the Palladian style of architecture. It was designed by William Kent and built between 1734 and 1764.

Holkham Hall’s owners – the Coke family – are responsible for a well-known sartorial ‘invention’, the ‘Billycock (or Billy Coke) Hat’. This is probably better known as the ‘Bowler’. The design came about because the nephew of the Earl of Leicester – William Coke – asked the hatters Lock & Company of St James’s to make a tight-fitting, low-crowned hard felt hat that estate workers – particularly the gamekeepers – could wear. Lock & Company subcontracted the manufacture of the hats to hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler – who later sold the design under their own name – hence the two names for the single style of hat. During the latter part of the nineteenth century and early half of the twentieth century the hat became the headwear of choice for junior Civil Servants, office workers, and tradesmen.

Amongst the attractions visitors can visit at Holkham Hall is the ‘Bygones Museum’. This includes an extensive collection of old vehicles …

… and steam-powered machinery …

… that is displayed in part of the Hall’s stable block.

Amongst the vehicles on display was a steam-powered cart …

… and a fire engine that was a Leyland chassis fitted with bodywork supplied by the Merryweather & Co. of Greenwich, London.

The Hall has a magnificent lake nearby …

… and an obelisk.

Unusually, the front of the Hall is guarded by statues of both a lion …

… and a lioness.

The Hall is built of yellow stock bricks, and unlike most other brick-built houses of its era, these have been left unrendered. Because of the lack of air pollution the bricks are still very clean and as a result the building does not appear to be as old as it actually is.

The entrance hall is magnificent. It is lined in marble and has a staircase that leads up to the first pillared floor.

The ceiling is also a sight to behold, and the whole effect very impressive.

Incidentally, Holkham Hall – and the pillared gallery above the entrance in particular – are featured in Alan Hunter’s 1957 crime novel, LANDED GENTLY.

The interior of the Hall is well worth seeing. During our visit we saw:

• The Statue Gallery
• The Parrot Room
• The Libraries
• The Saloon
• The Chapel
• The Green State Bedroom
• The North State Sitting Room
• The Old Kitchen

We did not have time to walk around the 3,000 acre park, but in addition to the ‘Bygones Museum’ and the Hall itself we did manage to visit the ‘History of Farming’ exhibition, the gift shop, and the café. We felt that Holkham Hall was well worth visiting and we are very pleased that we finally went there.