Innehållsförteckning för April 2024 från Miniature Wargames

We have another great issue for this month: We have a WWI Trench Raid using Chain of Command; a piece on the joys of Paper Wargaming from Mr Kinch; some 18th century Imagi-Nations fun; and Command Decision goes Ancients! Then there’s a Cape Wars piece featuring the Xhosa and I’ve written a Hammer’s Slammers piece. Finally there’s a pair of Scratch building articles with both a Siege Tower and a Star Wars type desert base! As Robert Plant sings: “The winds of Thor are blowing cold; they’re wearing steel that’s bright and true, they carry news that must get through, oh: they choose the path where no-one goes…” So: game on. And take no prisoners! Get in touch tabletopgaming.co.uk MiniatureWG MiniatureWargames miniature_wargames_magazine…

In the last issue we had a Command Decision article from Jon Sutherland called Get off the Beach where he outlined some WWII Pacific scenarios and – to enhance this – he included some very nice shots of a game taken by the Author himself at a show which were not attributed. As anyone who reads this magazine knows, I take great pains to always credit creators of splendid looking games if I use some shots so the magazine apologises for dropping the ball on this one. The game which had been snapped was The Battle of Keiten organised by Skirmish Wargames and took place at Colours wargames show in 2007 where it won Best Demonstration Game. And very splendid it was too!…

INTRODUCTION In the early hours of the 3rd November, 1917, parties of German trench raiders inflicted the first combat casualties on the American Expeditionary Force in the First World War. Using Stormtrooper tactics that would come to epitomise the Spring Offensives launched in Spring 1918, the German force rapidly overwhelmed the American defenders, killing 3 and taking 11 prisoners. However, this first taste of combat also demonstrated that the American soldier would fight hard and tenaciously even under adverse conditions. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STORMTROOPER Every army in the First World War struggled with the problem of how to successfully attack enemy trench systems. For the German army the solution came in the form of the Stormtrooper. At the start of the First World War the smallest unit of manoeuvre…

◗ brigademodels.co.uk  ◗ £5 - £8.50 We are going to sneak in some vehicles with a Brigade scenery release! But first the buildings: a set of three Modern Warehouses. These 1000th scale industrial factory style constructions could have been built anywhere, anytime in the last fifty years or so. They’re the sort of structure that can be seen on any industrial estate worldwide: two are simple rectangular, pitched-roof designs while the third has the classic factory sawtooth roof look. Two of them have office structures attached and all three resin items are £5 the set. As an aside – and not building related at all – Brigade also have a pair of new Pacfed Grav vehicles in 1/100th (15mm). Both of these newbies have been in the Brigade 6mm range…

INTRODUCTION “We inflicted no more bloodshed than was necessary to impress on the minds of these savages a proper degree of terror and respect”. They say that history is written by the victors and that is certainly true of many of the conflicts between European and United States forces and indigenous peoples during the 19th and early 20th century. They even got to name the wars although today many of them are being renamed by the very indigenous peoples they fought. For example the conflicts between Europeans and the Maoris of New Zealand previously known collectively as The Maori Wars are now being called The New Zealand Wars or The Land Wars. Nowhere has this change been more noticeable than in the multiple conflicts fought during the 19th century in…

• Whole rule systems to take away and play • The latest news, previews and informative reviews • Practical ‘How To’ guides and tips to enhance your gaming experience • Everything you need to know about modelling materials, figures, wargames, shows and more Subscribe and save at: www.ttgami.ng/MWG_Salute51 Use discount code MWG/SALUTE51 online, or call 01778 391180 and quote this code T’s & C’s apply. *Recieve 1 free copy of Miniature Wargames magazine free of charge when you subscribe to a quarterly direct debit at £14.50.…

Wargames Atlantic has just released a hard plastic boxed set of WWI Russian infantry in 28mm. The five sprues in the box allows you to build up to 35 Russian infantry equipped for the Great War and suitable for the Russian Revolution and beyond. A huge selection of hat and helmet types allow you to model a variety of different troop (I counted 42 different heads on the sprues plus extra gas masks…) including officers, Reds, Whites, and gas masked troops. They can be equipped with Moisin Nagant rifles, officer’s can have pistols and sabres, and grenades are available so the sprues give you a wide range of lighter weaponry to choose from. So the great news is that – as we have only just finished our two-part Reds, Whites…

“I love the smell of paper in the morning, it smells like victory”. Alan Moore GROWING PAINS All in all, life was pretty good when I was a small boy, but it also had its frustrations. First amongst these and I recall the moment vividly was the realisation around the age of seven that being a knight was not actually a valid career option and that there was unlikely to be much opportunity to fight dragons and saracens in my future. It was the first of the modern world’s many grubby little betrayals and it burns fiercely in my breast still. The second of those many betrayals, which came hot on the heels of the first, was learning from my Dad after watching The Charge of the Light Brigade (the 1936…

INTRODUCTION While running a solo campaign between my 18th Century Imagi-Nations armies of Wittenberg and Begovia set in the fictional territory of Lower Rutenia, I was stuck for a scenario idea for the big ‘turning point’ battle. I was looking for a historical battle that I could turn into an appropriate scenario. I read about the marching divisional squares used in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1768-74. This tactic was employed at the battle of Kagul in 1770, when the Russian army of 40,000 defeated a Ottoman army of 150,000 (whose Tatar allies didn’t take part in the battle). This was definitely something different and I thought it would make an interesting encounter on the tabletop. I would have to carefully craft the scenario to work with the units in my…

◗ victrixlimited.com  ◗ £36 There’s something that can only be done well in styrene (as opposed to white metal) and Victrix’ latest release – an Early Imperial Roman Bolt-Shooter – is a classic example of just this. For nine quid each (four in a pack for £36) you can equip your Centuries with a Scorpion (or Manuballista) and chuck heavy darts all day long. Each Scorpion has the option of a two position slider (it may be modelled as loading or ready to shoot) and comes with four crew in various poses: they have eleven head choices plus arms with picks, axes and buckets so you can use them as a building and entrenching team. Every Bolt-Shooter comes with eight of the defensive ‘sudes’ (or double ended stakes) to stick…

◗ wargamesatlantic.com  ◗ £30 You realise how old you really are when something that started up during your lifetime in wargaming and was then ‘retired’ has been now re-issued. Warhammer came and went and was replaced with the Age of Sigmar and yet now we have (returned from the dead, as it were) the ‘new’ Warhammer Old World with reissues of the Tomb Kings army: vaguely Egyptian themed skeletons in plastic. But that’s not what I’m talking about here,… For about half the price of a Tomb Kings Army from GW you can buy three boxes of Wargames Atlantic Skeleton And Chariots. You could already buy the excellent WA boxes of pure infantry at £25 a set of 32, but now you can add to that with a supplementary set…

◗ James C. Goodall ◗ Osprey Publishing (2023) ◗ £50 ◗ 350 pages (hardback) ◗ ISBN:9781472856500 ◗ ospreypublishing.com The title (and its subtitle: 70 Years of the Us Navy’s Nuclear Submarines) says it all. This is a book about the USN’s nuclear submarines and covers all of them with captioned photographs of each. There is almost little text other than a page on the founder of the United States Navy’s nuclear fleet, a forward, an introduction and a few pages on the loss of USS THRESHER and USS SCORPIO. USS NAUTILUS is given a more detailed treatment with a description of its nuclear power plant and its commission. Towards the end, are chapters on the navy’s Area 51, a top-secret research centre during the Cold…

It has been over three years since John first asked me if I would be interested in producing a short series of tutorials showing how I build and paint wargame terrain and this must be one of the simplest scratch builds I have even produced. It all started when I was given a box of bits which included a spare bottle trap (used in plumbing and fitted under sinks: think ‘U’ bend). It didn’t take long before the seed of an idea was planted. I used part of the bottle trap and some scrap MDF to quickly mock-up this Sci-Fi inspired Dehumidifier, very much inspired by various film sets from early Star Wars films. The only issue I encountered was preparing the shiny white plastic for priming and painting. I…

She is a jaunty 18th century style rogue with more than a touch of Pirates of the Caribbean about her and none the worse for that! I have painted her in the two different ways, like I did last year but this year trying the new second iteration of Speedpaints. THE STYLE The first version is something that might suit people who do not have lots of time to commit to painting. Using the new V2 The Army Painter Speedpaints, which give a most satisfactory effect in much less time than normal painting, however they are not everybody’s cup of tea so I have painted a conventional version too. The conventional full paint job took about 14 hours, whereas this speedy one took 1½ hours. These are estimates of course,…

An entry from my 1971 diary reads: ‘Played a Waterloo wargame which took a long time. I was Napoleon, my brother was Wellington, and my cousin was Blucher. I was beaten just like the real thing’. I still remember that first Napoleonic game. It was played on the living room carpet with an assortment of Airfix 20mm plastic figures – mostly unpainted. Even American civil war figures had to be drafted in to make up the numbers. We used Donald Featherstone’s rules and had seen the Dino De Laurentiis film Waterloo with Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Wellington. That great movie started my fascination with Napoleonic Wargaming. By 1976 I had moved to London and discovered the Rye Stamp & Hobby Shop in Peckham run by Bill…

We’ve lost a few greats of the hobby in the last couple of months with Bryan Ansell and Graham Cummings of Crann Tara Miniatures both passing on but Bob Black informs us that Jack Alexander – who we featured just last year in the magazine – has also left us aged 95. Bob takes up the story: Jack started his colonial range in the 1960s and these stylish figures – with their endearing simplicity and charm – were appreciated across the world for six decades. Jack was one of the pioneers of the hobby, making 20mm to match and expand Airfix plastics. Happiest playing in the late 19th/20th century Jack expanded the range. Although still casting, painting and playing in his 80s Jack passed the Jacklex range to Mark Lodge,…

This month we talk to Ivan Congreve who’s a bit Star Trek mad! Ivan confessed that… “As a child I used to love watching Anderson programmes as well as Star Trek (what would nowadays be called Star Trek The Original Series or TOS). Over the years I have enjoyed making and playing both Anderson games and Start Trek games and – although I prefer to play one-on-one combat games and I have not been able to find a system that does this well for Trek.” “Some of my friends and myself decided to put on a Star Trek game for Salute a few years ago in 1/10th scale with a full bridge and corridor section to scale (madness…). That game went down well but as the years went on and we…

Q. Peter, most wargamers will know you as a prolific illustrator particularly of military subjects with dozens of books for Osprey and Helion, amongst many others. What’s probably less well known is that you’re also a wargamer. Could you tell us a bit about your wargaming hobby and how (or if) it’s informed your illustration work? A. For me wargaming, of a primitive kind, came before illustration. Like most wargamers my age the arrival of Airfix figures and the first Don Featherstone books set my fascination for military figures off in a more purposeful direction. I had always drawn a lot, but mostly inspired by tales of battle. My early illustration career was doing whatever came along, but I pounced on anything historical and was gradually able to specialise. Q. If I remember…

◗ deepcutstudio.com  ◗ €32.90 - €97.90 The latest Deep Cut Studio mat is Gothic Wasteland. This new battlemat is aimed at micro WH40K and all other sci-fi and postapocalyptic games. Although it’s pitched at 8mm scale Legion Imperialis or Adeptus Titanicus outings it would be excellent for any game that takes place in a ruined city environment: everything from mechs to Godzilla stomping! As usual from Deep Cut, the mat comes in various sizes and materials: 22×30 inches, 3×3 feet, 3×6 feet, 44×30 inches, 44×60 inches, 44×90 inches, 4×4 feet, 4×6 feet but also includes a new 5x4 feet battlefield size as well. The prices listed in the title are examples and range from a 3ft by 3ft in cloth for €32.90 to a 44inch by 90inch on neoprene mouse…

Command Decision goes off-piste again and this month we look at the allure (or otherwise) of ancients wargaming. Some of my first metal soldiers were Minifigs and Garrison 25mm ancients. Wargames Research Group rules dominated the field; they had army lists too, organised so you could cherry-pick your 1500 points of mayhem to inflict on your opponent’s 1500 points. With a bewildering spread of 5,000 years, ancient wargaming was, and has still now, the broadest brush of all wargame periods. By the time I started playing ancients in the late 1970s it was the foremost competition period, with very serious, po-faced opponents. With rules-orientated play it was closer to a game of chess than a social event designed for fun and engagement. Routinely, you would see Sumerians from 3,000BC duke it…

BACKGROUND ‘Hammer’s Slammers’ are a sci-fi mercenary company based round the eponymous novels of David Drake’s ‘Slammerverse’. There’s an extensive background in the books and this is further enhanced by support material including a board game from a few decades ago by Mayfair Games, at least one ‘program paragraph’ game book and several sets of wargames rules which, in full disclosure, I had a bit of a hand in writing… Set several centuries in the future – but based largely on Drake’s experience in the Vietnam war with the US military (the 11th Armoured Cavalry or ‘Black Horse Regiment’) – the ‘heroes’ of the story (although the ‘heroism’ part is obviously debatable) ride massive tanks (called ‘blowers’) which operate as very, very low-flying jet-copters (not really as hovercraft as they are…

Welcome, if you are reading this ahead of Salute and are thinking of coming, or have not visited for a few years, I urge you to try and make it. The day is a brilliant celebration of the hobby and several thousand passionate gamers will be attending. You will find an open minded mix of great people, wonderful games and awesome traders. Salute draws people from all over the world and it’s a fantastic opportunity to meet up with fellow gamers, share ideas, catch up with old friends and maybe even make some new ones. If you are reading this at the show, thank you so much for attending. We really do appreciate your support, study this guide carefully as it will help you navigate your way around the show…

While South London Warlords is, and always will remain, a predominantly wargaming club, there’s been a board-gaming presence from very early on. However, over the last half a dozen years boardgames have becoming increasingly common within the hallowed halls of St. Barnabas’s. As a fan of such ‘games in a box’ I thought I’d give my reasons that maybe we’re entering into golden age of boardgames and somewhere out there exists the perfect boardgame for each and every one of us. Even if you’re a wargamer. Gaming Agnostic You only play orks with their cobbled-together vehicles and green hordes rampaging across a grimdark universe, but your best mate has a deep and unshakeable love for Napoleonics, ever since he saw Waterloo in the big screen when he was but a…