Books! Glorious Books!

I have always loved books. Not just reading them, but as objects in themselves. Magazines too. Maybe even more so. But this post is about books.

My love of books and reading eventually led me to getting my Master of Science in Library Science. And working in the library industry. And getting "Book Nerd" tattooed on my knuckles.  

As much as I love books, I try not to hold on to too many of them, for a variety of reasons. 

I give my books to friends who might find them interesting, donate them to the library for sale, or, like many book addicts, I sell them and buy more books with the proceeds. Several of these were acquired in just that way.

In any case, here's what I'm currently reading, recently read, and acquired mostly recently.

Current reading:

As the cover curl hence the thumb to hold it down) attests, I have been reading A History of the Great War off and on for a few months. Each chapter, while related to those before and after, stands alone for the most part. It's a long book - I'm on page 390 and there's 200 pages or so, not including the appendices - so I read other books as well between chapters.

Recently read:

For example, Pellucidar.

This is the second book in the series, and the events follow after At the Earth's Core.

This is the 1st ed. cover. Not the one I have!

Both books are quite fun reads, but this one offers a number of wargame scenario possibilities from man-to-man with a handful of figures per side (or a handful of figures vs a single prehistoric creature) on up, even "naval" (a stretch maybe to call it that).

As a setting it's near perfect - never mind the physics impossibilities - you have monsters (mostly per-historic types), a variety of human tribes/nations, non-human peoples, etc. with limited technology (at least initially). 

There's an hint of optimism about the goodness of "modern" civilization common to the era it was written, but Burroughs tempers it. That bit is a little preachy, even as I agree with the message, but it's maybe a page or two total, so I excused the heavy-handedness (I love reading Burroughs but a great author of Western literature he probably is not). 

I don't think this is a dearly held axe to grind, but I imagine it's the inevitable reaction of a human being to the massive slaughter taking place on the killing fields of WWI which had begun less than a year prior to the original publication of Pellucidar. 

https://peginc.com/product-category/tour-of-darkness/

I haven't read Tour of Darkness in its entirety, but that's not why I bought it.

Although written for Savage Worlds, I bought it for scenario/encounter ideas for Fall of Delta Green. At $9 USD on Abe Books, I couldn't help myself.

Admittedly, I skipped reading the Savage Worlds-specific stuff because I won't be using it.

This book has a decent summary of the history of the war in Vietnam, a history of its version of "Weird Vietnam War", specific traits for Savage Worlds, a decent sized list of weapons and equipment (Fall of Delta Green has more though), some random scenario tables and such that are always useful, and a mini campaign, which can be ported to your preferred system if desired.

Savage Worlds explicitly supports a wargaming mode of play on the tabletop - a true skirmish game, unlike playing D&D with miniatures. Indeed, the setting for Tour of Darkness is explicitly military personnel in country (compare to Fall of Delta Green which covers the world in the 1960s, not just Vietnam), which basically cries out for a wargaming treatment, and the supplied campaign assumes a mix of RPG sessions and wargaming sessions.

Recently acquired (as recently as two days ago) but not yet read:

More Burroughs.

And yet more Burroughs.

I will buy any paperback Burroughs I find at the used bookstore. Especially if it has an awesome cover. They may not be the greatest things ever written, but I find them consistently entertaining and fuel for both RPGs and wargames.

Acquired for Fall of Delta Green background. My best friend suggested this to me months ago and I had added it to my shopping list, but never pulled the trigger.When I saw it suggested also in Fall of Delta Green, it reminded me it was on my list and I picked it up (used copy, of course).

I know embarrassingly little about the SCW. Alex, at Up the Blue! made it easy to pick a place to dive in. As soon as I saw this cover, I knew I was buying it - I have a thing for older looking paperbacks.

Roger of The Hobby Blog for Model railways, Wargaming and Military modelling suggested this one. Found for a steal on Abe Books. I have my eye out for some Lego-style British paras (Germans of all sorts are easy to get)

Morale and the Italian Army During the First World War

 I recently finished reading Morale and the Italian Army During the First World War by Vanda Wilcox. 

Looking back at my blog, I see that I acquired it a little over a year ago, just before I traveled for my dad's funeral. I started to read it at some point - I don't think it was on that trip despite my intentions, but I did start it earlier this year. 

And then stopped - no fault of the book, I just had too many other books going at the same time. In fact, once I started it this time around, I found it difficult to put down.

(for the tl;dr you can scroll down to the Conclusion section)

Why the (mostly) peasant soldiers fought at all, often with valor, for years, in terrible conditions, is one thread driving the inquiry of this book. The other thread being the converse - what drove these men to perform acts of indiscipline, when they otherwise tended to be resigned to do what they were ordered or what duty commanded, 

Recall that Italy had only been a united country for a little over 50 years at the time. 

Duty was owed to the farm, the family, the Church, and the village long before it was ever owed to the state. Indeed, peasant males had only been granted the right to vote in one election prior to the war (I may be quoting the number incorrectly, but it wasn't much more if not just one). It is on the negotiation of this complex web of expectation and duty that Wilcox focuses. 

To facilitate the examination of the factors involved, the book is helpfully split into two parts.

The first looks at the role of systems external to the soldier - the military organization itself and the society in which it, and more importantly, the soldiers, existed. Official histories and studies of morale and discipline form the bulk of the footnotes here. 

The second part deals with the internal - the psychology and personal beliefs of the soldier - and how they see things themselves (which, of course, is deeply effected by the military and the society from which they come), supported by heavy reliance on  diaries and letters.

Throughout the book, the Italian army (both its policies but also the psychology of the soldiers) is compared and contrasted to other armies during the same period. If your primary interest is in another Entente or in one of the Central Power armies, they probably make more than one appearance either in the main text or in one of the many footnotes. 

Not surprisingly, Italy's draconian system of discipline doesn't come out unscathed and not just in hindsight. Compared to the other nations in the war, the Italian approach to morale and discipline throughout much of the war was unenlightened and inconsistent at best.

Cadorna - who blames socialism and defeatism in the ranks for failures of command - gets a fair amount of well-deserved criticism, while Diaz, unsurprisingly, receives a more positive assessment (though he doesn't escape criticism). This is pretty standard - although I know he has his supporters, no author I have read has praised Cadorna without reservation. On the other hand, Diaz often gets plenty of praise and back slapping simply for not being as inhumane as Cadorna (a low bar if ever there was one).

At times, the text is academic (i.e., dry) but still eminently more readable than most Osprey titles in my opinion, and I am inclined to seek out other works by the author as I find their tone and writing style suits me.

The bibliography is vast and varied, and I've already been looking out for copies of the English-language titles.

Unfortunately, for me and anyone else who does not read Italian, many, if not most, of Wilcox's sources are written in Italian, even excluding the personal diaries and private letters which are obviously so. Despite the limits this imposes on my follow-up reading, I find this citation of a mass of Italian-language sources lends additional credence to the arguments Wilcox makes.

Conclusion

In case you're wondering if this is a book for you: 

For a wargamer, there is little here directly applicable to most wargames' tables. The one exception I can come up with is through the use of chance cards, which could bring in morale effects thematically tied to reasons given in the book. But you probably don't need this book to imagine some of them.

If your interest in WWI is casual or at a higher level - the causes and effects of the war generally, big personalities, major battles - or you are hoping to find a source of scenarios for a wargame, this book is not for you.

However, if you're interested in the discipline and morale questions of "what makes soldiers follow orders" or conversely "what makes soldiers act with indiscipline" with or without emphasis on the Italian army of WWI, there is something here for you.

If you, like me, are invested in learning about the Great War as fought on the Southern Front, and you've already read one of the many overview books on the subject (if, for example, Caporetto is news to you, perhaps don't start with this title), then this is a must read for a deeper dive.

 

Expansion Continues

Upon return home from my road trip (the subject of a future post), some additional acquisitions were waiting for me.

First up, four more Britain's Cossack figures - bringing my total for my "Great Game Gone Hot" Russians to eight. Of course, the Russian enclave on Venus has no doubt sent along some Cosscacks to deal with the Venusian inhabitants and to keep both the British and French in check.

 To my surprise, I won an eBay auction for them and managed to spend less than $50 USD shipped. The officer may have had their horse painted? It's very flat white. I don't really care - just noting for the purists out there.

They will make my Russians more mobile than my British, which will allow for some differentiation between two otherwise identically constructed forces. I really should look for some French cavalry.

Perhaps more importantly, to me at least, they put me within reach of being able to field the "Russia 1812" scenario  in Stuart Asquith's Guide to Solo Wargaming. I've done very little reading on the Napoleonic era, but what I did to was focused on 1812 and the attempted invasion of Russia. I have long wanted to do some sort of game around the French retreat.

Asquith's scenario is small (12 figures a side), and while I don't have 12 Cossack cavalry suggested, 8 is close enough. Eventually, I'll acquire some French, and finally scratch that itch perhaps. Perhaps I'll win another auction someday and reach the 12 Cossack cavalry suggested.

Additionally, two books I had ordered prior to departing arrived.

Unsurprisingly, they are titles to support my interest in the Italian Front in WWI. Both of these have been on my "want list"for several years, and while shopping for books for my trip, I found that they could be had for less than previously priced. Unfortunately, they would not arrive anytime close to my departure (indeed, they arrived just before my return).

I have only flipped through each at this point but both contain substantial numbers of photographs which are making it more possible for me to picture the fighting on that front.

Although part of the Images of War series, Sopwith Camels Over Italy 1917-1918, contains a good bit of text to support the many photos of pilots and their flying machines. There is very little in English on the air war over the Italian Front, so this is a valuable addition to my library for that alone. It also happens to line up with my interest in the wider War and justifies my acquisition of a Sopwith Camel for my planned British force for 1918 Italy. 

The First World War in the Alps has far more photos than I realized - many depicting life in the trenches as well as combat. With an unblinking eye, the horrors of war are on sometimes gruesome display within. And while I find it fascinating, the chapter on the recovery of an Austrian soldier, frozen and preserved in the ice many decades after the Great War ended, is a little too well-supported by pictures for my squeamish self.

So, while I'll probably hurry passed certain photos in the book, overall it's a welcome resource with images not contained in any of the other sources I have read.

News from the Southern Front!

 As I noted previously, the Italian MG team had jumped ahead in the queue.

The Italians have now completed phase 1!

Three Bersaglieri companies and one company of Arditi.

They are also a bit into phase 2 with the cavalry half-way finished. As an aside, I really need a better way to photograph an entire force at once. 

I am traveling this week and acquired some books for the trip, on theme for this post:

Morale and the Italian Army during the First World War is a well-researched, academic work that I am quite excited to read. The bibliography appears to point to mountains of future sources to read.

Counts and Commoners is fiction - about a Brit and an Austrian, fighting over the Italian Alps, written by a guy from Georgia, USA.  It has been on my radar awhile, as it gets decent reviews, but I've never pulled the trigger. The price was down to some 75% of the usual, so I snagged it. 

The author does appear to have done their homework at least as far as the planes are concerned. A quick flip through showed there are plane statistics and diagrams in the appendices. 

I had thought I would pick up Tunstall's The Austro-Hungarian Army and the First World War but the reviews are pretty dreadful. Which is a shame, as the Italian book in the same series has proven quite a worthwhile acquisition (so much so that, I replaced a copy I had let go of). I'm still on the lookout for something that covers the war from the Austro-Hungarian side of things, with at least equal focus on the Southern Front, if not entirely (Hell in the Trenches is great for this but is focused on assault troops) but that isn't out of my reach price-wise.

In any case, these books will accompany me on my trip so that even if I can't paint or game, I can still participate in my hobby,

Interesting Book Find

As much as I prefer online shopping by and large, there is something lost when it comes to book shopping - the serendipitous discovery possible only when one is browsing shelves and the eye stumbles on a some hitherto unknown (to you) title on a topic of real interest.

While out on a Dollar Tree run (I wanted some of their cheap brush sets for base coating), we swung by a Half-Priced Books store. I wandered to the Military History section ter taking a detour thorough Science Fiction / Fantasy in hopes of finding the next book in Burroughs's Venus series (my hopes were dashed). As usual, the WWI section was skimpy at best, with mostly general histories and the "illustrated encyclopedias".  Although I don't have one, and probably ought to pick one up for easy reference,  my eyes soon fell upon this and I knew it was coming home with me:

White War, Black Soldiers: Two African Accounts of World War I contains two accounts of the war, written by African soldiers and these accounts were previously only available in French. I'm quite excited to read it for a fresh perspective on the war.

I make no promises one way or another about a Senegalese unit for my wargames. 

Something Old, Something New

The "something old" referred to in the post title is this used copy of One-Hour Wargames.

I purchased the book on Kindle when it was first published and have always found it annoying to use on any device - that's more of a me problem than an issue with the e-book format. After finally realizing that I turn to this book on a monthly if not weekly basis, I decided the investment in a second-hand print copy was well worth the cost.  

It is a joy to behold. The ease of which I can flip to a desired scenario or rules section without navigating to a bookmark menu is unparalleled!

The "something new" is a Tehnolog figure. I don't know what she is. She has fangs, so vampire? She came with some exceptionally buff skeleton-headed types. The latter were given to my son.

She's for yet another project I have in mind - using Maudlin Jack Tar's  The Quests of Brin the Barbarian. This is something I have wanted to return to for sometime, but in 54mm rather than the 28mm I had played it with previously. 

In any case, I blame the growing fascination with this idea at least in part on TheReferee's Fantasy Thread over on Little Wars Revisited. The other influences being Quantrill's Toy Soldiers and another Maudlin Jack Tar entry, Swords, Sorcery, and Squares. Of course, I got started gaming with D&D so there's always a place in my heart for small bands of murder hobos seeking fame and fortune and facing dangerous foes.

Commando: For Action and Adventure

Previously, I mentioned my purchase of the Commando Comics Airborne Assault collection. It was very much worth the price. The book contains three stories, each with inspiration for small skirmish scenarios - the kind with a squad or less per side (alone or as part of a larger action). They read like gritty war movies with the benefit that you can more easily go back to them for reference.

My enjoyment of the book led to the acquisition of the D-Day: Fight or Die! collection, a near 800 page monster of 12 issues. It was an eBay score of $12, well under the price others were asking, with the benefit of helping a charity shop - a win all around.

Each of the stories I've read so far has been a font of ideas - both for characters (important when playing with a handful of figures) and scenarios.

I highly recommend both of these books to anyone looking for ideas for smaller scale skirmish games or even WWII RPG (like Operation: Whitebox). 

Eventually, I will acquire more of these Commando collections - the Desert Rats book in particular. From what I gather, there may be some individual WWI issues as well.  I did briefly consider a subscription as it's an ongoing publication, but the per issue price is beyond my means and that makes the collections an even better bargain.

Research, Loosely Speaking

I recently finished reading The British Army in Italy : 1917-1918, by John Wilks and Eileen Wilks. The obvious focus is on the British involvement in Italy, which is largely unknown by the general public. However, it's a well-researched, even-handed treatment of the last year (and a bit) of the war there, with the French garnering a bit of coverage, and with the authors going almost out of their way to recognize the Italian contributions to victory over Austria and their presence, small as it was, on the Western Front as well.

It's an easy read with plenty of details of interest to a wargamer and I recommend it highly. Warning: you will probably want to invest in some WWI British if you don't already have some in your Italian Front collection. 

Or maybe that's just me.

Turning to the second of the World Wars, I've decided to move my attention away from the Eastern Front (as far as figure gaming is concerned) - where it has been firmly lodged for sometime - and spend some time with my smaller European Front collection. I try to avoid gaming with the Americans much, as I feel they get an outsized share of attention in the media productions, so that leaves my British airborne. However, I know almost nothing about their exploits beyond repeated viewings of A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day. 

As it turns out, there are only a few movies that feature them. (Most of my WWII research is just watching movies, not reading actual histories. WWI is almost entirely the opposite by necessity.) Last night, I watched 1953's The Red Beret, starring Alan Ladd. It's a little contrived to explain why a Yankee is in the British Parachute Regiment. And, like a lot of movies about war, there's a tired romantic subplot - although it does at least eventually serve some narrative exposition purposes in this one.

 

However, while it's no A Bridge to Far, and at times seems outright preposterous (the Germans just run in waves to their deaths like they never heard of machine guns before), it's entertaining and the two engagements it covers provide fodder for the wargamer. I wouldn't make a huge effort to watch it again, but if I turned on TCM and it was on, I'd watch it.

Work in Progress Update to Keep Me Motivated and Some Other Bits and Bobs

Part two of my weekend skirmish game is delayed to share a work in progress shot of my latest batch of Russians. They are slowly inching their way towards completion - although enough remains that I can't predict when they'll be finished. My hope is that they will be done by month's end.

So close, but yet so far.

 

I am eager to move on to my WWI project, so once these are done, despite my current listening to Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game, I will clear the decks for the first handful of Austrian figures. And probably field this unit in a game for giggles.

 

Speaking of WWI, for my birthday, I received this wonderful volume as a gift: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of World War I.

I'm not sure what kind of caption this needs.

I also received a few Playmobil gladiators which I had been coveting. The dueling posts on Poundstore Plastic Warriors inspired me. My son has already laid claim to the lion for our non-wargame play.

The lion will not be harmed in any game I play.

eBay Score

Apparently, I have had an eBay account for 21 years (my account is old enough to buy liquor in the US, but not rent a car). As a reward for my signing up and taking a chance on the plucky fledgling internet auction site (when deals were plentiful but also more scams), I was given a $25 gift coupon.

To my surprise, there was no catch, other than figuring out which of the 200 items in my watch list I should apply it to!

As it turns out, I messed up the first order and the coupon wasn't applied. Oops guess I better find something else to order too! (I swear it was an honest mistake.)

For a great price, I found Henry Hyde's The Wargaming Compendium..

I already had the e-version - having picked it up when it was on sale for Kindle for around $3 USD. I enjoy Mr. Hyde's writing style - it reminds me of the classic wargaming books that I find so appealing. However, it is *far*too massive to read on a phone for my tastes.

Glad to have this in my collection (even as I'm thinning out my stuff before I move, I'm adding things that I know I will use for a long time) and looking forward to pouring over it on and off this weekend.

2020 Atlanta Military Figure Society Show Haul

This past weekend was the annual Atlanta Military Figure Society show in Marietta, GA. While there are terrific displays of model building and painting prowess, my interest is almost entirely in the vendor area.

Osprey titles abound at this show and most can be had for a fiver (USD) or less. I try to stick to topics of immediate personal interest lest I blow my entire hobby budget for the year. I suppose if I was smart, I'd have bought quite few to sell as bundles on eBay.

In any case, the most interesting looking of those I picked up is Women at War: 1939-1945 from the Men-at-Arms series. I have not run across it before when rooting around piles of Osprey books. The single picture of  Soviet bomber aircrew ("night witches") would have been enough on its own to get me to purchase it but it's also a topic vastly underrepresented in my small collection of history books.

I blame Rommel for this next purchase. Had I not read Infantry Attacks, I doubt I'd have bought it.  The German Army 1914-18 will come in handy though if I decide to field some Germans in Italy:

This next one requires some explanation.

There I was minding my own business a few weeks ago, when I read a very simple point-to-point campaign for Kursk. One of the campaign tracks involves following Grossdeutschland. A look into some of the map points on Wikipedia led to learning about an encounter involving the recon battalion associated with GD. That lead to finding a Spearhead order of battle for 1943 for the GD recon battalion. And the next thing you know, I'm obsessed with fielding one a 1 stand = 1 company, even on my tiny table where an armored car can race across it in a handful of turns.

Figuring I should learn more about the vehicles, I grabbed this for $2.

Somewhat related, since my Eastern Front tanks are 1/38, I ordered a 1:43 sdk. 222 on eBay. It's cute and little and goes "hee hee hee". But I was OK with that, even if it's dwarfed by my Deetail Kubelwagen.

However, a vendor at th show had the 21st Century 1/32 model of the sdk. 222 for just $18 USD marked down to $15! Even if I didn't want it, I would have bought it! (in retrospect I should have bought the other vehicles and sold them on eBay. smh.)
 

 

So now I have two scales of 222. This is no unusual in my collection so I will just roll with it and pretend I'm not kept up nights debating which scale vehicle to settle on.

The last item I picked up at the show was an unpunched copy of Battle for Moscow - a game available freely online and one that has been on my want list for years, even before I ever played a hex-and-counter game.

I don't like printing my own game components - cutting out counters from cardstock is tedious, but the real issue is they aren't thick enough. You have to mount them and that's just too much work, especially now that I have several other professionally produced games.Finding an actual printed copy though meant purchase was a no-brainer:

I'm not convinced I'll go back again next year - mostly because it's a long ride given how little time we spend there. And while there are deals to be had, something about the atmosphere felt off-putting to me. Not really appropriate here but it's just something I noticed. We'll see if I still feel the same next year.

The next big event on my sort of gaming related calendar is the WWII Days in Peachtree City in April.

Book Review: Infantry Attacks by Erwin Rommel

This is the edition I have. I could do without the bad metal band logo title font.

In Infantry Attacks, Erwin Rommel presents his recollections of his service in WWI, from Belgium and France to Romania and Italy, with analysis and lessons to be taken from the encounters. Reminiscent at times of a "war story" being told over a glass of brandy, the actions described are often exciting, if obviously biased towards his beloved Wurtembergers. Importantly, Rommel paints a picture of movement  - even when describing trench warfare - for a war regarded popularly as a static affair and he supports his narrative with simple, but useful and ample, maps. With few exceptions, the chapters are stand-alone vignettes and it is possible to skip around to one's geographical area of interest, if so desired.

It is not necessary to be familiar with WWI in any great detail to appreciate this book, but it is not a survey of the conflict; it will most certainly spark interest in further research if this is your starting point. If WWI is a gaming interest, there are plenty of suitable scenarios for the table described, regardless of your chosen level of representation - he covers encounters ranging from a handful of men to an entire regiment in size. If The Great War is not a gaming interest, Infantry Attacks could well change your mind.

The Great War Reading Pile

The last few days have brought two much wanted additions to my bookshelf.

The first, The British Army in Italy :1917-1918 by Wilks and Wilks is a dip of the toe into allied support during the later stages of WWI on the Italian Front. The other book on this topic  that looks a good choice is 'Allies are a Tiresome Lot: The British Army in Italy in the First World War by Dillon. I suspect there's a good deal of overlap between the two, but never the less, I'll probably read both.

Undoubtedly this will lead to the fielding of some British troops at some point. These turn up pretty regularly at the local model figure show, and I should be able to grab a bunch used for just a few dollars if I choose to go down that road.

The next one was inspired by an eBay find that I haven't pulled the trigger on yet( Sopwith Camels Over Italy 1917-18: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives by Franks). It got me thinking about how little has been mentioned of the air war in Italy in any of the books I have read thus far.

Enter Italian Aces of World War 1 by Varriale, an entry in the Osprey Aircraft of the Aces series. This book isn't really about the air war per se, but provides brief biographies, including wartime accomplishments, of Italy's top fliers. Typical of Osprey, the color plates are worth the price of admission. There are, I believe, two companion Austrian books in the series that I've added to my list in my effort to read all of the English language corpus on the Great War in Italy.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't considering fielding some WWI air wargames. The Wings of War models are stunning, if perhaps a tad pricey, but Irregular offers some planes in their 6mm line at a price where building up a fleet of a variety of planes becomes a viable option. Of course, then I have to paint them. The other difficulty is finding some solo suitable air wargame rules- I know several have been written up in Lone Warrior for WWII, but I'll have to dig through the back issue table of contents to see if any exist for WWI.

The final book I'm listing here was a Christmas present that I realized I haven’t mentioned yet but feel merits some acknowledgement. 

MacKay's Asiago is part travel guide of the battlefields today / part history and is filled with wonderful maps throughout that could be useful in campaign play (mind, I haven't read the book yet, just thumbed through it).

As I've mentioned before, I'm reading my way through Rommel's Infantry Attacks which covers, in part, his time in Italy during WWI.. For anyone interested in the period, the book is full of everything from small skirmishes between a handful of men to battalion attacks with support, all well detailed and many are suitable for the wargame table.

Stuart Asquith's Wargaming World War Two : First Impressions

I recently found and purchased a copy of Stuart Asquith's Wargaming World War Two online. I very much enjoyed his writing in his solo wargaming book and the WWII title was mentioned in several remembrances that I read with his recent passing. For the sum of less than $6 USD shipped it was a no-brainer.

This won't be a detailed review - as I haven't read it in its entirety yet - but perhaps at some point I should write one, as I could find little about the actual contents.

It seems fairly complete with a potted history, details about various armies, the various arms, weapons data, and rules for using it all.

Sample vehicle data.

It's probably not the latest research on the weapons and armies, but how much new has come to light about things that were already 50 years old at the time it was written?

The writing appears to be clear and concise, but friendly.

There are a couple of scenarios, too, so it's a complete package.

Desert scenario map.

I probably won't end up using the rules themselves, but they will serve as inspiration without a doubt. My first glance reaction is that they have a Battle-like approach of explaining rationale, albeit in a condensed manner and I always enjoy that kind of discussion.

Charge into Horse and Musket?

This arrived yesterday:

It is a reprint paperback copy - I could not afford an original.

I am maybe 20 pages in and already I find myself dreaming of either completing my languishing 1/72 Great Northern War armies (admittedly an earlier period than the book seems focused on - I have a few dozen infantry painted on each side, last touched several years ago, but I hate painting horses, so my dragoons and reiters are scarcely primed, let alone finished, same for artillery, however I have enough for both sides to easily play the action at Blasthof bridge once painted) or revisiting a dormant dream of fielding some Seven Years War armies (maybe not for Charge! The advanced game seems to require quite a few figures - although I have suitable Risk figures for the task).

I already had in mind a very small Napoleonic project, for which I blame Mr. Asquith's Guide to Solo Wargaming retreat from Russia scenario. This is something I had wanted to game many years ago but never made the investment in.

There is an itch growing that will require scratching.

That aside, I think lesson here is that old wargaming titles are a danger to one's limited hobby time.

Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia

This recently arrived in my mailbox and it has been worth far more than the modest purchase price already.

Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia, Department of the Army, July 1953

Now, I'll be the first to note that you can find this publication free of charge online- legally from https://history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/22/22-2.html (thanks to Chris for the link!)- but I wanted a print copy. I tend to hate reading long form things, like books, on a screen after working on a screen all day.

The fold-out maps are great:

And there are many included in the pages of the book itself:

They're all just begging to be used for scenarios or campaigns (and the text gives all of the details you could want).

[At that point, I'll probably print them from one of the online versions. ]

A New Book for the Wargame Shelf

There are only a handful of published wargaming books that deal specifically with solo wargaming and the other day, I finally picked up the second one published (at least that I know about), a copy of Stuart Asquith's Military Modeling: Guide to Solo Wargaming.

Admittedly the coverage of solo gaming methods feels kind of skimpy and light on details. It's certainly not revelatory for anyone with an Internet connection. When it came out, however, in 1988, Featherstone's classic on the subject had been out of print for some time and I'm sure this book was undoubtedly helpful in encouraging someone to try their hand at solo gaming.

Had I encountered this book in 1988 it would have blown my mind - I had an interest in wargaming after an encounter  some years earlier with what I believe now was likely a Featherstone book, but my mind could not conceive of how I would play such games by myself. I had managed to wrangle my friends - who were all much cooler than me - into playing Dungeons & Dragons  and it seemed best to quit while I was ahead.

In any case, it's not 1988, and I have access to the Web, a reprint of Featherstone, and a back issue collection of Lone Warrior going back about 10 years, so I bought this out of curiosity, not for solo mechanisms. The stand out for me is that there are quite a few scenarios for inspiration, all the way from"Small Scale Actions" to a sample programmed scenario borrowed from Grant's book - to my mind, these make the book worth the price of admission  (which in my case, was less than $9 USD).

For a more in-depth review, here's a review on the Lone Warrior site.

Atlanta Armor, Figure, and Modeling Contest and Exhibition Acquisitions

This weekend was the Atlanta Armor, Figure, and Modeling Contest and Exhibition. I went a few years ago and scored quite a bit of stuff, but last year at their new location, the vendor room seemed kind of empty, and I only came away with a single Deetail archer. Consequently, I set my expectations very low this year.

I was pleasantly surprised!

There were quite a few Osprey and similar books for sale for very reasonable prices (this one was $5) but I stopped myself from buying them as none of them were on my want list. This one wasn't either, but it's a topic I've been thinking about lately, so it was fortuitous.

The War Game is a book I've seen on Amazon and have always been curious about. For the price (I think it was $6), it was hard to pass up. The history of the battles featured is interesting, but I really enjoy the pictures of the games contained within - they capture a bygone era of wargaming in full color (the book was published in 1972).

Military Modeling was the one I was happiest to snag (another $6). I don't recall ever having read it and I know it's something of a classic. I like Featherstone's writing style, so even had it cost more, I would have nabbed it.

Here's a closeup of the figures I picked up:

The left three are from Conte. The two on the right are Super Deetail. I will be painting their berets, pants, boots, and webbing to match the Conte as close as I can. I picked up two in case I mess up the first one terribly.

They may not be 100% accurate as WWII paratroopers with PIATs but that's what they're going to be used as. This will give my British paras some anti-vehicle capability. I will get them on the table soon with the figures I already have, probably using One Hour Skirmish Wargames.

Mail call!

My birthday was about a week ago and my generous parents gifted me some money to treat myself.

I am leaning towards spending a bit of it on improving my table to my current aesthetic preferences (more on that agonizing process later) but a number of books called to me as well.

The first arrived today, The Portable Napoleonic Wargame by Bob Cordery:

There was a time in the distant past (nine years ago - wow) where I considered getting into Napoleonics, after reading some of the Sharpe books and watching some of the shows. I never pulled the trigger on figures - something didn't quite click for me. Even now, I have little interest in starting the period, except maybe at the level of of gaming in One Hour Skirmish Wargames to play Sharpe-like games.

However, I wanted to see how Mr. Cordery approached scaling his rules to handle representing different sized forces and although I've only skimmed the book briefly, it is exactly what I had hoped for in that regards.

As I consider how I might wargame WWI on the Southern Front, division or higher level games have crossed my mind and I think similar adjustments can be made for the PW rules covering later eras. I also think this book is a jumping off point to modifying PW to cover earlier Horse & Musket eras - in my case, I have a number of 1/72 Great Northern War Russians and Swedes languishing in a box,, that are far more likely to see the table with a low figure count rule set (I really don't like painting cavalry).

In the words of old timey smooth talking salespeople, this book would be a bargain at twice the price.

WWI Italian Front Research

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.