Sunday 4 September 2016

The wargaming press.

Due to an impending move to a smaller home, this coming Saturday, all painting and wargaming has come to a temporary halt. As you can imagine I have lots of other things to sort out and organise over the next few days. Consequently all the troops and paints have been carefully stored away in boxes in preparation for the move.




I have however, been reading back issues of Wargames Illustrated, I have a subscription that allows access to the vault, which in essence is being able to read every issue back to number one published in 1987. I have currently read up to issue 36 and have found some fascinating articles on all manner of subjects for every period in history.

An article in issue 31 dated March 1990, really grabbed my attention. Written by Paul Wood, it describes the first day at Gettysburg as well as giving an excellent account of the action, it contains a number of hand drawn maps, that can easily be created on the wargame table and a full OOB.

When I decided to collect 6 mm ACW figures from Baccus, it was always my intention to fight the large battles of the war, hence the small scale. This article has rekindled that desire. I will no longer have a wargaming room or even a large table to battle on, but will have to make do with a small kitchen table, when it is not in use of course. By fighting the battle, day by day, and section by section, I will still be able to fight the whole battle.


Seminary Ridge, with what appears to be 28 mm figures.


I do have in 6 mm, the Lutheran Seminary building and Cemetery Gates, both iconic landmarks of the battle. I also have plans to play out Jackson's Shenandoah Valley campaign too, the planning for that is quite well advanced. So even though the painting and gaming has come to a short halt, the research goes on.

6 comments:

  1. Has me really thinking about switching to online subscription

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    1. For me it made sense, the mags take up too much space and I only had about 50 of them. For just an extra £1 a month I have access to the complete library.

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    2. I'm not a fan of reading digital products, I much prefer to flick through the physical product. But even I, technophobe that I am, see the value in the digital vault. I lost a lot of my early White Dwarfs and WI issues years ago when I was a student and being able to go back and access them is really useful. There was, for example, an issue showing how to build 28mm wild west buildings. Now the article itself doesn't show me anything I don't already know, it's a foam core box with balsa planks, but at the end it had a selection of signs to photocopy to use, or these days cut paste and print. Having never been able to replace that I may just double down and get access to the vault as well as keeping the current paper publications going. Great article as always Ian

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    3. Hi Gerr, I too prefer a hard copy to digital, but my magazines take up so much room, besides the sheer weight of them. I had to make a decision and go with digital. The bonus is access to all those old issues.

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  2. Nice little article Ian I must sort out my subscription to WI some time good Luke with the move mate hope all goes well for you both S

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    1. Thanks Stephen, the subscription is well worth the money I think. The move is this Saturday, all going to plan so far.

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