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Saturday 13 August 2011

Airfix Magazine Guides

Airfix Magazine published a series of very useful and attractive guides from about 1974 to 1976. These were in A5 format with 64 pages in black and white, well illustrated with photographs and line drawings.

There were 28 in total: a full list can be found here on the Vintage Airfix site.

While the main focus (understandably) was on modelling, there were five wargaming subjects:

Ancient Wargaming by Phil Barker (the purple cover hasn't come out too well in the scan)


The English Civil War by George Gush and Martin Windrow


Napoleonic Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie


American Civil War by Terence Wise


World War 2 Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie

(I have no picture for this title)

Others with a particular interest for wargamers are:
8th Army in the Desert by John Sandars


Afrika Korps by Bruce Quarrie


and (possibly) The French Foreign Legion by Martin Windrow


They were great when they came out: affordable, packed with information, robust, not taking up much shelf space, and much pored over. My favourites were the English Civil War and American Civil War titles.

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12 comments:

  1. The Wishful Wargamer13 August 2011 at 17:55

    I have four out of five of these (I don't have the purple one). The WW2 guide seems to be the most sought after on ebay, followed by the Napoleonic one. We used the rules contained within both before graduating onto other sets.

    Cheers WW

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  2. mekelnborg13 August 2011 at 21:07

    It looks like the authors also graduated on, themselves. A good pack of writers who helped form the formative years of many wargamers.

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  3. Sgt Steiner13 August 2011 at 22:14

    Loved these and still have a few, also enjoyed various others such as guides to 'British/American/German/etc Tanks' in same format
    Halcyon days indeed.............

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  4. Tim Gow13 August 2011 at 22:36

    Great little books these. I completed my set of them about 10 years ago and while I can't claim they're in constant use, my bookshelves would be poorer without them.

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  5. tradgardmastare14 August 2011 at 06:38

    I had four and still browse the ancient one with pleasure from time to time...

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  6. Sun of York14 August 2011 at 08:22

    I still have these and they gave me lots of pleasure. I used to play with Bruce Quarrie Napoleonic rules a lot.

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  7. Rafael Pardo14 August 2011 at 11:10

    Hi
    I missed all these guides (I live in Spain and I was too young) but I own the Quarrie's book on Napoleonica Wargaming based in his guide
    Best regards
    Rafa

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  8. Anonymous15 August 2011 at 15:30

    Good guides allways usefull ACW and Foreign Legion for me...

    Cheers:-)

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  9. PatG15 August 2011 at 19:16

    The Purple Primer got me into ancients from AH board games. Specifically it started my love for ancient Brits. I had the ACW one as well but it didn't have quite the same effect.

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  10. Paul´s Bods16 August 2011 at 20:22

    I had the ECW and napoleonic ones...long gone now
    Cheers
    paul

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  11. GaryA16 August 2011 at 22:48

    If I still had the 'Ancient' guide I'd probably cannibalise it and get back into ancients with a decent, simple set of rules. They were a good set of books.

    G.

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  12. Michael Flynn7 February 2014 at 10:16

    The ACW guide when I discovered it was just fantastic and set me up to a life time of playing in that period.

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