I finished Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915-1918 (easy read, chronological in approach, tight focus - like it says on the tin, assumes little foreknowledge of the reader, wonderful photographs, bibliography is mostly secondary sources) and I'm about 1/3 into The Italian Army and the First World War.
With some Christmas money still burning holes in my pocket, I picked up two related titles:
There are a small number of hex-and-chit wargames based on this theater of the Great War, so, unlike choosing a WWII boardgame, or even one for the fighting in the rest of Europe, the choices aren't paralyzing in their immensity.
Burning Mountains gets good reviews on BoardGameGeek and was among the least expensive options (it was on sale at On Military Matters - one of my favorite places to order from) and it doesn't seem terribly complex - but certainly more involved than my toy soldier approach to gaming. In addition to the game, the magazine includes a short article on the spring offensive modeled by the game.
Eventually I will field miniatures for Italy and Austria in WWI (in 1/72 most likely), but I will wait on that until I have a better idea of what about it I want to game.
The War in the Mountains is a lot slimmer and smaller than I expected (I didn't really look at that part of the description on Amazon). Had I paid full-price, I might be a bit irritated, but as I scored this used for a pittance, and it's in like-new condition, I'm not unhappy. Whether reading it is worthwhile, we shall see.
I still have a little money left and it's quite likely I'll pick up a few more books on the topic (I basically raided the bibliographies of the books I have and went looking for the titles). It's also spurred on my interest in WWII fighting in Italy - a fairly neglected topic in movies/documentaries (and wargames tables) compared to much of the rest of the war, albeit less neglected than the Southern Front in WWI.
No comments:
Post a Comment