By request - for Allan Mountford: On Casualties, by Duncan Macfarlane

These scans are of an article which appeared in Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers magazine in November 1972.

Gary Gygax on Fantasy Battles

From Wargamer's Newsletter #127, from October 1972.

Balkans 1919 from Miniature Warfare June 1972

Nowadays when a range of figures for most conflicts you can think of exist somewhere in some scale or other, it is hard to remember earlier times when conversions, paint jobs and imagination were often required. Anything outside the mainstream seemed unbelievabley exotic. This article fitted the bill - I always likesd the picture of Airfix 1914 infantrymen in Pontoon Bridge boats attacking.

Early Birds

Here is Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers magazine's review of the first Osprey Men at Arms titles, taken from Volume 5 Number 3 of June 1972.

Minimags Trouvees

My recent mention of Miniature Figurines House Magazine from the early 1970s has produced a good response - I recived scans of Issue Number 5 this morning (thanks Rob). I also have a copy of Issue Number 2 on its way from another source.

My intention is to post some material here and some on the Lone S Ranger blog.

The contents of Issue Number 5 include:

Part 5 of a series on painting for beginners by Dick Higgs
Reference Books at a Price, by Eric Rayment (posted below)
Simple Historex Conversions
A series of uniform notes, illustrated with
line drawings by Peter Heath
- Part 2 of Russian Cuirassiers, 1812-1814
- Train D'Artillerie de la Garde, 1800-1815
- Light Cavalry of the Grand Duchy of Berg, 1807-1814
- Confederate States of America, Cavalry, Horse Artillery and Infantry

Reference Books at a Price, by Eric Rayment, from Miniature Figurines Magazine Volume 1 Number 5

Following on from recent posts on Almarks and Blandfords, here is a contemporary view of these two series and other uniform reference sources available in the early 1970s, published in the MIniature Figurines House Magazine.

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Waterloo refought 3: The RAF

Third and final instalment on a theme, this time from the Cambridge Evening News of Saturday 13 1972.

I think one line of the article may have been lost (at the crease) in the scans - hope you can fill the sense in if so. I am particularly glad to see the reference to the dangers of tie wearing - please see Tony Bath post below.

Exotically Continental - Roco Minitanks

Exotic (because of their sheer range and variety, and the difficulty in obtaining them in the UK), and exotic (because 1/87 scale, though confusingly described here as HO/OO as used by Airfix for their plastic soldiers), this ad for ROCO Minitanks is from Almark Modelworld December 1972.

David Nash: World of Wargaming, #3 Dec 1972

David Nash: World of Wargaming, #2 Oct 1972

David Nash: World of Wargaming, #1 Sep 1972

A forotten pioneer? David Nash and his World of Wargaming

Ah yes, the greats of early British wargame writing - Don Featherstonem, Charles Grant, Terence Wise, Tony Bath, and... David Nash?

Though not as prolific in specifically wargaming titles as some others in the 1970s, David Nash seems oddly neglected. One of the founders of the London Wargames Club, he was maybe better known for his work on the Prussian Army of the Napoleonic Wars and the German Army of the Great War.

Hamlyn all-colour paperbacks published his book Wargames in 1974. It covered three periods, the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil war, and the Second World War. If you google it you will find Mike Siggins describing it as "seminal".

His book on the Prussian Army 1808-1815 was published in 1972 by Almark. In the same year he started a series of articles in Almark's Modelworld magazine called World of Wargaming, which covered Napoleonic Wargaming and seems to have run to eight instalments between September 1972 and May 1973 (there were no articles in the December 1972 and March 1973 issues). In comparison, Charles Grant's long running series The Napoleonic Wargame had started in Military Modelling early in 1971 ,and was published in book form in 1974.

To redress the balance somewhat, the next post includes the first three articles in David Nash's modelworld series. I do have the others and will post them if there is interest.

The eight articles cover:

ground and figure scales
the line and mixed order
the column
the skirmishing line
the square
cavalry tactics
engineer services
artillery

By Request #1:Uniforms of the American Revolution by Doug Cross, parts 1,3 and 4, Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers 1972

In response to DC's request, here are three of the four parts of this series (some of the later magazines seem to be either missing or kept safely elsewhere...).

I'm not sure how useful these articles are now, but they are interesting as an example of the sort of uniform references that were available to wargamers in the 1970s.

Paddy Griffith on Napoleonic Siege Wargames: Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers, August 1972

I have always been fascinated by sieges, first through Christopher Duffy's book Fire & Stone; then inspired by Ron Miles's articles in Battle magazine; and also through reading R C Sherriff's The Siege of Swayne Castle.





Here are the thoughts of the other PG (Paddy Griffith) on the subject, from Miniature Warfare in 1972.

Colonial Corner: Russian Advances Towards the North West Frontier of British India Part 1

By Ted Herbert
From Wargamer's Newsletter 119 February 1972

Ted Herbert is a stalwart of the Victorian Military Society, and wrote their (now out of print) Handbook of Colonial Wargaming. (I don't have this, in case anyone has a spare copy looking for a new home). At some point Ted became more often known as Edwin, and wrote the Second Anglo Boer War book in the Wargaming in History Series, published 1990, and two excellent Foundry books, Small Wars and Skirmishes 1902-18, published 2003, and Risings and Rebellions 1919 to 1939, published 2007, illustrated by Ian Heath.

I was intrigued when I came across these two articles, as I always had a similar project in mind when looking at the Jacklex adverts from the Harrow Model Soldier Shop in Airfix Magazine, to use their Russian figures.

This kind of article - well researched and written, with a slightly off beat subject - was always inspirational. Now I must go and look out those Jacklex Russians.

Colonial Corner: Russian Advances Towards the North West Frontier of British India Part 2

By Ted Herbert

from Wargamer's Newsletter 120 March 1972

The second and concluding part