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.

John Sandars Saturday

I have decided to declare today John Sandars Saturday, and post various items of interest I have been digging out over the last few weeks.

On the back cover of his book Introduction to Wargaming (Pelham, 1975) his publisher's About the Author states:

John Sandars has a wealth of experience in modelling and wargaming to put into this book. He started by modelling ships and soon became interested in military modelling in general. His scratch-built vehicles and figures from the desert campaign of the Second World War have become famous.

He plays many forms of wargaming and has become well-known as the creator of a special game simulating desert fighting. He has recently retired from the navy and lives in Portsmouth.

Among the posts today are a two part series from Miniature Warfare in 1970 on devising a set of rules, which may be seen to be initial thoughts towards his later book. It was always a source of frustration that the book doesn't actually set out the rules completely. In 1988 Dave Tuck and Richard Marsh recreated them in an article in the Solo Wargamers' Association's magazine, the Lone Warrior. Doug Crowther tracked these down and provided a scan which is available on Henry Hyde's Battlegames Magazine site as a pdf to download (6.5 mb). The scanner has cut off one or two words but the document is serviceable one, if you are interested in these rules.

On the Rapid Fire website Richard Marsh and Colin Runford acknowledge the inspiration of John Sandars. For many this inspiration included his modelling and scratch-building, and his series of articles in Airfix Magazine (and later Airfix Magazine Guide) on the 8th Army in the Desert.

Other posts below include some photographs of his work, an article on photographing models in a pre-digital age, and an account of an infantry action in the desert.

John Sandars: devising a set of rules part 1, Miniature Warfare August 1970

John Sandars: devising a set of rules part 2, Miniature Warfare September 1970

John Sandars: 8th Army in the Desert

John Sandars' series on the 8th Army in the Desert ran to 10 parts, from July 1973 to April 1974. I remember eagerly waiting for each new instalment. The series was collected in edited form in the Airfix Magazine Guide 20, published by PSL in 1976.


These photographs are from Miniature Warfare December 1969 and are interesting as they predate the Airfix Magazine series and book by a number of years, though some of these troops will be familiar to these later readers. The military policeman on the scooter from the Airfix civilians set is particularly fine...

Desert Infantry Action 1942-3, by John Sandars, from Miniature Warfare 1973

Model Photography by John Sandars, Miniature Warfare September 1968

For those who fondly remember attempting to develop their own black and white photographs before the age of digital photography, this 41 year old article may be doubly nostalgic. I hope it may be interesting enough anyway.

Sandars of the Desert part 1

This example of a"big game" approach featured in Airfix Magazine Annual 7, published in 1977. The game was played on the floor, over an area 12 foot by 12 foot, with terrain built up from books etc covered by sheets.

As blogger allows a maximum of 5 pictures per post, I have split this article between 2 posts.

Sandars of the Desert part II

John Sandars

One of the neglected pioneers of wargaming from the 1970s is John Sandars. Personally I was entranced by his series on 8th Army in the Desert in Airfix Magazine, later published as one of the Airfix Magazine Guides in 1976. I still prefer the first Airfix 8th Army set over the better sculpted second verion, purely because of the range of conversiions undertaken on them by John Sandars in this series of articles.

John was a supreme modeller, scratchbuilder and wargamer, who was one of the leading lights of the British Model Soldier Society. He edited the BMSS Bulletin from 1976 to his untimely death at 41 in 1979. Described in "Multum in Parvo", the history of the BMSS from 1935 to 1995 by Paul H Vickers, as an indefatigable worker for the Society, he was also involved with the BMSS Curator John Ruddle with the BMSS National Collection. Fittingly his small scale wargaming models became part of the National Collection and could be seen at Hatfield House. As of May 2011 they were in process of being returned to his family.

John published an influential book on Second World War wargaming, An Introduction to Wargaming (Pelham, 1975). This was based around his "Sandskrieg" game and rules. Unfortunately these rules were not published, but were reconstructed by Dave Tuck and Richard Marsh in the journal of the Solo Wargamers' Association, Lone Warrior number 76, March/April 1988. I hope to make these available here lter once permission has been sought from SWA. They contain a number of innovative systems and rank for interest as a wargames system with Gavin Lyall's Operation Warboard, published the following year.

John Sandars' other publications included Operation Crusader (Almark 1976), a number of Ospreys including British 7th Armoured Division 1940-45 (1977), the Vanguard on British Guards Armoured Division 1941-45 (1979), The Sherman Tank (1982), and British 7th Armoured Division 1940-45 (Squadron/Signal 1978), presumably the US version of the Osprey.

I will post further on the 8th Army in the Desert series, the Airfix Magazine Guide, and An Introduction to Wargaming, in the future.

The two posts below contain the three parts of his short series The Battle of Mahnraf Ridge for Miniature Warfare magazine, August - October 1971. These give a good feel for John Sandars' wargaming stuyle, and are illustrated with pictures including models from his collection, when the availablity of plastic, resin or metal kits was far lower than today. I hope to follow this theme up in more detail in due course when looking at the wotk of Bish Iwaszko.

The Battle of Mahnraf Ridge part 1: John Sandars, from Miniature Warfare 1971

The Battle of Mahnraf Ridge parts 2 and 3: John Sandars, from Miniature Warfare 1971