Let's read ... Practical Wargamer #6 (Winter 1988/1989)

It has been a while since I posted in this series, but time to pick up our readings of Practical Wargamer again!

So here it is, the 6th issue of Practical Wargamer. At this point PW had a full run of a year, so the magazine should have found its own style by now.

The cover looks promising, lots of figures, War of The Roses this time. As I have stated before, I firmly believe a wargaming magazine should show figures on the cover, and this cover has some nice flags as well!

The first article is Points to Ponder, a column and editorial folded into one. Stuart Asquith starts with an encouragement to submit articles, and then talks about drummers and musicians on the tabletop, and how they should affect morale (and subsequent actions) of a unit. But I'm somewhat puzzled by Stuart's claim that "we tend to ignore the presence of musicians on the wargames table". This is 1988, and by this time, Warhammer as a ruleset is well established in its 3rd edition. I played this edition quite frequently (actually, I never progressed beyond 3rd, but that's another story), and musicians were very much a part of the fantasy units in Warhammer, providing all sorts of bonuses and special abilities. Anyway, I agree that musicians do add color to the table as separate figures, but I guess we have better mechanics these days to have its influence depend on the survival of that specific figure table-wise.

In You Scoundrel ... I'll Liberate You, we are presented with the story of the battle of Vinegar Hill, a battle that took place in New South Wales in 1804. The author suggests a mini-campaign centered around these events. The article is typical for magazines of the 80s: a lot of historical information, with the assumption the wargamer can figure it out for himself how to turn this into a game.

The battle of North Cape (Graham Dixey) brings us to the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean, and tells us how the German battleship Scharnhorst finally was sunk. Again a lot of history, but barely any info how to make a game out of this. But then, these were still the pre-internet days. Wargamers needed articles like this to get a feeling of the historical context. 

Veterans! (Matthew Bennet) is offering us some mechanics on how to include veteran troops on the wargames table. Not by giving them some better statistics as would be a standard way to do it, but rather give each player some bonus cards that can be used during the game at any unit, which then ""turns out to be a veteran unit!". Suggestions for such cards include a forced march, ignore a morale test, form square faster than usually permitted under the rules, that sort of thing. I do like such simple mechanics that combine gamesmanship (when and how should I use the card?) with some narrative effects on the table.

 

Mayhem on the Medwin (Peter Helm) brings us back to the English Civil War, that grand period that British wargamers care deeply about but leaves the rest of us rather cold. Just kidding :-) The article describes a rather big setup with players acting as Commander in Chiefs in separate rooms, with objectives and victory points only known to them, and not to the commanders of troops at the table. It's the kind of game you rarely see these days, and such games always stir my imagination.

 

Kevin Dallimore reveals some of his "tricks of the trade" in How I paint Figures. I always admire such articles and the close-ups of figures in various stages of being painted, but to be honest, I have never excelled at painting (although I don't dislike it), and always wonder whether people actually spend all that time on painting a single face? But from such articles, I did pick up the techniques of undercoating, drybrushing, highlights and washes, which still serve me well up to this day.

 

Suomi - The Wicked War Sagas (Robin Hunt) gives us an overview of the Winter War during WW2, and also gives some decent advice on how to model a snowy battlefield as well as some kit availability.

 

Chris Peers gives us The Army of Tarmurlaine, an article focusing on the history of Mongols, but without a scenario or some good hints on how to portray such an army on your table.

In the continuing series of skilled figure painters, Graham Green shows part of his collection, mostly fantasy figures. Especially the Fellowhip of the Ring figures look very nice.

 

Campaigns with Clive (Paul Stevenson) highlights the possibilities of campaigning in 18th century India, and offers a lot of historical information to set up your own games, including a full table of all actions, battles and sieges in India at the time of Clive. All very useful as I said, but by today's standards, I would expect some more ready-to-use information to get a game on the table. 

Charles Vasey gives us some ideas on medieval campaign rules in Going to the Country, and offers a smallish card-based system to determine in what areas players might find support during the War of the Roses. Most of the article is taken up by historical descriptions about the difficulties of medieval campaigning.

Fighting in Buildings (Charles Grant) is a wargaming-centric article, explaining how fighting in built up areas can be incorporated in your rules. However, the author says "... it is not possible to produce a set of suitable rules within the scope of this article". Darn! However, there's a list of factors that we should include in our games, such as: categories of houses, firing into and out from houses, enetring houses, using ladders, barricades, etc. Although the articles leaves much to the wargamer, it is an article that stirs the imagination and gives some good ideas to start  from. 

Away All Boats (Keith Benson) gives an excellent overview of the planning issues involving amphibious landings in WW2, with quite a lot of suggestions for scenarios both for defender (e.g. preparation of the beaches), as for the transit phase, as for the final attack. A nice trick is to provide different maps to both sides.

Arthur Harman gives a small Napoleonic action in Rearguard Action at Cacabellos, set in the Peninsular War. It's a ready-to-play scenario, invovling the British defence and retreat from a small town built along a bridge over a stream.

 

Disguised Scenarios (James Oliver) describes the idea of taking an action in one historical period, and using it as the basis for a scenario in another period. An example is given for a WW2 coastal attack on France, based on an action in Cuba in 1962.

Marignano 1515 (Peter Wilson) tells us about a two-day battle between the Swiss and the French. during the Italian Wars. Mostly history, with some hints on how to turn this into a wargame. 

My "ad of the issue" is a smallish ad for cardboard models produced by "Draper Models", I couldn't find anything online about this company, except a small reference on the Lost Minis Wiki, with interestingly enough, a mention that at one point the company had an address in Belgium? And I also found a blog entry that shows a model of Hougoumont in cardboard, of which the author says it is from Draper Models.

 

Overall, this issue left me a bit cold. Yes, there are a lot of articles, but there's relatively little direct usable wargaming information. It almost seems as if for this 6th issue, the "good stuff" has already been used in the previous issues, and now we have to settle for mostly historical stuff. But maybe I am too negative here - after all, historical articles had their place in wargaming magazines.

All issues so far:

• Practical Wargamer 1 (Autumn 1987)
• Practical Wargamer 2 (Winter 1987)
• Practical Wargamer 3 (Spring 1988)
• Practical Wargamer 4 (Summer 1988)
• Practical Wargamer 5 (Autumn 1988)
• Practical Wargamer 6 (Winter 1988/1989) 

 

Let's read ... Practical Wargamer #5 (Autumn 1988)

It took me some time to write the next post in this series. A close relative is spending some time (weeks by now ...) in hospital (which eats away at one's free time), and the start of the academic year at my university also didn't make things easier. But anyway, on to wargaming!

We have arrived in Autumn 1988, the 5th issue of Practical Wargamer. The cover again shows miniatures (which is good!), a 16th century battle showing Spanish soldiers attacking English earthworks. I'm always very much interested in the "look and feel" of the games of yesteryear to study how our hobby has changed over the years, and I do like the visuals of this game.

No editorial next to the Table of Contents in this issue, but instead Stuart Asquith has folded his editorial in his column Points to Ponder, again with a plea to subscribe to the magazine. But he also discusses some considerations on the movement of formed columns, having a tendency to deviate to the left (or right), or to converge towards each other, and how to include that in the rules. It's something I never have included in my own rules, although Black Powder (a ruleset we often use for Napoleonics and the Great Northern War) has a blunder table, that forces some units to move left or right against the original intention of the players. Nevertheless, I'm in favour of including a chance for unexpected movement effects, but I mostly them as random movement distances.  

 

Horse and Musket (Robert Wills) describes how wargames (or subsystems of wargames) can be run on an 80s hobby computer. The author describes some of the design choices he made, about what feature to include and whatnot. Near the end of an article, there's an invitation to buy the game directly from the author on two floppy discs :-) The times have changed indeed. Although such an articles is of course hopelessly outdated, It still brings back memories. Being a teenager in the 80s, I was fascinated by hobby computers at the time, and it eventually led to me becoming a professor in computer science so many years later. My good old ZX Spectrum still is an object of intellectual curiosity in my office :-) 

 

Pekin 1900 offers an historical account of the siege of the Legations in Peking (now usually written as Beijing) in 1900 during the Boxer War. I've always had an interest in this conflict, even bought quite some books about it, and staging a convention game showing the Siege of the Legations is still something on my to-do list. The article has a nice graphical plan of the British Legation quarter.

See How They Run (Andy Callan) gives a number of ideas how to setup scenarios that deal with an already defeated army. A "Last Stand" or "Rearguard Action"-type of scenario is of course the obvious choice. The "Dunkirk Spirit" is even mentioned as an example of why such actions can remain in the national memory for a long time. More interesting is the idea of playing individuals that surrender, using a roleplaying game. Players could play the character of the defeated general, the old soldier, the gallant young officer, ... all having different objections of how to get out of situation in which their army has surrendered, and the individual has to make the most of it. Historical examples on which games might be based are given as well: The battles of Culloden and Maiwand.

The double spread of painted miniatures (which seems to become a feature in the magazine) is dedicated to the work of Tom McMillan. His technique? Black undercoat, Humbrol, oils over white for the horses, and flags made from paper.

Raid on Bomarsund (Stephen Allen)  describes the historical events in the Baltic Sea in the context of the Crimean War. A good read, but a bit difficult to produce a good wargame out of it, since we are dealing with naval actions, a landing operations, and a siege on a fort. Some vague wargaming suggestions are given, but it's more an inspirational article rather than "here's something ready to play".

Britannia '88 on the other hand is almost pure wargaming, and offers a mini-campaign putting Rome vs Gaul. Various tribes have rolled-for Temperament and Strength characteristics, as well as inter-tribal relations (friendly, neutral, hostile). Combined with some simple map-movement rules, and a good dose of freeform kriegsspieling (or so it seems), and enjoyable campaign was the result.

In Heroic Leadership on the Tabletop, Arthur Harman describes a subgame within a wargame to keep track of the actions of the general. Every actions leads to fatigue, fatigue leads to lesser movement and other side-effects. A nice approach, very inspirational, put perhaps a but too cumbersome. In the last paragraph the author states "I must conclude by emphasizing that these rules have not been playtested ... ". That is very believable! :-) The tables below only show a little of the detail to keep track of for the commanding officer of an army ... 

Cap'n Thou Art Sleepin' Below (Keith Benson) is a what-of article dealing with what would have happened had the Spanish landed with the Armada in 1588. It's a very extensive article, with various forces listed both for the Spanish as the English, but (again) relatively little wargaming information, apart from some general suggestions on how to play this as a campaign. My favourite suggestion: "Spanish forces fight at half effect for 24 hours following landing, and move at three quarter rate suffering seasickness." The photo of the battle shows some old cardboard Games Workshop buildings, and I do recognize them because these still are in my collection today!

The Battle of Freidlingen (Peter Wilson) takes a look at this battle from the Marlburian period. Lots of historical information, but again relatively little suggestions on how to turn this battle into a wargame.

Personalities (Charles Grant) is the kind of article I love. A whole system for generating charcater for one's wargaming campaigns is given, very much in the style of Tony Bath's Hyboria (which is also referenced in the article). The colour plates even show some of the figures I seem to recognize from later publications by Charles Grant. I was convinced the mounted lady in green was Tutzi, the Markgräfin of Wolfenbüttel, but apparantly it's a different figure (photo included from Charles Grant's "Wargaming Retrospective, published in 2023).

The Melee (Chris Peers) descries various types of melees and the chance of "winning" them. Melees are subdivided in 3 types: 1/ one side is almost sure of winning due to psychology; 2/ the melee is decided by differences in formation and or weaponry and 3/ a fight to the death. The author claims only the 2nd type is represented well in most wargaming rules.

In Solo Play (Peter Cox) a few mechanisms for playing solo wargames are explained, but it comes down to having some reaction tables (which are quite undecipherable to me :-)). It shows that having something in one's mind is actually quite different from communicating it to someone else, also in the sphere of wargaming :-)

Seperate Tables by James Oliver explains how to setup naval games using multiple tables, with the purpose of keeping both sides in doubt of where the other side is located. An umpire is recommended, and the whole article reads very much like how to set up a kriegsspiel-type naval game.

Overpowered by Numbers (Rod Rodenburg)  gives us an historical account of an action fought between the US Army and Indians in 1791. Not much information about how to to turn such an action into a good wargame is given ...

Wargaming on a Budget (Stephen Ryan) is the article whose content is re-iterated every so many years in the wargaming magazines. The advantages of using 1/72 plastics toy soldiers are given in great detail, with an extensive review of the various ranges available.

Again a pretty decent issue, and that leaves us with showing an advert of my choice. It's a coloured one (the first one in the issues so far), and shows two games which I remember fondly from my early gaming years: Axis & Allies and Shogun. It must have been 30 years - if not longer - since I've played an Axis & Allies game, but I do remember the excitement of setting up the game with all its little plastic playing pieces. I've never played it again since, and I don't have any plans to do so. I'm a firm believer that one must not try to relive the memories from one's youth, the danger being the good memories will disappear forever, since the game might turn out not to be that exciting by today's standards. Moreover, good memories are also strongly dependent on that particular period in one's life, and it's impossible to recreate that. So, we can indulge ourselves in nostalgia by looking at an advert, but let's not take it any further :-) 

All issues so far:

• Practical Wargamer 1 (Autumn 1987)
• Practical Wargamer 2 (Winter 1987)
• Practical Wargamer 3 (Spring 1988)
• Practical Wargamer 4 (Summer 1988)
• Practical Wargamer 5 (Autumn 1988)

Let's read ... Practical Wargamer #4 (Summer 1988)

We have arrived in the Summer of 1988 with the 4th issue of Practical Wargamer. I remember that this was the summer when I bought the Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition hardback book, and got my first actual wargaming miniatures, but I was still blissfully ignorant about historicals. But anyway, on with the issue!

I must say I do not like this cover at all. Not because of the topic or artistic merits, but because it doesn't show miniatures or a wargame in action. I strongly feel that a miniature wargaming magazine must have miniatures on the cover. On the other hand, the cover ties in to one of the articles, so at least it's not completely random ... 

Stuart's editiorial mentions several things: the positive responses; the binders which are forthcoming; no, PW will not go (bi-)monthly; and please subscribe to the magazine. The last paragraph says the cover is specially commissioned for this issue. So perhaps I should be more gentle than what I said about the cover before. But still ... I want to see miniatures on my magazine covers! :-)

Points to Ponder is a new regular feature. As the editor says "... to offer ides and suggestions to the wargamer which should be of some interest, irrespective of any period or army preference." Sounds good! SO what do we get this issue? A small discussion about colours (as in flags, not paints) and banners, and the suggestion that we should use rules that make it possible to capture or lose banners after a melee. ALthough we can always fold such effects into a bigger morale rule, I'm always in favour of making events such as the loss of colours explicit, since these provide noce details to the narrative of the game.

Cockpit by John Bennet describes a solo campaign system, with 6 countries arranged in a hexagonal map. The article describes how one can randomly generate diplomatic and economic events for each country, and how to run military campaigns. It's a good article with some good ideas, but focuses (to my taste) too much on detailed rule mechanics regarding movement and recruiting rather than on how to run (what we would now call) imaginations.

 

One Day Stand at Mons (Peter Clowes) is mostly a historical article describing the battle(s) around Mons during August 1914 between the British and the German army. I have a special interest in the military actions in Belgium during the early stages of WW1, so I (re)read this article with great interest. The "wargaming portion" of the article is rather short, and mostly describes figure ranges and saying "woodland and railway lines are quite important". So no ready-to-play scenario, although the accompanying map does provide some inspiration.

Fontenoy 1745 (again an action in current-day Belgium!) by Paul Stevenson gives a complete overview of this well-known 18th century battle. In this article, I do like the wargaming paragraph near the end, giving considerations for the wargamer who wants to play Fontenoy on his table. I like such an approach, since one can translate such considerations to one's own favourite ruleset.

The Armada Battles (Graham Dixey) provides the reader with a good historical overview of the various Armada battles against the English fleet in July 1588, with some nice photographs of Skytrex 1/600 ships.

The Indian Mutiny (Don Fosten) and The Wind of Change (Keith Benson) both cover the Indian Mutiny. The fist article focuses on the uniforms of both British troops and Mutineers, while the second zooms in on the history and some of the actions being fought. The second article starts with "The Indian Mutiny seems to have caught the imagination of wargamers", as if it's a new period that deserves attention. To me, it always seemed as if the Indian Mutiny was one of the "classic" periods in (colonial) wargaming, but perhaps I'm wrong and it truly was a new kid on the block in 1988. The article has quite a lot of useful wargaming information, with several game suggestions ranging from the full campaign to small skirmishes. And of course, no article about the Indian Mutiny can do without a photograph of the siege of Lucknow ...

In between both articles there's a two-page spread showing fantasy figures painted by Frazer Gray. I even recognize some of the Citadel figures which much later were present in my own fantasy armies!

Egypt 1801 (Arthur Harman) describes the various battles in Egypt between the British and the French. The article is mostly an historical account, and has relatively little wargaming information.

Redcoats and Rebels (Peter Helm) describes a replay of the battle of Eutaw Springs in 1781, one of the later battles in the AWI. Various maps give a nice evolution of the game. 

Modern Fighter Combat by Chris Peers outlines some approaches on how to approach modern air warfare. The setup described in Mike Spick's Air Battles in Miniature is mentioned, in which the table doesn;t show the horizontal, but rather the vertical plane to better model air combat. I have never tried this approach, but it has been on my to-do list for a long time ...

Dawn of the Dark Age (Simon MacDowall) gives a nice overview of the barbaric invasions of the 4th century Lots of facts and historical context, rather little wargaming information. "I believe that the best solution is to attempt to write your own rules ... " Ok!

Platoon Commander, written by Andy Grainger, provides an overview of (British) platoon tactics in WW2, with an example of how a platoon attack could unfold, and which could serve as the core idea for a good scenario. 

Rivers, Boats and Things by Charles Grant zooms in on how to use water features and craft in scenarios. A ready-to-play scenario is not included, bu there are some one-line scenario ideas.

Shire Battles (Michael Nursey) gives us two scenarios for fantasy games set in Middle Earth. I was sort of hoping of finding a reference to contemporary fantasy rulesets, but interestingly, a quick and easy (Although very generic) ruleset is part of the article. 

 

The magazine also has a questionnaire to poll the readers about their preferences. Quite useful, although these days this would be of course an internet survey.  But what strikes me is the number of questions. 64 questions, of which only 30 questions are abut wargaming. Who would have time for this today? Also, some of the 34 "surplus" questions probably wouldn't be permissable today under GDPR rules, such as asking for type of bankcards, type of cars in the household, annual income, what type of beers someone drinks, etc. Whatever any of these have to do with wargaming beats me, but probably these were sort of standard in consumer questionnaires 40 years ago. Let's hope we see some interesting results of this survey in the next issues!

 

As for my selection of an advert, here's one by Wargames Foundry, in which they announce their new Indian Mutiny range. Perhaps the Indian Mutiny was a "new period" in 1988 after all ...

Backlog of magazines added to the index

I added a handful of magazines to the index, mostly issues of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy. These are now up to date up to issue 130.

WSS is the only magazine I currently subscribe to, so currently this is the only magazine whose recent issues are added to the index.

Updating the magazine index ...

I'm updating the magazine index ... the Xmas break is a good opportunity to do that.

Not that I'm running behind that much. Mostly the latest issues of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy need to entered. Since I stopped my Miniature Wargames subscription some months ago, my influx of new issues is now manageable, although I did buy a stack of backcopies of Vae Victis in November.

I noticed that apparantly I never did receive WSS 125. Stuff to read (magazines, books, ...) is entering our house at such a pace that sometimes things remain unread for months, so it's sometimes not obvious if an issue of a particular magazine is missing. Anyway, a quick email to WSS was quickly answered, and a replacement copy is now in the mail. Thank you Karwansaray!

But what are my wargaming plans for 2024? Honestly, difficult to say. Games have been scarce in 2023, so at elast I should play more games. And my favourite convention CRISIS will be organized again in November (not in Antwerp, but in nearby Sint-Niklaas,). So something to look out for! Perhaps I might even set up a game there ... :-)

The end of an era ...

I didn't renew my subscription for Miniature Wargames this month.

I have been subscribed to Miniature Wargames ever since Henry Hyde took over as editor (and when Battlegames was folded in Miniature Wargames), back in 2013. I also have an almost complete collection of all issues since issue 1 (see also the Wargames Magazine Index).

But during the last year, my print magazines failed to arrive every month. Granted, the helpful people at the publisher's subscription services send me a replacement copy every time I asked for one, but this situation couldn't go on. It makes no sense to pay for a magazine that doesn't end up in your mailbox.

"What about a digital subscription?" Sure, but I like having a paper magazine in my mailbox and in hand, to sit down and read it. I know from personal experience I rarely read pdf magazines - they just pile up in unread digital archives. I spend most of my working day in front of computer screens, so I don't want to spend my evenings staring at screens as well.

I don't know why the magazine doesn't arrive in my mailbox. It could be anything, perhaps my local postman is snatching them up (maybe a wargamer?). Perhaps cross-channel mail has become unreliable since Brexit (that's one of the explanations the publisher gave me)? Who knows? But the end result is I'm not getting my magazines...

If due to Brexit, it's really ravaging my hobby. My magazines don't arrive anymore, all sorts of trouble with orders from the UK (basically stopped ordering from the UK, unless there's no other option), and two major conventions I used to attend and run games for stopped operating (not only due to Brexit, but it was a contributing factor).

So I guess I'll start collecting back issues from all sorts of 2nd hand sales from now on. Luckily, there's always WSS, for which I still have a subscription :-)

Going through a backlog of magazines

I finally found the time to go through a backlog of wargaming magazines and add them to the magazine index.

There are now approx 7800 articles indexed.

I make regular use of it myself, looking up old articles, and sometimes receive positive comments from people who do the same. So I'll keep up the work, although I can't claim completeness. But I consider this a lifelong project ;-)

More work on the Wargames Magazine Index!

A few years ago I started to index all my articles in my magazine collection. Then the magazine collection started to grow through many donations, and now I have a backlog of magazines I still need to enter into the database. Perhaps this Christmas break will allow me to catch on.

I have used my index quite extensively over the years, often to relocate some article I vaguely remember, or to hunt for a good scenario. Sometimes, I help out other bloggers when they are in search of a specific article. Every time this happens, I reread that particular magazine issue and update its entries a little bit in the database. So the database is a "living thing".

Nevertheless, the database remains far from complete. I don't have subscriptions to all current magazines, and certainly have not acquired all copies of extinct magazines. But I see this as a lifelong project. There's no rush.

A new problem has arisen though, and that is that British magazines have more difficulties making it across the channel. Blame you-know-what. Each time a magazine doesn't arrive I contact the relevant subscription services and a replacement copy often arrives a few days later. So those issues (usually in an ordinary non-transparant envelope) do arrive. Perhaps someone in my local post office is snatching all those magazines, but on the other hand, a friend says she has the same problems with a British gardening magazine she's subscribed to. Issues fail to arrive, ever since the you-know-what-agreement kicked in. All those benefits!

The Magazine index has exceeded 7000 entries

Today, I added the Miniature Wargames Nov 2020, and Wargames Soldiers & Strategy Oct/Nov 2020, to the growing index of my wargaming magazine collection. It has now exceed 7000 indexed articles.

I regularly search in the index myself to look for relevant articles, a task which was otherwise almost impossible without an index. E.g. I was reading about the ACW battle of 1st Bull Run/Manassas a few weeks ago, and wanted to know how wagamers had translated that battle to the gaming table. Last week I saw a documentary about the Hun invasion in Europe and the battle of Chalon in 451AD, and again the index proved to be useful to have a look at some articles.

So it is definitely has become very useful for me, and I hope others find it useful as well.

Oldest magazine so far entered

Thanks to Rich Clarke from Too Fat Lardies, I acquired a number of old Battle Magazines for the Wargaming Magazine indexing project.

I just entered the January 1977 issue of Battle, the oldest magazine issue currently in my magazine collection.

There's an interesting article in there by Charles Grant about setting up a wargames campaign. And even though it's 40 years old, it's still very much recognizable. Perhaps wargaming hasn't changed that much after all through the decades ... ;-)

Recent additions to the magazine index

I finished adding my remaining copies of Practical Wargamer to the Magazine Index. Only 6 issues are missing in my collection now, which I am currently hunting down on 2nd hand sites.

The missing issues are: March-April 1994, September-October 1995, November-December 1995,  Vol 11/2, Vol 11/6, Vol 11/9, Vol 13/1 (Although I am not quite sure Vol 11/9 does exist. It's a bit hard to recreate since a number of issues didn't have a proper date on them).

So if you have one of those issues to donate, please let me know!

I also have added the first issue of Battle For Wargamers, dated October 1977, and will add more issues in the coming days.

6000 entries in the index!

I've been working on a backlog the past couple of days, and the index has now reached 6000 entries!

Breakdown per issue:

• Miniature Wargames 2554
• Wargames Illustrated 1747
• Wargames Soldiers Strategy 474
• Practical Wargamer 398
• Battlegames 232
• Wargamers Annual 187
• Secrets of Wargames Design 103
• ... all others have less then 100 entries

Donations for completing missing issues are still welcome!

Wargames Magazine Index has now over 5000 entries

Several years ago I started an index of articles of all (miniature) wargaming magazines in my collection. It now has reached 5000 articles, but I still have a stack of magazines that were donated and I still have to enter. So the index will keep growing during the coming weeks and months.

My main motivation for compiling this index is for my own use. The wargaming literature has published so many scenarios, rules, campaigns ... over the years, I refer to them regularly for setting up my own wargames. Having a good index certainly helps in locating a specific article.

But I also think keeping an extensive library of wargaming magazines is worthwhile in itself. The history of our hobby needs to be documented, and this little project is a small contribution to that goal. Perhaps this view is coloured by my occupation as a research professor, but I honestly do think that building up a literature collection is an integral part of understanding where a specific field (in this case, wargaming) originated from and how it developed.

Granted, many wargaming magazines cannot be compared to academic publications, but even so,  they deserve to be archived, if not for the future gaming historian who wants to know where the dreaded "saving roll" came from, or when the first scenario on the battle of such-and-so was first published. Magazines are not the only source for this type of information (there are plenty of books and other types of publications as well), but they might help to establish timelines and give contextual information.

But anyway, back to the index. In case you are wondering what sort of information one can look up, you should go to the link above and experiment for yourself. But just to give a few examples ...

Here's a list of articles I wrote myself (filtering on the name of an author) ...

... and here are the articles that deal with the Waterloo campaign and have a scenario (filtering on both period and scenario) ...

... or the articles dealing with Frostgrave ...

... and here are the articles that have the random word "Faltenian" in the title (filtering on the occurance of a specific word in the title) ...

... and here are the 10 most popular periods (take with a grain of salt, since there are many subclassifications ...) ...

   ... and the 20 most prolific authors (also take with a grain of salt, since some periodicals favour some names) ...

... and a breakdown per magazine.

Hope this helps!

3 books added

I added 3 Featherstone books to the index: Battle Notes, Wargaming Ancient and Medieval Periods, Wargaming Pike-and-Shot. These are books that describe a specific historic scenario in each chapter, so I felt it useful to include them.

 I also keep adding old issues of Miniature Wargaming. Currently there are more than 4400 entries.

Latest additions to the Magazines Index

I've recently entered issues 1-19 from Miniature Wargames. These were issues published in 1983 and 1984. Issue 19 was the December 1984 issue, and so that means that year has now been completed.

Link: http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/p/wargames-magazine-database.html

Wargaming Magazines

This was posted some time ago on Youtube, but it's interesting to see how other people approach their wargaming magazine collection.

A new donation to the Wargames Magazines Database

Yesterday, long-time gaming pal Graham donated approximately 170 issues of Miniature Wargames to the Wargames Magazine Index project. There might be a few doubles in there with magazines already in the archives, but the donation also included a complete run of issues 1-50!

Many thanks!

Magazine Index now contains 3600 article entries

Almost 2 years ago I started the Wargames Magazine Index.

So far, each magazine had its own tab in the overall data sheet, but a few week ago, I added a compiled list (all entries in one big sheet), which greatly facilitates searching. This single sheet is updated automatically once every week.

Currently, this are the number of articles entries, counted by magazine. Multi-part articles usually have a single entry.

wargamesillustrated	1711
miniaturewargames	422
practicalwargamer	372
miniaturewargames w battlegames	272
wss	236
battlegames	232
wargannual	163
wargamesworld	56
vae victis thématiques	40
classicwj	38
secrets of wargame design	25
wargamersnotes	12
wargamesjournal	8

Visualized in a pie chart: