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Although most colonialwargaming rules usuallyhave a small section setaside for gunboats, theyreusually treated as an after-thought, a gimmick, or as ascenario objective. Forthose gamers whove readabout the expedition tosave Gordon, watched theconverted steamer run thegauntlet of Dervish fire inthe film Khartoum, theSultan shell Omdurman inThe Four Feathers, or theclimactic battle sequence inThe Sand Pebbles, youvealways imagined that someday you could game gun-

boat operations.

Now, with Boilers &Breechloaders from TheVirtual Armchair General,you can. Patrick Wilsonhas designed a set of rulesthat makes gunboats takecenter stage. Better yet,they are designed to workwith The Sword and TheFlame rules, as well as

fitting seamlessly into TheSun Never Sets campaigngame.

This is a set of rulesdesigned to simulate gun-

boat operations in colonialsettings, whether that might

be in China or the Nile.Each ship is treated indi-vidually, with separateweapons, crew types, etc.,so this is no fleet action

game with generalizedarmament where you roll aD6 for 20 guns and seewhat the damage result is.Each player commands agunboat and has numerousdecisions to make eachturn.

The rules come in astandard 8 x 11 format,with a color, glossy cover.There are several separatecomponents inside, such as

a player refer-ence card, acti-vation cardsfor the ships,torpedo count-ers, a windgauge, andseveral shiplogs for vary-ing types ofgunboats. Sofar, I was im-

pressed, as it was actuallybetter than I thought itwould be. After looking atthe materials I opened therulebook and began to goover it.

The rules are written ina style similar to TSATF.In fact, theres several ref-erences to that set of rules,so gamers familiar withTSATF should have no

problems, meaning thatyou sometimes have tointerpret what the author issaying or design a house

rule or two! The meat ofthe rules is taken up bydesigning the gunboats.Players have a full range ofoptions here, from beamwidth, length, and arma-ment, all which are crucialto determine how manyhits the boat can take, crewsize, handling, speed, andmore. In fact, this is one ofthe more fun aspects of therules.

(cont. on page 13

)

Boilers & Breechloaders

Special points of interest:

Interview with David Marks, author of InThe Name of Glory.

A how to section on building colonial gun-boats.

Reviews of board games, magazines, andbuildings.

A Seven years War campaign report.

Interview with David Marks 2

Cold War Commander Future Wars 7

Building colonial gunboats 10

Boardgame Reviews 14

Seven Years War Campaign Report 16

Memoirs of a Miniature Gamer Pt. 3 22

Blast From The Past Pt. 2 23

Inside this issue:

Warn

ingOr

der

W

ASATCH

FRONT

HISTOICA

L

GAMING

SOCIET

Y

Issue #16

Christmas 2006

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David Marks is the designer and author ofa new set of Napoleonic rules called In The

Name of Glory. ITNOG, as its commonlyknown by its fans, has generated a lot of

positive comments. In this interview,David outlines his thoughts on the Napole-onic period, wargaming in general, and thegenesis of creating a set of rules.

Editor

How did you get into wargamingI was about 11 or 12 years old when I

first got into wargaming with figures.Some friends and I got a wargaming rule-

book by Donald Featherstone from thelocal library.

We would take turns setting up in eachothers parents homes. We used books forhills, which we placed on the kitchen

table and covered them with a green feltcloth, which was actually the playing

pitch from a Subbuteo football game.We had a few bits of scenery, but pride of

place was the Waterloo farmhouse thatAirfix produced, which was a model ofLa Haye -Sainte.

We also used Airfix Napoleonic fig-ures and I remember that we all got into akind of arms race where you were onlyallowed to table figures that were painted.It was all quite mad, but great fun.

What are your favourite periods

and whyI have to confess that I am a bit of a

stick in the mud and tend for the mostpart to play Napoleonics. I have triedother periods but they just dont seem towork for me, with the exception to this

being the English Civil war and morerecently the American Civil War.

I extensively game Napoleonics us-ing 1/300th Adlers, but I have started tocollect 10mm ECW figures, but I maychange these for 15mm. I am also lookinginto starting a 15mm ACW figure collec-

tion.

It was the film Waterloo with Chris-topher Plummer as the Duke of Welling-ton and Rod Steiger as Napoleon that gotme interested in the Napoleonic periodand you have to agree the uniforms are

just great, only surpassed by the renais-sance period.

What was the Inspiration for IT-

NOGThe inspiration for the rules name In

the Name of Glory was my wife Gloria.

The inspiration for the rules them-selves was that our wargaming group

back in the late 80s, early 90s wereplaying Sound of the guns. These rules

were great fun to play, but as our knowl-edge of the Napoleonic wars increasedwe felt the need to tweak things to suitour newfound knowledge and views, a

process that continue even now. As aresult of this I came up with my Off toWar rules. This rule set was based upontraditional mechanics, such as number offigures firing, figure removal etc.

In 1997 our group was invited to stagea participation game at the NapoleonicFare in London. I found that in order forour game to work we needed a much

faster rule system, so after much headscratching I devised what was to becomethe basis for ITNOG. The game was asuccess and we all really enjoyed the newrule system, so I started to rapidly expandand amend the rules as we played moreand more games using them. It was inApril 1998 that the first edition of In the

Name of Glory was produced. Sincethen there have been five editions of the

rules, with ITNOG 2006 being the mostcurrent.

With so many Napoleonic rules

already on the market, what do

you think makes your rules stand

out?First of all there is no rebasing as thegame is dependant upon unit morale and

not number of figures per base. If youalready have an army painted and basedthen just keep them as they are all youneed is four bases per unit. If base sizesare needed then these are detailed in therules.

Because the game is dependant uponmorale each army is rated for a break

point. When that many units have beendestroyed (broken), the game is over.

NOTE: A broken unit is a unit that hashad its morale point rating reduced tozero.

Each nation is given its own percent-age break point, which ranges from 25%-50%. This is a clear way of telling whenthe game has finished and stops the gamedragging on unnecessarily. This alsoforces players to think about reserves asthey will need to replace their unit withlow morale ratings that are engaged withthe enemy with fresh troops to stop then

becoming broken, which will help pre-

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Interview With David Marks designer ofIn the Name of Glory

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vent their army loosing the game.

A lot of people have told methat most distinctive feature of therules is the command & controlsystem, which uses unit activationcounters. In their turn each playermay use ALL, SOME or NONEof their activation counters toactivate their units or command-ers and bring them into play, up tothe maximum number of activa-tion counters they are permitted to

play in their turn, which averagesabout 60% of the total number ofunits in a players army. A Playermay activate the same unit and/or com-mander a number of times in the sameturn, by allocating additional activationcounters to the same unit and/or com-mander in the same turn. However, anactivated unit may either fire artillery/muskets once or fight one round of melee

but not both in the same turn, irrespectiveof the number of times the unit is acti-vated. Units on the inactive side can re-turn fire or counter-charge if fired uponor attacked.

This means that a player can never gettheir whole army moving at the sametime, because the total number of activa-tions allowed per turn is always less thanthe number of units in your army. This I

feel is more realistic because no armyever moved as a single entity. Playersmust therefore prioritize their activationsand focus on those units that are the mostimportant to the battle. I think this systemreally forces players to get their thinkingcaps on, making the game far more chal-lenging.

The other advantage of this system isthat players never see the full develop-ment of the enemy forces, and vice versa,so players never really know what eachother are up to, which means that therules allow players to out wit each other.

The rules also use pre-calculated artil-lery, musket and melee tables so youdont have to add or subtract a list offactors, just look at the events applicableto what you want to resolve. Some peopleat first are a bit put off by the tables but itis worth noting that you only use a smallsection of them at any one time, makingthem quick and easy to use.

The rules fully consider the possibilitythat you may have more than one player

per side, and are written to accommodate

this fact.I have also provided an extensive

chronology of the period covering a ma-jority of the period from 1769 (birth ofWellington and Napoleon), to 1852(death of Wellington), and list of 157major battles covering the period from1792 - 1803 and 805 1815 to help peo-

ple new to gaming or not familiar withthe period to get a better understanding ofthe Napoleonic era. I dont know of anyother rules that give players this amountof background information.

In addition to the aforemen-tioned, here is an overview of therules which I hope provides thereader with useful information:

The rule system: These rules createa strategic game that primarily de-

pends upon overall command andcontrol of troops and their moraleand not the actions of individualfigures.

Commander lists: 13 nations, 231commanders listed in total.

Complexity: Easy / Moderate.Counters: All the counters neededto play the game are provided. How-ever, you do not need to use thecounters if you wish to use a differ-ent method of record keeping.

Figure sizes: 2mm, 6mm, 10mm,15mm, 20mm, 25mm and 28mm.

Ground scale: 1mm = 2 yards. This

scale is universal for 6 to 28mm figures and is applicable toall movement and weaponranges. Although it is generallyaccepted that the ground scale

and therefore weapon rangesshould be amended to suit thefigure size, I have found thatusing the same measurementsirrespective of figure sizemakes no difference to the out-come of the game. NOTE:When using 2mm figures allmeasurements should behalved.

National characteristics: Basic moralepoint supplement for 24 nations, 60 listsin total.

No figure removal: Until a unit is re-duced to zero morale point rating it re-tains all its figures and bases throughoutthe game. Once a unit is reduced to zeromorale point rating then the unit as awhole (all four bases), is removed fromthe gaming table.

Number of figures per base: Not impor-tant as the game does not use single fig-ure removal. However, the number offigures per base is given if required.

(cont. on page 4)

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Scenarios: Arroyo de Molinos, a smallengagement fought in Spain 1811.

Tactical level: Brigade or divisionallevel, where the smallest tactical unit is a

battalion represented by four bases. How-ever, these rules have been successfullyused for playing Divisional and corp.level games by making each unit repre-

sent a brigade instead of a battalion andreplacing unit commanders with brigadecommanders.

Turn sequence: These rules use alternatemoves with Side A going first. Once side

A has completed their turn it is Side Bturn. Once side B has completed theirturn it is Side A turn again and so on.

What is your theory on why after

all these years wargamers can't

settle on one or two sets of Napo-

leonic rules?I personally think that the reason we

cannot agree on one or two sets of Napo-leonic rules is that players all seem towant different things. It appears to be asimple case of one mans meat is an-

other mans poison. Some players wanta game without much reference to histori-cal fact or realism; others want almost ahistorical thesis, while a majority wantsomething in between. Add to this thateveryone has their own idea on how Na-

poleonic warfare was conducted, which iswhy so many gamers add their own houserules to existing rule sets. All this creates

a very unsteady platform from which todiscuss and agree what are the best rules.

Some players prefer a more rapid playsystem such as Grande Armee, Volleyand Bayonet, and ITNOG, others want asystem that go into slightly more detaillike General de Brigade, Shako, Napole-onic principles of war, Horse, foot and

gun, Piquet les gro-nards etc, etc, etc., andfor those players whowant a great amount ofdetail then rules suchas Empire will fit the

bill. So Napoleonicgamers may not agreeon a particular rule set,

but at least they arewell served with a vari-ety of rule systemsfrom which to choosefrom. With so manygood rules available,why should playersstick with one or twosets of rules? I knowmany players who use

one rule set for Brigade level games andanother set for playing Corps. levelgames and why not.

I think you own editorial comments inWarning Order No. 14, where you say

Could we inject at least some realisminto games highlights why gamers can-not agree on one or two sets of rules.Although I do not disagree with what yousay, I think we have to accept that thereare some section of the gaming commu-nity who like rules that only touch onhistory and enjoy the games they pro-duce; otherwise such rules would notexist.

As a rule writer I have found it is verydifficult to get a happy balance betweenhistorical fact and playability. Some say Ihave achieved this balance, other say Ihave not. It is all down to the simple factthat I am never going to be able to caterfor everyones likes or dislikes.

I do not believe that Napoleonicwargaming would benefit if we all agreedto use one rule set, like ancient gamersuse DBA. After all there are currentlymany successful Napoleonic champion-ships held throughout the world using

different sets of Napoleonic rules.

The one thing that I do feel would be agreatly benefit Napoleonic gaming and Isuppose gaming generally would be thestandardisation of base sizes and numberof figures per base (applicable to figuresize). That would be really worth lookinginto, but in the meantime if we reallymust have a definitive set of rules then I

propose that we use ITNOG, but thenagain others may not agreeAAHHH!!The debate starts all over again!

One of the most argued about

topics in Napoleonic wargaming

is the ratings of various leaders.

How do you feel about the subject

and who do you think were some

of the great leaders during thatera?

Commander ratings, this I feel is atricky subject and is a very subjectiveissue, based on peoples own viewpointand perceptions. I dont suppose we willevery really have a detailed and accurate

picture of how well commanders per-formed throughout their careers duringthe Napoleonic wars.

I think that rules should reflect thesevariable factors, so a commanders ratingshould be variable within a given band,

after all even Napoleon had his off days.I would like to point out that the pri-

mary reason that I have given commanderratings in ITNOG is so that people new togaming or the period at least have a start-ing point. For those gamers who haveknowledge of the period please feel freeto amend the commander ratings.

I feel at times that commanders andtheir ability to conduct a battle are judgeusing isolated instances and I feel thatother factors beyond the battlefield itselfhave a great bearing on the performance

of a commander and the troops who willultimately have to carry out the com-manders orders. As someone once saidSoldiers win battles; generals get the

credit for them." and it is these externalfactors that sometimes get overlooked.Take the Duke of York, as a field com-mander it is accepted that he was poor,

but as an administrator he was fantasticand his reforms I am sure assisted Wel-

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ISSUE #16

lington and other commanders in theBritish army to achieve the status as fieldcommanders, that they did.

With regards to greatest leaders of theera, for me this would be an extensive list

but to cut things short I would have say

Wellington; Napoleon; Crawford; LouisDesaix - if he had not died early he wouldhave probably equalled or bettered Napo-leon and lets not forget the Americancommander Commodore Edward Preblewho defeated the Barbary Pirates. Betyou now get a lot of post saying howwrong I amhehehe!!

We know that wargamers can do

things that a rules designer wouldnever think of. Can you tell us

about some bizarre situations

that you've seen with your rules

being played or unusual questions

that you've received?I have received a number of very odd

questions from the public and gamers

alike over the years, such as:

What period games are you doing?Napoleonic I replied. Thats funnysaid the man, there seems a lot of Napo-leonic stuff going on here and little else.Well this is the Napoleonic fare, did younot realise this when you bought theticket at the entrance.

At another show I had a cannon ballon display and a gentleman asked if hecould have a closer look. I said OK, butto be careful as it is a 12 lb shot and isdeceptively heavy for its size. I handed it

to him and he nearly dropped it, saying,Wow! That is heavy, how much does itweigh, to which I replied 12 lb.

Odd situations have occurred duringour games that were not covered by therules. So I wrote new rules to addressthese unforeseen situations, which is thereason for the different editions of therules.

Your rules have a very profes-

sional fell to them. Was this a

conscious decision to do them this

way and do you think it helps in

today's gaming market to in-

crease your sales and exposure

with a better produced set?I am glad that you like the presenta-

tion of the rules as they are the product ofa lot of hard work. I have always seen the

publication of the rules as a bit of fun,just an extension of my wargaminghobby. They have never been a commer-cial enterprise and the money I get fromthe sale of the rules occasionally helps tocover my print/production costs. All the

adverts in the rules are free, so you cansee that the rules have been produced ona shoestring budget. I have prepared and

publish the rules myself using a desktoppublishing program and I have strived toproduce the very best product that I can. Iam pleased with the results.

I think that a well laid out productdoes go some way to get peoples atten-tion, but more importantly it allows play-ers to easily look things up and get togrips with the rules in an easier fashion. I

do get the impression that many gamersfeel that any rules that have been pro-duced to a reasonable standard are done

by large companies with a lot of financialsupport, which for ITNOG is not thecase, but hopefully with your donations Iwill be able to feed and cloth my Wifeand Children!!!

With regards to exposure of the rules,again advertising costs a lot of moneyand for the most part it is way beyond my

budget. Because of this I have found thata great number of gamers have not heardof my rules, which is a shame as I feelthey have a lot to offer.

What do you think the next big

developments will be in game de-

sign?I wish I knew then I would design it

and retire. But on a serious note I thinkthat whatever the development will be Ithink for the time being that it will stillrevolve around printed rules and dice. Idid think, like Sam Mustafa said in anearlier interview, that computer wouldhave a big impact on gaming. I thoughtthat as computer technology was gettingsmaller, more powerful and more mobilethat gamers would utilise computers torun games instead of hard copy booksand dice. At shows held here in the UK,the few computer-moderated games thatare staged are always popular.

(cont. on page 6)

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I am surprised that computes have notmade more impact and am not really surewhy they are not used more too moderategames. Then again programmes for such

use do not appear to be readily availableand I personally have no idea how toconvert my own rules for computer use.Maybe computers will have more impactin the future when more suitable pro-grammes have been written.

One thing I am sure of thought is thatthe same old argument about which rulesystem is best will still rage on, becausethe game you get using a computer will

be totally dependant upon the rule systemprogrammed into it.

A lot has been voiced about the futureof historical gaming and how to encour-age new younger players into the hobby. I

personally feel that the way forward onthis issue is to stop

presenting historicalgaming as a historylesson and concentratemore on the fun aspectof historical gaming.

On The MiniaturePage, Tim at Front-line wrote the follow-ing about our meetingat Colours 2006wargaming show andthe game he and hisson played using myACW rule set, whichare base upon my IT-

NOG system. I thought we had played forabout 20 mins, but was later told that wegamed for over an hour, while still chat-

ting to other interest members of the pub-lic explaining what was happening in ourgame.

Hi Dave Thanks for the rules and thegame at Colours, It was my 9 year oldsons first show and he was a little shyand would not join in with any thing. Wesat down at your game, he was able to

pick the rules up and managed to run ofyour cavalry and thrash an infantry at-tack. The next day we picked up some old

Airfix civil war figs at a toy soldier fair,he is in the process of basing them up andwe have down loaded the rules. So thanksto your effort the ranks of wargamers hasincreased by one. Well done.

I think this posting is brilliant and Ireally appreciate what Tim has written.

The games that we put on at the showstend to be big affairs and we run them ona Game it and go principle. What Imean by this is that people can join thegame at any time throughout the show.They may play for as long as they likeand leave whenever they wish and aremore than welcome to rejoin the gameshould they want to. If no member of the

public is available to play then we run thegame as a demo until someone joins in.

This system really works well and weall have a great time chatting and gaming.

I dont know of any other group that runsgames on this basis, but I would highlyrecommend it. Maybe show organisers

should introduce this typeof game on their list,rather than the usual Dem-onstration or Participationgame options. We neverwin any best demonstra-tion game or best partici-

pation game as the organ-isers say that our gamescan not be bothbut ourgames are. I firmly believe

that we are at shows toencourage both experi-enced games and thosenew to gaming into thehobby and our chosen

period, be that historical,fantasy or sci-fi alike and our Game itand go philosophy I believe is a totalwinner for the public as they really canhave their cake and eat it and those who

want to join in the game do not have towait, or are left disappointed by beingtold that the game is full up and the nextavailable slot will be later that afternoon.

Finally, what are you working on

for the future?I have recently completed a set of

American Civil War rules, Honor &Glory. These rules can be downloaded,free of charge from the following yahoochat group.

www.groups.yahoo.com/group/honorag

It has been great fun putting theseACW rules together, which is the resultof a sportsmans bet I had with my goodAmerican friend Brian Casey. Prior towriting the rules I had little interest in the

ACW period, but writing these rules hascertainly got me hooked on this fascinat-ing period and I cant think why I haveoverlooked this period until now.

As for the next big project, first it willbe a booklet on how to make terrain. Peo-ple are always asking me how I constructmy terrain plates. So I think as simple

booklet will help people out.

Once that is complete it will be a setof English Civil War or 30 Years Warrules, but I wont be starting this projectfor a long, long time.

Thanks for giving me the opportunityto discuss my rules and my thoughts onwargaming and I would like to wish youand your readers all the best and happygaming in the future.

Regards

Dave

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This month will see therelease of Cold War Com-mander which will take theBlitzkrieg Commander sys-tem into the Post WW2

period. Unlike WW2 whereyou have some clear cutchoices about which armiesand periods to game, themodern period offers a lotof confusion! After seeingsome threads on TMP aboutthis subject, heres some

possibilities with their advantages anddisadvantages.

Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact vs. NATO

1950-1990

This is the potential conflict that kept thewargaming industry viable in the 70s and80s. Literally hundreds of scenario possi-

bilities involving recon elements, artil-lery, air support, and more.

Advantages: Lots of scenario possibili-ties, plenty of information available aboutequipment and TO&Es, plus a wide rangeof figures are available in all scales.Were talking large scale combat opera-tions involving all areas of the armedforces.

Disadvantages: Not many other than itnever happened, so youre essentiallygoing back in the past to play a fictionalwar. Some gamers like that, others dont.

Vietnam 1965-1975

Again, a lot of scenario possibilities, butif youre looking for massed armor bat-tles then youre in the wrong period.This would be good for large airmobileoperations, city fighting, and for gamerswho like infantry battles.

Advantages: Again, there is a lot of inforeadily available, plus plenty of minia-tures in all scales. The countless thou-sands of books on the subject are the

source for hundreds of scenarios.

Disadvantages: If you like a lotof tanks and armored operations,then move on to another war.

Arab-Israeli War 1967

OK, this is for masochists only.The Israeli advantages are sonumerous here that any attempt toequalize the playing field willresult in a total abstraction ofhistory. The fighting in Jerusa-

lem or the push up the Golan Heights arethe only redeemable scenarios for thiswar.

Advantages: Plenty of info and figsavailable.

Disadvantages: Not much fun for theArab player and the war was over pretty

quick, so youll run out of scenario ideasafter the first few battles.

Arab-Israeli War 1973

Now were getting somewhere. Fromarmor slugfests on the Golan Heights tomassive tank battles around the Canal,this period has a lot going for it. Plentyof scenarios, desperate fighting, and lotsof armor.

Advantages: Readily available figures,orders of battle, and painting info. The

Israeli tactical advantages are balancedout by numbers on the Arab side.

Disadvantages: Not many other thantheres not much room for fictional sce-narios.

War in Lebanon 1982

There were some major armor battleswith the Syrians, but the war was verylimited and neither side wanted to getheavily involved.

Advantages: Other than being able touse some of your 1973 War equipmentmixed with a few new weapons, notmany.

Disadvantages: Very limited scenariopossibilities.

Arab-Israeli Wars-Future

This could be quite interesting, particu-larly if you had Jordan, Syria, and Egyptall gang up on Israel again. Both sides

have very modern equipment, so youwould see a bewildering array of vehiclesand aircraft on the battlefield.

Advantages: Lots of scenario possibili-ties plus figures are available in all scales.You could see M-1s going up againstMerkavas. Certainly there is a potentialfor large scale armored operations whichis what the rules are intended for.

Disadvantages: Coming up with feasiblebackgrounds for your games, given theever changing and volatile situation in theMiddle East.

Iran-Iraq War

Strangely enough, other than the Warsawpact vs. NATO era, this may be one ofthe best periods to use the rules for.

There were armored thrusts, large scaleinfantry assaults, helicopter deep strikes,and more. The wide open spaces wouldmake for some great battles.

Advantages: Figures are available inmany scales and you have a wide varietyof actions to game.

Disadvantages: Good info is only nowcoming out, plus the operations in the warwere kind of haphazard on both sides.

Angola 1980s

This is actually a pretty interesting period

that has some potential. Both South Af-rica and the terrorist armies with theirCuban support fielded a lot of armor andmechanized units. Probably a good pe-riod for 15mm due to the large number oflow quality infantry units that would be

present.

Advantages: Interesting mix of unittypes and an unusual theater with goodscenario possibilities.

Disadvantages: OOBs might be hard tocome by (continued on page 8)

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and after a few games it could start gener-ating a dj vu type feeling.

Falklands 1982

While this is certainly an interesting op-

erational exercise, Im not sure how itwould do other than in a skirmish typesetting. Once the British got on the mainisland it was just a matter of time.

Advantages: Could be done easily sinceit was primarily an infantry battle andtheres plenty of info on the war.

Disadvantages: Very limited scenariooptions and who wants to play the Argen-tine forces?

India-Pakistan 1971

This was a full scale war that had several

large battles featuring armor and infantry.Pakistan was in a bad strategic positionand India took fulladvantage of it.Close air support,naval strikes, ar-mor, artillery, andinfantry actionsmake this an ideal

period for this rulesset.

Advantages: Awide ranging war that has many scenario

possibilities, plus figures are available inmultiple scales.

Disadvantages: Painting info and OOBsmay be hard to come by. There was agood game and articles on this period inan issue of Strategy & Tactics.

India-Pakistan Future

This would be a major war with modern,hi-tech equipment. The scenario possi-

bilities are endless, but you would see avirtual showcase of military equipment inuse, from SU-27s to T-80 variants.

Advantages: Hi-tech battles with lots ofarmor and mechanized infantry backedwith artillery, helicopters and air support.Figures are available in multiple scales.Whats not to like?

Disadvantages: Finding current OOBs isvery tough and the wide variety of equip-ment within even the same units makesthis tough to get accurate painting info.

China-Vietnam 1970s to Present

China briefly invaded Vietnam in the late70s and didnt fare too well. Relationshave improved since then, but the recent

posturing by China over the oil rich areasclaimed by Vietnam and other countriescould erupt into open war.

Advantages: Interesting David vs. Goli-ath type match up with unusual equip-ment and organizations.

Disadvantages: Virtually no informationto be found and because of the terrain,this would mainly be an infantry war.

China vs. Taiwan

This has been feared for several decades,but has never come to pass. If China ever

attains significant sealift assets, theymight give it a try, depending upon theworlds political climate. If the Chinese

get a foothold on themain island, then thehandwriting would be onthe wall for Taiwan.

Advantages: Another hi-tech conflict that wouldsee some sizeable forcesdeployed. Plenty of fig-ures and info are readily

available for this potential conflict.

Disadvantages: Limited in scope, al-though you could use your Chinese forcesfor other potential conflicts in the region.

China vs. Russia

This seemed more probable in the 80sand 90s than now, although that couldchange.Currently,Russia isthe largestexporterof arms toChina, so

Im surethey dont want to bite the hand that feedsthem. This would be a hi-tech conflictfought over greatly varied terrain in vastspaces with both sides using similarequipment.

Advantages: Lots of scenario possibili-ties, plenty of mechanized stuff, aircraft,and artillery on both sides.

Disadvantages: The similar nature ofboth forces organizations and equipmentmight get old after the first few games.

Russia Resurgent!

It appears that Russia is trying to get backinto the superpower fold by increasing itsarmed forces, particularly upgrading thenavy and air force. Also, political devel-opments in the region over natural re-sources could lead to several conflictsthat might even drag NATO forces into awar.

Advantages: A super hi-tech conflict,especially if NATO gets involved. Plentyof combined arms operations and manyscenario possibilities. In 1/300th scalemost of the present day equipment isavailable.

Disadvantages: Might be too much fan-tasy for some gamers.

Desert Storm/Iraqi Freedom

Both of these conflicts pitted a hi-tech,combined arms juggernaut against a me-dium-tech army that turned into a slaugh-ter both times.

Advantages: Lots of info, maps, scenar-ios, and miniatures are available. Thegame would definitely let you use massesof figs.

Disadvantages: To keep the game realis-tic, the scenario objectives would have to

be so high for the Coalition player(s) thateven one tiny screw up should cost youthe game. Also, not much fun if youre

playing Iraqis.

This list is by no means exhaustive.Potential conflicts in the Balkans, Greecevs. Turkey, Egypt vs. Libya, and manyothers could be covered. Naturally, therules are designed for the use of armoredvehicles in combined arms operations, soyou should be looking for conflicts that

feature armies that have them. Althoughinfantry slugfests can be done with thisset of rules, wheres the fun in that? I do

believe that this rules set (based upon afew years of playing the WW2 version)will be what a lot of modern players have

been craving, namely a rules set whereATGMs, artillery, air support, SAMs, andmore can work smoothly on the tabletopwithout taking 12 hours for a game!

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Cold War Commander: Which War? (cont.)

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Surprisingly, some of the best re-sources for this period are board games!In the 70s and 80s modern day combatwas at its zenith for the historical gamer.The NATO vs. Warsaw Pact theme was

the #1 topic for gaming and a whole hostof games, magazines, and books pouredout on the topic. Many of these spilledover into other theaters and are still goodfor info even today. Many of these can

be found on Ebay for under $20 andcould be essential for creating scenariosfor Cold War Commander. This list willtake a look at a few games that could behelpful.

Avalon Hill: The

Arab-Israeli Wars

Based on the popular

Panzerblitz and Pan-zer Leader system,this game featuresaround twenty scenar-ios from 1956 to the

present. The greatthing is that the scale (platoon level) isthe same as Cold War Commander, soyou just replace the counters for minia-tures.

GDW Team Yankee

Part of the First Battlesystem, this game has

numerous scenariosabout U.S forces engag-ing a Soviet/Warsaw

pact invasion of Ger-many. Again, its at the

same scale as CWC, so using the scenar-ios is pretty easy. There was also a desert

version covering theIran-Iraq war and DesertStorm.

GDW Assault

The Assault series hadseveral modules, includ-

ing Bundeswehr, Boots& Saddles, and a Britishmodule. All of the

games are platoon based, which againmeans that since the units are the samescale as CWC you just transfer the unitsinto miniatures. More complex than theFirst Battle series by the same company,

but the TO&E info is pretty amazing.

Strategy & Tactics #174: India-

Pakistan

Strategy & Tactics #200: Taiwan

Strategy & Tactics #215: Iran-Iraq

All three of these games follow a similartheme, namely operational level treat-ments of modern warfare. The games areat a much higher level than CWC, but theinfo in the magazines is very useful onthe armies of the combatants and thegames are a great background for gener-ating scenarios.

GDW Phase Line Smash

This is a highly complex,solitaire treatment of Opera-tion Desert Storm that is anoutstanding game. The

booklet with the notes, or-ders of battle, and afteraction reports is worth the

price of the game itself. Again, great forgenerating scenarios and backgroundinfo.

Victory Games:

Flashpoint Golan

A detailed treatment of afuture Syrian-Israeli

battle for control of theGolan Heights. Greatscenario ideas for usingthe most modern weap-ons of both sides.

West End Games:

Air & Armor

Another treatment ofoperational level actionsdepicting NATO forcesagainst a Soviet/WarsawPact invasion. Not onlyis this a great game, but

there are some good scenario ideas here,even if the game is on a slightly higherlevel than CWC.

West End Games:

Air Cav

A tactical level treat-ment of air cav opera-

tions in a future Euro-pean war. Scenarios canbe easily converted over

to CWC and theres big focus on delay-ing operations, probing attacks, and othersituations that you rarely see on the table-top.

SPI: Mech War 2

Another monstergame from the old SPIdays with 1600 count-ers, four maps, andseveral booklets. How-

ever, there are plenty ofscenarios for NATO/Warsaw Pact plus a

dozen or so for the Arab-Israeli Wars.

Command Post

Quarterly

Not a game, but aseries of magazinesthat were produced inthe early 90s in sup-

port of the CommandDecision/CombinedArms miniatures

rules. The samescale as CWC so you

can easily use the scenarios just by sub-stituting CWC stats for all the units. Al-though primarily focused on WW2, therewere several good modern scenarios.One that was particularly interesting wasthe U.S. Marine armor at the KuwaitiInternational Airport, pitting their mod-ernized M-60A3s against the Iraqi armor.

Final Thoughts

Naturally, this only scratches the sur-face in regards to books, Ospreys, maga-

zine articles, and more. However, manyof these games have information that isnot readily available in other places andthe scenario ideas can be used to provideunusual and challenging game situations.In future issues Ill keep adding on re-sources and future conflicts that Ivemissed here in this opening article andfeel free to send me your ideas.

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Cold War Commander: Which War? (cont.) Resources

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First, I used the 1/2 thick foamcoreavailable fromcraft stores.You can usewood, thinnersections offoamcore, orother materials,

but Ive foundthat this works

best. To takecare of the foamsides, cut out 1/2 strips of sheet plasticand glue them over the sides of the hull.If you want the bow section to be raised,cut the strips for the front a little higheror taper them so it appears as if the hull israised a little towards the front.

Now, cutting foamcore is not an exactscience, particularly any rounded sec-tions, so you will have gaps, usually atthe bow and stern. Heres where a greatlittle product can help you out. By usingacrylic modeling gel(sold at arts and craftstores near the oil paints), you can fill inany gaps quickly as it dries clear and fast.

For this project Ive decided to builda Mahdist gunboat. The boat isa converted river steamer withsandbag armor, two decks, someantique cannon, and it will be asidewheeler. Ive chosen alength of about 10 1/2 with a

beam of around 2 1/2. Largeboats such as the heavily armedSultan and Melik would be

around 15 long. Although yourboats will probably be way outof proportion to the ground scale of yourland rules, they need to look right for thegame. You also need to decide if youwant a narrow bow or a wide bow aswell. Ive gone with a wide bow endingin a point, with a rounded stern.

Introduction

No Sudan game would be completewithout Nile gunboats! The big problem?Other than the Melik and some drawingsof the Tamai class, there exists very littleinformation about colonial gunboat op-erations on the Nile. This despite the factthat in some operations there were closeto 30 steamers in the combat zone! Notonly that, the Mahdists did have steamersand gunboats of their own, but the onlyreference Ive seen is the one that was putout of action by French forces nearFashoda. Gordons forces operated gun-

boats continuously during the siege, butagain, little is known about the actualcombat operations.

What is Known?

We do know for a fact that there werevery few dedicated gunboats and most ofthose were around during Kitchenersfinal drive to Omdurman. Mostgunboats were converted passenger orfreight steamers, with some boiler platearmor, sandbags, and an assortment ofarmament. But, this is what makes thetopic so much fun and interesting!

Choosing a Gunboat Type

Heres your first big decision. Doyou want a converted steamer or a dedi-cated gunboat? Second, do you want it to

be screw driven, i.e., all of the propellers,rudder, etc., under the hull, or do you

want a stern or sidewheeler? These deci-sions will impact the design of the boat,the complexity of building it, and what

parts you will need. Screw driven are theeasiest, since everything is under the hull

theres no need to build anything extra.Sidewheelers take some work, but lookthe best in my opinion. Finally, stern-wheelers are the hardest to build becauseof the exposed paddles.

Also, you will need to decide if it willbe lightly or heavily armed, will be ar-mored or use improvised armor such asmealie bags, crates, etc., and how manydecks it will have. All of these need to bedecided before you get started as theywill seriously impact the construction.

about 1 long and 1/8 wide.

Use the back of an X-Actoblade to make the impressionson the sheet plastic. This istime consuming, but it comesout pretty good. The othermethod is to use scribed sheet

plastic available at mosthobby stores that already hasthe long lines done for you. You justhave to mark off the boards in 1 incre-

Most river steamers and gunboats in

the 19th century had some type ofwooden or teak deck. This is tough tomodel in 15mm as the boards would not

be very long. Theres two ways that I useto make decks for the gunboats andsteamers.

The first is to trace the top of the hullonto some very thin sheet plastic. Then,using a ruler, mark off boards that are

ments and lightly cut

them into the plastic.While this method ismuch faster and looks alittle better, the onlydrawback is that thedecks will be a little bitthicker than regularsheet plastic. Paint the

decks tan, then ink them, and drybrushwith a lighter color.

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Getting Started

Building a 15mm Colonial Nile Gunboat Workshop

The Main Deck

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sheet plastic or thick cardboard aswell. Whether or not you want toscribe the balsa wood to show verti-cal planks is up to you. The varia-tions on river steamers is astound-ing, with some having roundedcorners, pilot houses back from thefront, no cabins on the second deck,and the list goes on.

I chose a height of 7/8 of aninch for the walls, which givesenough room to fit some of thelarger 15mm figures. The windows

and doors are small sections of sheetplastic that are cut out, then spraypainted black before they are gluedon to the superstructure walls. Al-though you could make fancier doors

and paint the windows gray, theseare gaming models, so I determinedthat black would be the easiest wayto represent them.

The second deck floor is againmade from foam core, with sheet

plastic strips that go around the out-side to hide the foam section. Again,repeat the process for creating the

deck from a few steps ago, although thesecond deck will be smaller than the maindeck. Leave a place for the stack, arma-ment, and ladders , plus an open area nearthe stern, which seemed to be a commonfeature on many ships of this era, particu-larly river steamers. Also, as mentioned

previously, paint the various built sec-tions before gluing them to the ship.

By this time you should have a prettygood looking gunboat, especially ifyouve been painting all the sections asyou assembled them. (cont. on p.10)

Again you are faced with numerousdecisions at this stage. What kind of su-

perstructure? Should I have a pilot houseon the second deck? Where should theladders go? My suggestion at this pointis to plan out how you want the maindeck and the second deck to look. Takeinto account the type of armament thatyour ship will have and the room it willneed for the crew. Once youve deter-mined how it should look, its time tostart building again.

I built my superstructures out of balsawood, although you could easily use

At the start of thisproject I said thatbuilding these boatswas all about deci-sions, and here we

are again with somemore that have to bemade! Do you wantthe boiler exposed? Should the boiler beat the front, middle, or back? Whatshould you use for the paddlewheels andshould they be exposed or covered?

I decided that the boiler would be inthe middle of the boat (as are about 75%of all river steamers) and that it would beexposed enough so that it would have to

be modeled. Were not building a boatthat will be displayed in a museum withthe correct scale and working parts, so theidea is to make something that looksfunctional.

Michaels craft stores have a great

section of bagged wooden piecesthat are generally used for dollhouses. I took two of the woodenshapes and glued them together,then added a few odds and ends

that looked like valves, doors, anda few pieces of wire. I then spray

painted the whole thing black anddrybrushed it gunmetal. In no time atall I had the boiler done.

Covered paddlewheels are the easiestto model, so again at Michaels I found around cardboard jewelry box for around$1. I then cut it in half and notched the

base of them to fit over the hull, leavingabout 3/16 between the water surfaceand the paddlewheel cover. Then, takesome extra cardboard or sheet plastic andcut out a semi-circle to cover the inside ofthe paddlewheel as were not going to

build the paddlewheel itself! However,you will need to make some paddles outof balsa wood and glue them so they are

just poking outbeneath thepaddlewheelcovers so thatthey touch the

surface of thewater. Gluethe boiler, pad-dlewheels, and

some lengths of dowels to connect theboiler and the paddles to the deck.Again, paint everything first, then assem-

ble it, which is much easier.

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The Main Deck Superstructure & Upper Deck

Building a 15mm Colonial Nile Gunboat (cont.) Workshop

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They wouldhave seen exten-sive civilianservice on the

Nile and are notreally designedfor militaryoperations, sokeep that inmind when youare designingyour rules.

Also, theNile can be very wide at places, thenextremely narrow in others, so shore bat-teries can be added to your games. Thereare also several places with islands in themiddle of the river, plus shallows androcks, so there are plenty of obstacles tonavigation as well.

Ive built six gunboats so far andplan to do more. My advice is to plan outthe construction, get the parts ( I have ascrap box full of sheet plastic, balsawood, dowels, etc.), then get started.Patience can be required at times, so ifyou feel that you are pressing on the pro-

ject, back off for awhile. Youll only getmore frustrated and make some critical

mistakes if you keep going. By addingpieces day by day, you can see the shipcoming together, which inspires you todo even more. Again, I cannot stressenough how important it is to paint eachsection before you glue it on. Building aship, then painting it will be difficult, ifnot impossible to attain better results bydoing it a piece at a time. Taking time ofthe details, such as adding lengths ofthread to the stack that are tied down tothe deck, can make your gunboat standout.

So, wedge some sections of boilerplate armor between some sandbags, nailsome 2 x 4s around the upper deck, draga Krupp gun forward, and load up themarines. Gordon has to be saved!

Hopefully, thisarticle has been ofuse and has providedthe gamer with somegod ideas or inspira-tion to get started ona gunboat project.Details on this eraare difficult to find,which is good forgamers as you can

pretty much makeanything that lookslike a steamer and no one can say that itsnot historical!

If you try to build the Melik or theSultan, remember that those boats areheavily armored and armed, so they will

pretty much destroy anything on theriver. Instead, I would focus on creating

converted steamers and lightly armedgunboats, which would provide a muchmore challenging game. A three gunboatflotilla backed by dhows with Dervishes

providing the Marines that are trying tointercept a three or four Egyptian/Britishgunboats trying to run supplies to a be-sieged city would make for a great game.Remember that these boats are held to-gether by rusty nails, glue, and prayers!

Now heres whereyou can have a littlefun. What will makeor break how yourgunboat looks are the

details. Anyone canbuild a few boxes ontop of a hull, but itsthe details that reallymake the gunboatmodel stand out.

First, most steamers are going to havesome kind of tarp or awning over one ofthe open places on the deck. This can bemade with paper, then the stripes markedand painted on. Second, since the pri-mary role of most of these boats wastransporting passengers, there would berailings on the sides of the ship. These

can be made from straight pinsand string. Also, adding a fewcrates and flour sacks canthurt the overall look and a flagshould be added to the stern.

East Riding Miniaturesmakes some great 15mm shipaccessories such as anchors,small boats, ladders, and ar-mament. Since these are con-

verted gunboats, the armament would bewhatever was handy, which meantsmoothbore cannon, early machine guns,and the odd howitzer.

Armor (if you could call it armor)would be mainly boards nailed to thesides of the hull to provide some coverfrom small arms fire. Sandbags, mealie

bags, large sacks, and crates would also

be used, especially around the gun em-placements. Boiler plate armor might beused around critical sections of the deckto afford extra protection to the boiler andgun crews.

Dont worry about clutter as theseboats arent the QE II! Adding thesekinds of details are part of the fun.

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Final Thoughts

Building a 15mm Colonial Nile Gunboat (cont.) Workshop

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In fact, if youve ever played StarfleetBattles and are familiar with SSDs, thenyoull feel right at home here! The shiplogs are well laid out, with spaces fordamage, fires, officer status, and more.

The beauty of the system is that onceyouve filled out the sheets you can usethem forever if you laminate them or

place them in a sheet protector, then usegrease pencils.

There is also a comprehensive list ofship armament, ranging from muzzleloading smoothbore cannons to maximguns, along with a chart showing howmany weapons certain sized ships cancarry. The firing and damage systems areeasy to pick up and if you have marineson board or engaging enemy forces onthe shore, then the TSATF shooting rulesare used.

The sequence of play is pretty unique,although it does use a card activationsystem. Basically, each turn when yourships card is drawn, you run through aseries of orders, such as Stand by torepel boarders, ordering the Black Gangto fight fires, and so on. This is followed

by movement and then combat. Move-ment is again pretty easy to grasp, withthe different kinds of ships (i.e., stern-wheelers, screw-driven, etc.) having dif-ferent advantages.

There is also a lot of space devoted tolifeboats and saving survivors, which can

be critical in skirmish games or if you areinvolved in a campaign. For those of youinterested in actions in the Far East, thereis an extensive section devoted to nativesailing vessels such as junks and for thoseDarkest Africa typegames there is a sectionon fighting masses ofwar canoes.

What I like the mostabout the rules is that

whether you are tryingto build and fight his-torical actions along theChinese coastline at theturn of the century, oryou are creating con-verted steamers for afictional campaign seton a mythical continentthat looks a lot like Af-

rica, these rules are the answer. Thereseven rules for the first torpedoes!

So there is a lot to be positive about.A good system, great ideas, and betterthan average components. This systemcan be grafted on to any number of colo-nial rules and our group is going to use itfor some sizeable actions on the Nile,with hypothetical actions between anAnglo-Egyptian fleet and all of the cap-tured steamers that the Mahdi had.

There are a few problems, but thank-fully nothing major. First, the pictures inthe rules are less than inspiring. I think acall should go out to all gunboat gamersto get some new pictures for the nextedition. The main point of a good set ofrules is to make gamers want to go out

and buy things! A onepage Gunboat Designflow chart would also begood, listing the steps andoptions of designing yourgunboats. I also think that

for new gamers an exampleof a gunboat duel, showinghow everything workswould be very helpful.Again, I must stress thatthese are minor problemsand have to deal more withthe presentation than any-thing else.

So, how does the game play? Becauseof some holiday scheduling problemswith my gaming group, we have yet tohave a major gunboat battle. However, Ihave done some solo battles to test out

the system.First, it is kind of like The Sword and

The Flame at Sea! The game plays fastand I especially like the firing and dam-age systems. I could easily see where ifyou had multiple ships in a battle thingscould get quite interesting. Decisionshave to be made about where to move theFirst Officer, whether or not to bring upthe Black Gang to fight fires or repel

boarders, and more. Im also anxious totry out the rules for engaging shore bat-teries, boarding actions, and more.

Our first playtest of this game as agroup will involve a flotilla of Anglo-Egyptian gunboats trying to run suppliesthrough a blockade and this will appearas a battle report hopefully in the nextissue.

Hopefully in the future the authors canbe convinced to produce some pre-madeship forms for famous gunboats of theera, along with transports and nativecraft. I also think that by making somedeck plans and counters for crew that youcould apply the system for 1/600 and1/300th scale ships where the countersare moved on the deck plans as the shipsslug it out on the tabletop.

Overall, for $25 this book is worth themoney. The components are well done,theres some great ideas here, and thesekind of products should be supported sothat the authors are encouraged to domore.

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Boilers & Breechloaders Review (cont.) Featured Story

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Having been a bigfan of the recent waveof card driven games,it seemed only naturalto be sucked into

Shifting Sands. Iveplayed Paths of Glory,Wilderness War,Thirty Years War, andI love Empire of theSun, so when it wasannounced that Mi-chael Rinella, de-signer of another of my favorite games,Montys Gamble, was doing a carddriven North Africa game, I was immedi-ately interested. There was a lot of hypeon the Consimworld forums leading up toits release, so the big questions was, will

this be a successful game? The answer isa resounding yes.

The components are definitely aboveaverage, with a beautiful map of the

North African theater that also includesthe Middle East and East Africa. Thereare 110 cards that are also well designed,with period style photographs and a fewhundred counters of various sizes. Therule book is well laid out and the designerhas published a few sets of errata andclarifications since it came out. The rulesare not that difficult and after a secondreading, you can pretty much figure outhow the game is played.

The game starts in 1940 with twoturns, then goes through 1941 and 1942that have four turns each, then finallythere are two turns in 1943. You startwith a hand of seven cards in 1940, thenit gets larger so you have a hand size often cards in 1943. Each turn, whichrepresents three months, has six actionrounds where players can play cards tomove, bring in reinforcements, accumu-

late replacements, or conduct opera-tions. Some cards can be used formultiple things when played andseveral require certain events thathad to have already been played.

Naturally, this makes the game greatfor multiple playings as you will getdifferent hands every time.

As with most card driven games,the choices that are presented to youeach turn can be overwhelming. Doyou bring in more reinforcements?Should you play that event or use the

card for badly needed replacements?Should you attack or move with the nextcard? Should you save the card for futureuse, but then youre not burningthrough the cards quick enough to get tothe good stuff!

Counters represent divisions and bri-gade size batttlegroups. You have divi-sions from India, New Zealand, Australia,South Africa, and even a Polish battle-group! Movement and combat are fairlystraightforward, although the redeploy-ment and supply rules mayneed to be read twice to get thenuances straight.

In fact, if theres any com-plaint at all with the game, itsthat while the rules are basi-cally simple, theres a lot ofodd items and finding them can

be difficult. For example, theAmericans are 1 in combatuntil a certain card is played,

but if you dont remember see-ing that, good luck trying tocome across it in the rules.This goes for many other items,although multiple games will see thatmost points are included.

The game starts out with the Britishholding Egypt and with small forces inthe Near East and East Africa. The Ital-

ians are in good shape, except the combatstrength of their units makes offensiveoperations tricky. The first few turns aredesperate as the British try to rush inreinforcements, bring units up to strength,and try to prevent Egypt from being lost.

Then Rommel and the first of the Af-rika Korps units show up and things getinteresting. Units attacking with Rommel

get a big bonus, so the Brit-ish are put on the defensive.Meanwhile, the British aretrying to clear out East Af-rica and getting ready in

case Iraq and the units inthe Near East revolt. Thisis usually where each side isgetting ready for the bigshowdown in 1942.

Halfway through 1942Malta is under siege, Torchis coming in, most armor

units have been upgraded, and theresplenty of forces all over the map. Sowhats the big problem? You only haveso many cards to play for units spread allover the theater, which simulates the cha-otic supply situation that both sides faced.

The Germans launch counterattacksagainst the U.S., British, and Free Frenchunits in Tunisia, trying to hold on toLibya, and most importantly of all, tryingto maintain enough victory points to sur-vive 1943! Whew! Ive played this three

times for this review andall three games have beendifferent. I will say that itis maybe a little too de-

pendent on the card draw,however, good play and awell thought out strategy

can alleviate some badhands.

Overall, this game willbe a hit and played for along, long time. I feelthat you could play it 15times and not one of thegames will be the same.

So far, I havent seen any killer strate-gies show up on Consimworld, which isthe mark of a good game in my book!This may not be the North Africa gamefor every gamer, especially if youre useto hexes and having a lot of control overthe situation. It does, however, give avery good feel of the see-saw struggle ofthe conflict. Both sides have a variety ofstrategies open to them, plus you neverknow what your opponent has plannedfor you! The designer should definitely

be encouraged to create more games likethis for a variety of periods. In one word,Outstanding!

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Shifting Sands Board Game Review

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Wargame Downloads is an unique sitein the gaming world. Here you can findcomplete board games, miniatures rules,

paper models, and more, that can bedownloaded and printed for a good price.

I received three wargames for review andI will discuss each of them as well assome printing options.

First, the board wargames fall into thecategory of DTP games, or Desktop Pub-lishing Games. These are not the usualAvalon Hill/GMT/MMP type games thatcome in a box with high grade compo-nents. Instead, you will get maps, count-ers, charts, and rules that you will have to

print and assemble yourself. The kind ofprinter and materials that you have accessto will greatly influence the quality of thefinished product. Many companies sell

blank counters or you can simply glue thecounters on to some thick cardboard orfoam sheets sold in many craft stores. Ifyou have a variety of graphics programson your computer, you can also re-sizethe map to your specifications.

Breslau-Hitlers

Stalingrad

by Perry Moore of Fire-fight Games

As many of youknow, I love WW2 East-

ern Front battles, so Iwas pretty excited whenthis game showed up as

part of the review pack-age. Breslau was aninteresting setting as the city held outagainst a massive Russian force untilafter the war ended. The game portraysthe Russian attacks on one side of the city(where most of the action was during thesiege) and comes with over 300 welldone counters representing German andRussian forces. There are Panthers, Ti-gers, 88s, SS units, Russian Guard units,

and even Goliath remote controlled tanks.The map is functional and the rules arewritten in the old SPI or traditional

wargame style. So far, sogood.

I think if the game had atraditional odds ratio com-

bat chart, the game couldhave succeeded on manylevels. But here, in myview, is where the designergot a little too clever.

First, a stack of units moves to attack,then the defender, if they roll right canlaunch an instant counterattack. Then

both sides can try to move additionalforces into the combat, which can pro-duce more counterattacks, then you haveartillery support that can be added in on

both sides. Not too bad if theres only ahandful of counters, but theres about 250

combat counters! This means that thereis a lot of combat and you need to uselarge stacks as you will take some horren-dous losses every time someone shoots.Also, the combat table is bloody aslosses are expressed in counters. So,

after a few rounds of combat thereisnt much left.

Overall, I think it is an inter-esting topic with good compo-nents. What is definitely neededis a step by step example of com-

bat in the rules, with some illus-trations. Also, the roll 2D6 forthis, 1D6 for this, or 1D10 for thisother thing needs to be changed to

just one type of die roll. If youlike a lot of tactical level combat inan operational setting, then this is the

game for you. If you prefer games likethe SCS series from MMP/The Gamers,you may want to stay away from this one.

Solitaire Caesar

Im not much ofan Ancients fan, butthis little game

looked intriguing.The newest versionhas a re-worked mapwith all the charts onit and there are addi-tional counter sheets

available at boardgamegeek.com. Youget a small map, broken up into prov-inces, a sheet of around 100 counters, arecord sheet, and a simple set of rules.

After assembling the map and counters Iread through the rules in a few minutesand tried my first game.

Each game turn represents 100 yearsof the Roman Empire. During each turnyou build cities and legions, attack andtry to seize control of other provinces,and shift troops to meet expected threats.

Then, you roll for the size of the firstBarbarian force and the size plus locationof the second enemy force. These followa specific line of attack, plus the combat

system is very simple.After the first threeturns you can put awaythe rule book and justuse the charts on themap. This enables youto play the entire game,about 1500 years, in anhour!

The game is simple,but yet very challeng-ing. You know thestarting point of the first

Barbarian force each turn, but you haveno idea of its strength or where the sec-ond force in each turn will appear. A fewtimes they showed up in the same spot,which can lead to the enemy forces over-running half of the Empire! You thenspend the remaining turns trying to fightfires and hold on to cities to fulfill thevictory conditions.

This is the kind of game where you

want to play a second game to see if youcan beat your previous score, almost like

playing video games! Another greatthing is that if it looks like things aregoing badly and you will lose by a lot,you can dump the game and quickly starta new one. For $5 this game is tough to

beat and well recommended!

(continued on page 23)

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Wargames Downloads: Three Game Reviews

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Every so often our group gets into oneof those moods where we desire to play acampaign. Whether we forget that wevenever finished a campaign (has anywargame group ever finished a cam-

paign?) or we get tired of set piece battlesis unknown. We have a good selection ofFrench, Austrian, Russian, and Prussianforces, so we went looking for a suitablecampaign.

Fortunately, I had designed a gamecalled Beyond The Salle back in 2000.This is a fictional battle assuming that thePrussians had achieved a victory at Zorn-dorf. Frederick and the main Prussianstriking force are now force marching toWestern Europe to counter an attack byFrench and Austrian forces in the Leipzigarea.

Its a small campaign with about 60SPs a side designed for Age of Reasonthat would give us a few interesting bat-tles. This would be our second time play-ing it, so everyone was familiar with the

rules and set up. I designed a new mapfor the game as the old one was not verygood.

One of the reasons why we like cam-paigns, even though we rarely finish anyof them, is that the battles mean some-thing. Theres no, Well, its the last turnso Im sending all of my cavalry into agigantic charge against that grand batteryand hope that one unit survives to win theday. The terrain is random, the battle

plans are given far more scrutiny than theregular Friday night fight, and seriousdecisions are needed about when things

go bad concerning withdrawals.

So, we sat down, placed our pieces,discussed some strategy (another fun partof campaigns), then got the campaignunder way.

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Turn 1-2: The French Offensive Begins

Age of Reason: Beyond The Salle Campaign Replay

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ISSUE #16

This campaign is pretty straightfor-ward in that there arent a whole lot ofoptions for either side at the start. TheFrench and Austrians are trying to get aforce together and crush the Prussians

quickly before they can concentrate. ThePrussians are trying to assemble forcesthat are scattered all over the map to re-sist the Allied offensive.

The French naturally headed forNaumberg, but bad rolls meant that someof their force was a little slow in movingup ( in the campaign the Prussian move-ment is fixed and faster, but the French

and Austrians have to roll to move a sec-ond dot each turn).

By the end of Turn 2, however, theFrench were attacking a Prussian block-

ing force at Naumberg, other forces wereadvancing to A13, and things were look-ing good for the Allies as they grewstronger every turn.

The Prussians were quickly movingforces all over the map into blocking

positions, trying to determine the mainaxis of advance and waiting for the mo-ment to counterattack.

Naturally, all wargaming plans dontusually work out and this was no excep-tion! The Prussian cavalry jumped offtoo early and the French were waiting.Their artillery fired into the flanks of thePrussian dragoon brigade, then the

French cavalry counterattacked, routingthe Prussian horse. Now the second Prus-sian cavalry brigade had to redeployacross the battlefield to shore up the leftflank.

The two Prussian infantry brigadesadvanced to contact and despite somesuccess near the town, things werentlooking good. This was confirmed a few

With 15SPs to the Prussian 10, theFrench were pretty confident of winningthe first engagement. Their confidenceonly got better after seeing what terrainmap was rolled up for the battle. Defi-nitely not cavalry friendly, which would

help the French as they are usually shorton cavalry during this period.

The Prussians decided to attack,which is what they do best and the rulesgive them several advantages if theyreon the offensive. It was decided to strikea blow at the French cavalry across theriver, hopefully forcing the French infan-try on the defensive.

turns later when the French artillery be-gan to unload on the Prussian battle line.The French were having a good day roll-ing the dice while the Prussians were farless than average. By turn 6 it was overand the Prussians decided the better part

of valor was fleeing as soon as possible!

The Prussians lost 3SPs and theFrench only 1SP. The pursuit was not afactor as the Prussian cavalry advantage

prevented a complete collapse. However,the French had given the Prussians a

bloody nose in this first battle, whichprobably encouraged them to make astand against Fredericks counterstroke.

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First Contact


The French had a definite advantage in numbers, especially artillery. The huge Prussian ad-vantage in cavalry, both in terms of units and quality, was heavily offset by the random terrain.With several bottlenecks and no large plain for the cavalry to operate the Prussians were

forced on the defensive, which is something that theyre not very good at.

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The Austrians have had bad move-ment rolls and so are still trying to assem-

ble their forces in the A13-A14 area.

Meanwhile, the Prussians are desper-ately trying to move their smaller forcesalong the roads to block the main choke

points on the map. If the Prussians canhold for a few turns, they can assembleseveral good sized forces to push theAllies back. The situation is still in flux,

but a huge victory by the French nowcould open the floodgates.

Frederick grabs all available forces inthe area around Naumberg and launches acounterattack against the victoriousFrench, knowing that additional Frenchforces have entered the area and will be

joining the main force soon.

Once the movewas made the battlewas determined to be34 SPs of Prussiansagainst 24SPs ofFrench, which would

be a good sized fight.However, the terrainwas rolled up andthere was a river plus

With Frederick now present alongwith reinforcements, the Prussian sidedecided to restore the balance of power inthe area at least until the main thrust ofthe Allied attack could be determined.Knowing the Allies had been bloodied inthe previous battle, but not knowing whatreinforcements they may have received,the Prussians decided to counterattack inthe Naumberg area.

a swamp/marsh in thecenter of the board,which is definitely notwhat the Prussiansneeded. However, theattack needed to be de-livered to prevent theFrench from establishingthemselves in the are, sothe battle began.

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Turns 3-4: Prussian Counterattack


Second Battle: Frederick Moves to Block the French

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ISSUE #16

line. Unitsbecame en-gaged in artil-lery duels withFrench forceson the oppositeside of the

river while inthe middle thePrussianscrossed theswamp and

began to de-ploy in front of the French positions.

The Prussian hussars on the far leftlaunched a massive charge against theentrenchments, but in series of close dierolls they were repulsed. The Prussianartillery formed a massed battery of fourguns and started to wreak destructionupon the French troops not in entrench-

ments.

On the far right the Prussian cavalrywas finally victorious, but hey had lost aflag, had an officer killed, and were beatup pretty badly. The French reformedtheir lines to refuse the flank while morePrussian infantry deployed for the attack.

Simultaneously, all along the front the

Prussians moved forward and engagedthe French, who by this time had commit-ted all of their reserves. There were anumber of firefights, attempted melees,and artillery bombardments that keptadding to the carnage. By turn 8 bothsides had taken some serious losses and it

looked as if it might go on awhile.However, by turn 9 both sides had

lost 25% casualties and were forced tocheck to see if their force would with-draw. The Prussians had lost too manyflags, leaders, and were at 30%, so theyfailed the check and Frederick was forcedto withdraw. The Prussians had lost 9SPswhile the French only had a 6SP perma-nent loss. A chance for the Prussians tore-gain the initiative had been lost.

The Prussian planwas to essentiallystretch the French line asthin as possible by put-ting pressure all alongthe front. It was hopedthat the French would

not be able to send re-serves to the left wherethe best Prussian bri-gades would attackthrough the entrench-ments and carry theFrench rear areas.

Unfortunately, the entire Prussianforce got drawn into the attack. Thereseems to be a natural inclination for gam-ers to not sit around doing anything likeholding flanks, pinning enemy forces,etc., so they attack the first enemy forcethat presents itself!

On the far right the Prussian cavalrygot far more than it bargained for andafter some initial success, they werechecked and forced to fall back on theirsupports. The French cavalry launchedan attack on the Prussians that crossed the

bridge, but were repulsed with heavylosses. This had the unfortunate effect ofcausing an advance all along the Prussian

Page 19

Second Battle: Prussians Launch an All Out Attack


In Age of Reason, if Frederick ispresent the Prussians have the op-tion of setting up second. Afterlooking at the French deployment,the Prussian players decided on a

pinning attack in the center and theright, then overwhelming the de-

fenses on the left with the besttroops, namely a brigade of grena-diers plus the infantry Guard. Noone could have foreseen the deter-mined defense of the hill by theFrench, nor the win at all costsdetermination by both sides in whatquickly became a meat grinder,similar to Zorndorff. By turn 9 bothsides were appalled at their lossesand yet the battle continued.

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fense. The French, meanwhile, continuedmoving up forces and the Austrians alsowaited on their reinforcements to jointhem.

Finally, on turn 7, with all of their

pieces in place, the Allies struck at twodifferent locations in an effort to pindown the Prussian forces. The first battlewould be between a French/Austrianforce of 35 SPs against a Prussian forceof 25SPs.

The next two turns were spent by bothsides in consolidating their forces andmoving up reserves. The Prussiansseemed to have forgotten about how fastthey could move compared to the Alliesand instead opted for a more static de-

three batteries of

heavy guns to turnthe left flank andcrash in the Alliedcenter.

The Allies, how-ever, had other

plans. They optedfor a pinning attackin the center and to

Again, the Prussians got the worst

battlefield roll possible. Needing somechoke points or a river to offset the nu-merical advantage of the Allies, the bat-tlefield instead was a fairly open tablewith a town and hill in the center andsome slightly rising hills on the flanks.The Prussians set up first with the plan ofholding in the center and right, then usingthe best cavalry brigade, an infantry bri-gade of grenadiers, two siege guns, and

deliver the main blow

with the big Austrianinfantry brigades atthe Prussian right,

backed by most of thecavalry. After set upand some tacticaldiscussions, the piv-otal third battle wasready to get underway.

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Turns 5-7: Consolidation & the Allies Attack


Third Battle: French & Austrians Join Forces

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ISSUE #16

The first attack on the town was eas-ily repulsed and the Prussian grenadier

brigade was making progress on the left,helped by three heavy batteries that wereobliterating any forces in their way. TheAustrian attack was just getting started insupport of the assault on the village andthe first firefight showed the huge advan-tage of those 18 figure units.

Back on the Prussian right thingswere not going well. The Prussian cui-rassier brigade charged to restore thesituation, if even for a few turns, but aftersome initial success, the were hit by freshunits and sent reeling back. The victori-ous French and Austrian cavalry contin-ued the pursuit, inflicting heavycasualties on the Prussian cavalryforce.

By this time the Prussian rightflank was wide open and the Austri-ans were getting ready to over-whelm the remaining defenders.Even though the Prussian left washaving success and moving towardsthe center, there were no reservesleft, so the Prussians decided towithdraw. Casualties were equal,

but the Prussians lost for the third

time in a row.

At this time the campaign has beenhalted for the holiday season and we hopeto pick it up again in 2007. As mostgamers know, completing a campaign isdifficult, if not downright impossible, for

a variety of reasons. Keeping focus, oneside losing badly, and new interests havedoomed many a campaign in the past.On the positive side, however, we foughtthree battles that we would have nevertried at regular club meetings, gamers aremuch more cautious on the tabletop, andthe strategy sessions with map moves area lot of fun. I encourage everyone to atleast try a campaign once in awhile.

The game started out well for thePrussians when the French got a littlemore than they bargained for by trying toflank the town on the Prussian left. Met

by two siege guns and a brigade of hus-sars, the French cavalry took some seri-ous losses and the infantry fell back.

On the Prussian right, however, thingsstarted off bad from the beginning. Theopening cavalry charge saw one Prussiandragoon regiment routed and another

broken. The Prussian cuirassier brigadethat was being held in reserve moved tothe flank for support and the remaininginfantry brigade deployed to help.

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Third Battle (cont.)


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Yes, Peter Gilders Sudan miniatureson the cover of Miniature Wargames #5started something over twenty years agothat continues tothis very day. Al-

though I had justbought some of thenew Ral ParthaColonial figs, theywere for the ZuluWar. However,with a little re-search I found outthat most of themwould work fine forthe Sudan. Therewas somethingabout the vast spaceof the desert, the

Nile, desperatebattles in the mid-dle of nowhere, etc., that caught my at-tention.

So I started collecting plenty of packsof the Ral Partha Sudan range, then addedin guns and camels from Lyzards Grin,the odd Minifigs pack, and anything elseI could get my hands on. Unlike the ZuluWar, there was little in the way of infor-mation on the period and I was greatlyhelped by getting a subscription to Sav-age & Soldier. Lynn Bodin, who passedaway at too early an age, was the editorand was kind enough to answer my lettersabout the Egyptian army and some of theodd units deployed in the Sudan. Atabout the same time The Courier ran a sixissue series on the Sudan, with battlereports, figure reviews, and more.

Within about three years I had assem-bled a painted force approaching around300 figs. After looking at numerous setsof rules, I settled on two; The Sword andthe Flame plus Colonial Skirmish rules.We played several games, but most of mygroup at that time were not into colonials,

so they only came out every so often.This was also right at the time (around1986-88) where 25mm manufacturersstarted going to the 28mm scale, leavingme the choice of just using Ral Parthafigures. I kept building up forces for the

period, however, always hoping that Iwould end up in a gaming group thatliked colonials, but that wouldnt happenfor a few years down the road.

The other period that I became fasci-nated with was the Mexican-AmericanWar. Again, this started with an ad by

Frei-Korps and a battle re-port in The Courier maga-

zine, using a new set ofrules called The CompleteBrigadier. I have alwaysfound it funny that gamers,including myself, jump intoa period for the strangestreasons! Then, you justcant sample the period, ,butyou have to buy Osprey

books, bags and bags offigures, terrain, and rules.

Again, I had chosen aperiod that was tough onfinding research material.Yet again, I was greatlyhelped by a six issue series

on the period in The Courier magazine.Despite all the criticism that magazinehas received over the years, before theInternet came into everyones lives it washeaven sent forhistorical gamers.So I slowlystarted buildingforces for this

period as well,even though therewasnt reallyanyone else inter-ested in this pe-riod. Within twoyears I hadenough forces to try a solo game andwithin three years I had amassed about250 painted 15mm figs for the period.

I was still playing board games andthey were about to reach their zenith. Anew company called Victory Games wasreleasing some high quality games, in-cluding Persian Gulf and Sixth Fleet, thestart of the Fleet series. We spent a lot of

hours on these games, sometimes devot-ing entire weekends to playing the cam-

paign games. Most gamers also have athing for air combat (why is that?) , sonaturally when GDWs Air Superioritycame out we flocked to it and many,many hours were spent in the skies aboveEurope, fighting hypothetical battles withF-15s against Mig-29s.

Other great games included GDWsThe Third World War series, of which we

played the full campaign game with all ofthe maps and counters not once, buttwice! Avalon Hills Firepower was an-

other favorite, along with the excellentGDW Assault series. You could start tosee, however, towards the end of the 80sthat the game companies had run out ofideas and games were coming out lessfrequently and cost more. This situationwould go on until around 2000 whenthere was a great resurgence in that sideof the hobby.

This was also, I believe, the height ofcomplexity in wargaming. Enola GamesCombat Commander, with its 150 pagesof rules and a chart for every weapon inexistence wastreated as a mat-ter of fact.Lookingthrough SPIs

NATO DivisionCommander fora specific rulefor 5 minuteswas just a nec-essary part of

playing thegame. Todaysgamers dont have the time or the pa-tience for that anymore, which has led tonew dimensions in gaming, both in play-ability and realism. Some good, some

bad.

So the 80s were coming to a close. Ithad been a great run for gaming and Iloved the hobby. I had made a lot offriends, had way too much fun, and it wasan important part of many of our lives.Unfortunately, the real world was callingall of us to join it. Jobs in the privatesector, armed forces members transfer-ring out, marriage, and a growing trend inthe hobby towards science-fiction gaming

took a toll on the group and people wegamed with. Within about a year, every-one who I had gamed with (around 20

people) had moved on or left the area.Suddenly, I was pretty much alone as faras historical gaming went and closefriends who were interested were over anhour away and scheduling was a night-mare. It was time to move on.

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Memoirs of a Miniatures and Board Wargamer pt. 3

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Ral Partha 25mm Colonial rangeBritish infantry, now sold throughGreat Endeavors. Visit their site at:

http://www.greatendeavours.co.uk/c

olonials/

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ISSUE #16

Colonial Skirmish Rules

There was an article in The Courierduring the Sudan series that listed rulesfor the colonial period and this set was

mentioned in it. I was curious, so I or-dered a copy from England back in theearly 80s. It is definitely an OldSchool set of rules, with a plain bluecover, small text in the book itself, andabout four pages of charts that have beencrammed onto two pages, so you reallyneed to look closely!

This is truly man to man combat, witheach turn representing about three sec-onds of actual time and each character/figure has its own stats. Loading a rifle,aiming, and firing can take several turns,all of which have to be written down. So

far, it sounds tedious, complex, and bor-ing, right?

Well, the answer is no. The gameplays well, even with each player running10 figures. Filling out orders is quick andthe game plays faster than you wouldthink. The shooting and melee systemseach work extremely well, plus its prettyeasy to figure out. The game plays likean action movie since everyone starts

pretty close to each other and the playersget heavily involved with the life anddeath decisions of their command. True,

there is a wide variety of modifiers forevery conceivable situation, but after afew turns you can pretty much focus on

just those sections that pertain to yourscenario.

I do like the individual hit locationsand players must decide whether to try toload their rifles or drop them and defendthemselves with swords, etc., when thefighting gets close. Basically, youretaking about two minutes out of a battleand recreating the final, desperate rushthat usually results in melee. The gameworks well and can be quite enjoyable.

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