Pre Miniatures Page Tension

The Minifigs S Range Seven Years War Austrian Grandisca Slovenian Frontier Infantryman recommended by Stuart Reid for service as dismounted Jacobite Hussars.


If the past really is a different country and they did things differently there, the basic nature of wargamers and the Dennis Wise-like ability of a high proportion to start an argument in an empty room seems to date back to early days.

Such an exchange underpins the two articles posted here from Miniature Warfare magazine (April and December 1970). While expressed in slightly more stately terms than many a current day Internet based discussion, there is an elegant hint of scorn on display in the first and last paragraphs of Stuart Reid's article.

I found Stuart Reid's notes on available figures interesting, in particular the reference to Lamming Seven Years war figures. I have never seen these, or any pictures of them; in a later article in 1972 he mentions that Lamming have ceased to make them. i do have a reasonable number of the S Range Jacobite Rebellion figures, which are among my favourite ranges.

This post is intended to be the first in a short series of Jacobite Rebellion (45) posts. This will include Start Reid's later Miniature Warfare articles on refighting the Jacobite Rising of 1745-1746. I have parts 1 and 3 of this series but am missing part 2, which was published in April 1972. If anyone has this article and can provide me with a scan to share here, I would be very grateful. (I have permission from John Tunstill, the publisher of Miniature Warfare, to reproduce material here).

Plastic Artillery Conversions by John Edgecumbe

This article from Miniature Warfare magazine February 1970 just about scrapes in to the Airfix ACW theme as these German WW1 guns and equipment are converted from the Airfix ACW set.

At a time when pretty much anything you want is available from a range of manufacturers and in a range of scales, and where you can often view and buy them on line, this article reminds us of a different time, when modelling, converting, bodging and other ways of making do were necessary even for some mainstream items.

This will be the last ACW Airfix related post for a while. I do intend to add further articles to the series on Juhn Tunstill's Miniature Warfare ACW Campaign in Ireland (see earler posts here)

An Airfix ACW army for beginners

From Miniature Warfare magazine 1972, this article by A. Mason goes into how many boxes of Airfix ACW troops you need to buy (at 17p per box)to get a matched pair of starter ACW armies, although distressingly he allows the idea of buying some metal command figures.

The pictures are unrelated to the article but support the general theme.

Landmark: 150,000 hits

Just a brief post to note Vintage Wargaming went past 150,000 page views some time in the early hours of this morning. The current follower count is 189.

Thanks to everyone who views or follows the blog.

American Civil War with Airfix - Part 2 The Battle of Rogersville

Airfix ACW wargaming reached as far as Denmark. This May 1973 article from Miniature Warfare magazine reports on a battle fought in Copenhagen over Christmas 1970. The story of putting the game on is interesting and the battle report, while brief, is well illustrated with photographs of figures and terrain.

Posted earlier but relevant to this thread are Terry Wise's Airfix Magazine articles on making ACW buildings

bungalow and farm house here

court house, general store, and Southern farm house here

American Civil War with Airfix - part 1

As the start of a short series on American Civil wargaming with Airfix, here is an article by Malcolm Knott entitled An Airfix Army, from the Subaltern's Corner feature In Miniature Warfare Magazine from February 1969.

As the article itself states, the importance of the Airfix ACW range (Union Infantry, Confederate Infantry, Artillery, US 7th Cavalry, plus Cowboys and Wagon Train) was to provide the basis for a complete wargame army of all arms plus logistics at a reasonable cost.

I'm sure lots of people must have started off with these figures, inspired by articles like these, the ACW ones in Terry Wise's series in Airfix Magazine on Buildings for Wargames and his Airfix Guide no 24 American Civil Wargaming (though this last was published five years after this article).

The figures though basic still are reasonably available and can be turned out very well - have a look at Matt's Command Group converted from two of the Cowboy figures here. Matt has a project to build Airfix ACW armies which will be interesting to follow.

I'm intending to mine the Airfix ACW seam from Miniature Warfare further with a few more posts, including a battle report and some more photographs.

The Wargame at West Point 1972 by Raymond E Bell

Another from the archives of Miniature Warfare magazine, from June 1972.

Instruction for Naval Landing Parties 1910

Published in Miniature Warfare Magazine in three parts in 1971 under a rather un-pc title, which I have removed, these three articles wre abstracted from the HMSO publication of the title, published in 1910.

Field Books: Battle in the Civil War/Battle in Africa

Vintage Wargaming seems to have been on a bit of an inadvertent Paddy Griffith kick recently, because of the Battlefields Magazine posts. This should be the last for a while.

Field Books was a collaboration between Paddy Griffith and illustrator Peter Dennis. The result was these two superb books - Battle in the Civil War, subtitled Generalship and Tactics in America 1861-5, by Paddy Griffith himself, and Battle in Africa 1879 - 1914.

I first had the Civil War book, and had been looking for the Battle for Africa book for a while before I came across a stack of them at a show - I think Dave Thomas was carrying them. Up to that point I hadn't made a connection between the two. Very well illustrated and structured almost in a scrapbook style - they strongly remind me of old Look and Learn magazines - they present masses of information in a very accessible way, in an A4 soft back format.

Howard Whitehouse is the author of the innovative Science vs Pluck rules for the Sudan. Battle in Africa is particularly noteworthy in including details of Belgian, German and Italian colonial adventuring, as well as he more usual French and British.

Both books seem to be fairly readily available at reasonable prices from the usual Internet sources. if you have an interest in either of these periods, I would strongly

Battlefields Magazine: Paddy Griffith 3: Noli Illegitimos - Napoleonic Naval Action 1799

Battlefields Magazine 1995-2000

The recent news about the likely closure of the printed edition of Battlegames Magazine got me thinking about the traditional trajectory of many wargaming magazines and their seeming inevitable demise.

The two titles usually quoted are Battle Magazine (which died a slower death through first being incorporated in Military Modelling), and Practical Wargamer, which lasted around 12 years, I believe.

The magazine I missed the most is almost never mentioned in this company or elsewhere, so I thought I would try to correct the record a bit.

Coming out a little erratically over a period from March 1995 to around 2000, Battlefields Magazine was published by Partizan Press and edited by Ben Wilkins, joint author of the Forlorn Hope rules with Pete Berry, succeeded by Mike Oliver from issue 7. It ran from a preview edition (Vol 0 Issue 0) to 10 issues in Vol 1 and one issue (I think) in Vol 2.

Contributors included luminaries such as Paddy Griffiths, Ian Knight, Charles Esdaile, Carl Reavley (published posthumously), Paul Stevenson, Mark Bevis and John Barratt, among others.

I particularly liked the magazine for three reasons:

firstly, the emphasis on scenarios, well researched historical analysis, and the impact of this analysis on the wargame;

secondly, the quality of the authors involved;

and thirdly, the quality of its graphic design, benefiting from Partizan's ability to access their own publications for illustrations and resources.

The idea behind the magazine is outlined in the first editorial, from the preview edition of March 1995.

I contacted Dave Ryan at Caliver Books/Partizan Press for permission to post some material from the magazine and check a few facts. he kindly gave permission to post several articles, which appear in posts below.

Some back issues are still available from Caliver/Partizan, and there is also a master index of articles available here. if you haven't come across the magazine before and are interested in checking it out, I would suggest it might be interesting to acquire a copy or two.

Battlefields Magazine 1995-2000: Covers and Contents

Here are scans of all the copies of Battlefields Magazine in my possession. These include the preview issue (Volume 0 Issue 0) but are missing Volume 1 Issues 8 and 10, and Volume 2 Issue 1. The covers list the battles included (although there are some additional features to each issue).

Thre is a master index of articles on an old Battlefields Magazine web site here

Back issues of some numbers of this magazine are still available from Caliver Books/Partizan Press.