Fnurban #28 Anarchy in Tottenham, 1909

Although my home is in Suffolk,  I am fortunate to get to spend some time in The Great Wen - specifically in the North-Eastern part of London. So I was  able to join a local guided walk yesterday,  on the 115th anniversary of the event known as 'The Tottenham Outrage'.  On 23rd January 1909, a pair of Jewish Latvian  radicals (labelled as 'Anarchists' by the media at the time) named Paul Hefeld and Jacob Lepidus staged an armed robbery in Tottenham, stealing the weekly wages (about £80) of Schnurmann's India Rubber factory (where Hefeld had been briefly employed), just off the Tottenham High Road.  It so happened that the factory was also right opposite the Tottenham Police Station - hence the alarm was very quickly raised, and the robbers pursued.  A chase ensued, which lasted at least a couple of hours and covered about 6 miles, and which caused the deaths of four people, including both of the robbers, a Police Constable and a child, and the wounding or injury of at least 20 other people including seven policemen. 

Our walk followed (most of) the route of the chase, through part of Tottenham, onto the nearby marshes, and on towards Highams Park and Hale End, pausing at various points to mark the significant events along the way. First, the site of the actual robbery, at the gates of Schnurmann's factory, where the company car with chauffeur and a young wages clerk were set upon by the robbers. 

Site of the robbery...now a car park

 

... and the Police Station (centre left), right opposite!

It seems the robbers made off with the heavy bag of money, and were also carrying quite a lot of ammunition - it is reported that over the course of the chase they fired over 400 shots at their pursuers!  The factory owner and his staff apparently gave chase in their car, but at some point a bullet hit its radiator, immobilising it.  Police from the station of course joined the chase, but only after having to smash open their weapons cabinet, because no-one could find the key!  That was just the first incident in a series which seem to give the whole affair a semi-comical Keystone Cops aspect - I found myself picturing events like the chase sequence from one of their silent movie capers, complete with gunsmoke as weapons are wildly discharged.  But of course, the gunfire was all too real, and had tragic consequences.  

The first of those consequences happened by St Mary's church in Mitchley Road, N17: 

The first fatality - a 10-year-old child

Ten-year-old Ralph Joscelyne was a baker's delivery boy, caught in the crossfire and killed. The killers kept running towards Tottenham Marshes,  but  PC William Tyler took a shortcut and confronted them at the site of a refuse incinerator - he was also shot, and subsequently died.  The refuse facility site is currently being re-developed, but its original perimeter wall still bounds the road - for now, at least.

Site of PC Tyler's fatal wounding 

 

and memorial plaque on Tottenham Police Station

 

The killers reached the edge of the built-up area ( really the edge of London at the time ) and crossed the railway tracks via the rather wonderfully-named Carbuncle Passage (which follows the Carbuncle Stream, which even today is well-named, I feel) 

possibly the best street name in London..

 Having crossed the railway, the scene changed to the open spaces of Tottenham Marshes - still undeveloped today, 

onto the Marshes..

 

At one point on the marshes, the pursuit ran across the Chalk Footbridge - at this point, one PC Nicod got close enough to take aim with his Police issue Webley revolver, which misfired. The robbers returned fire (they carried more advanced weapons, Hefeld a .32 Browning automatic pistol,  Lepidus a 6.5mm Bergmann) and wounded Nicod  in the calf and thigh. 

Chalk Footbridge - where PC Nicod was wounded

We followed the course of the chase along the River Lea Navigation and around the perimeter of the Banbury Reservoir, but skipped (access not being easy, plus we needed a lunchbreak - the cafe of Sainsbury's Low Hall branch proved convenient)  possibly the most comedic part of the chase.  In 1909 Helfeld and Lepidus commandeered a No. 9 Tram on the Chingford Road,  forcing the conductor to drive it - pursued by a policemen in a commandeered pony and trap, until the unfortunate pony was shot down, and another tram full of police oficers! The fugitives then transferred to a horse-drawn milk cart, which they turned over, then hijacked a grocer's cart, but could not release the brakes!  Finally they abandoned that and continued on foot, along the River Ching,  but ended up cornered in a dead end by a railway bridge.  Lepidus climbed a fence to escape but Helfeld could not, and shot himself as the Police closed in - he died weeks later in hospital.

River Ching railway bridge - end of the line  for one fugitive

 

Jacob Lepidus  continued running, and holed up in a cottage next to the Royal Oak pub, where he was soon surrounded. After some further slapstick moments ( he may have tried to hide in the chimney(!),  and a policeman climbing a ladder had to rapidly descend when fired on ), finally the officers broke into the house and Lepidus died in an exchange of fire - it later transpired that he had taken his own life as the police broke into the room -  and so ended the chase.  The cottage is long gone, but the pub remains ( it had been rebuilt only in 1906 but is now probably the oldest building nearby ) and has a signboard with a decent potted history of the event. 

Royal Oak pub - the cottage was next door

  

 

The pub's information board

It was a drear January day, of course, and raining at the start, the weather forecast had not been good  (in between 'named' storms), but it dried and brightened up later, so the walking was OK, admittedly not through the most picturesque parts of NE London! But it was really very interesting to follow the route of the chase and try to picture  how events had unfolded in 1909.  

Various discussion points came up - especially the motivation of the attackers.  It seemed to us present that the money was perhaps not really the crux of the matter - why stage a robbery next to a police station, robbing people who would recognise you?  And carrying hundreds of rounds of ammunition, which must have been very heavy, on top of the money bag?   It seems quite possible that the aim was not to fund their political activities but perhaps to simply provoke a confrontation and draw attention to their cause - that of Jewish communities suffering Pogroms in their homelands under the  Czarist Russian regime.  They clearly were prepared to use extreme violence and did not value their own lives - does this reflect the sort of nihilistic/suicidal attitude that we have seen more recently in various actions by Al Queda/ISIS and other groups?   It seems the money bag was never recovered - did it end up in the cottage chimney, or in the river or marsh? One rumour was apparently that the grocer whose cart had been hijacked soon afterwards moved to rural Essex and opened his own shop  - had he applied the rule of 'finders keepers'?

Another point was the 'public participation' aspect  - it seems that many members of the public were willing to 'have a go' as the chase continued. From the very start, passers-by tried to intervene ( And several were shot, for their pains), one story says that a housewife threw potatoes at the fugitives! Also an 'eye-opener' was the number of members of the public who were able to produce a selection of weapons to join in the gunfights - it seems a fair number of residents had shotguns handy, and perhaps some local ex-army veterans ( with the Boer War only a few years in  the past ) may have had 'souvenir' weapons to hand. As the chase progressed onto the Marshes, a couple of gents who had been out hunting ducks were persuaded by the police to assist, and at least one of the robbers was wounded by shotgun pellets.  We worry about the level of gun and knife crimes in certain areas of London today ( hmm...including  Tottenham, perhaps? ) - but perhaps it wasn't so very different 115 years ago? It became a sort of running joke as our excellent walk leader stopped at various points to describe the events of the chase, and almost inevitably added to the list of 'joe public' appearing with various weaponry at every point! 

There is a good account of the event on Wikipedia :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Outrage   - well worth reading if this has interested you. But my memory was also  'nudged' by the story - I have been dimly aware of the events described for many years, and I realised that this was because I had read about it in a wargames magazine article! A little light internet searching established that this was 'Anarchy in the UK'  by Mike Bell, which had appeared in Duncan MacFarlane's Wargames World (annual  supplement to Wargames Illustrated )    number 1,  as far back as 1988!  It's even possible to download a pdf version of the magazine - free from the nice people at Wargames Illustrated using this link  https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wargames-World-1.pdf

Perhaps even more interesting, Mike Bell's piece is actually a game, allowing us to wargame the events of January 1909, including a printable game board and pieces.  It's a gridded 'chase' game, appropriately enough, and as various squares are landed on or passed, events can be triggered and pursuers activated - reading through the details for each significant square in effect gives you the narrative of the real-life chase. It was  rather clever, I thought!  Does anyone out there remember this piece, and if so, has anyone actually played the game?    It reads pretty well, I suspect it could make an interesting game - now if you had suitable Edwardian period figures and vehicles in 28mm/40mm/54mm (anyone got a model tram?!) and say, a 6ft by 5ft table, the board could be modelled in 6-inch squares...  Could be almost 'local interest' if the SELWG show remains at its venue in Edmonton... Just a thought!!

All in all, a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable day, even if a tad cold and damp,  and thanks are due to the Leyton and Leytonstone Historical Society for organising the walk, and on the anniversary too! 

I hope this has been interesting, I really enjoyed the day and was inspired to post it  here having read several excellent 'local walk'  reports on Mr. Nundanket's  Horse and Musket Gaming blog - thanks for the idea, Chris!  

I hope to do some actual gaming, painting etc soon, honest folks! Hopefully more of that in the next post, until then keep well, everyone.

   

Fnurban #26 : Keeping Up the Tradition

Yesterday was the last day of a (rather damp)  holiday in Shropshire. On the way home we stopped in to have a look around Leominster, Herefordshire, which turned out to have quite a concentration of antiques and bric-a-brac shops. You never know what you might find - and I struck fairly lucky, I think. One of the shops included a bookstall, with a decent 'military' section, and amongst the contents I found four issues of 'Tradition' magazine.  I've never seen this publication 'in real life', and they were not expensive, so I bought them. They are as follows: 

Issue No. 10

Number 47

Number 63

and number 72

They are ( slightly frustratingly ) not dated, but from a little research it seems that publication began in 1964, and 6 issues per year were produced.  Number 10 has an article by veteran wargamer Philip O. Stearns, reporting on the ( clearly recent ) Waterloo Convention, London 1965, so that seems to tie in OK.  Number 47 has an article on an auction of Lead Toy Soldiers,  which refers to Britain's recent General Election Contest  being on the same day, 18th June, which must be 1970 ( Indeed the article ends by saying the next such auction will be on 10th December 1970, so that nails it down ).  Assuming they kept to six per year, I assume that number 63 appeared  in about  Spring 1973,  and number 72 in late 1974.  

 

example layout - from issue 10

The focus is very much on uniforms - what I tend to call 'button-counting', which I admit I am not deeply interested in, but it's still a pleasure to leaf through these vintage magazines and savour the atmosphere of times long gone. The editor is the splendidly-titled Lt-Col J.B.R. Nicholson, and the general manager John Tunstill  (who also published 'Miniature Warfare', I think, around the same time). Contributors include Brigadier Peter Young ( with a snippets column called 'Random Shots' ), Colonel H.C.B. Rogers (on Mercenary Soldiers )  and Philip Haythornthwaite ( The London and Westminster Light Horse Volunteers 1779-1829 ).  There are lovely full-page colour plates in the centre pages,  a few rather discreet advertisements mostly for stockists of Norman Newton or Stadden fgures, and a nice colour ad on each  back cover for the same figures, including a lovely set of 54mm Stadden medieval knights.

 

All available, of course, from Tradition Ltd at their fabled 188 Piccadilly address. I think I have a dim memory of passing their shop in the 80s/90s, though they may have moved around the corner to Shepherd Market by then, and I was more interested in finding my way to the Curzon Mayfair cinema for the latest Eric Rohmer, so sadly, I did not venture inside.

The earliest issue also has a nice bonus - a sample colour print, advertising a volume of 20 such plates depicting 'Infantry Units of the British Army 1660-1790' by one P.H. Smitherman, available by mail order for the princely sum of 75 shillings ( I make that £3.75 - remember this is in 1965 ). Here he is : 

If this is a sample of the plates listed in the description of the book, then I think he is a Grenadier Officer of 1st Guards, 1688 - the clue being  the 'JR' royal monogram, as this is the only one in the list dating from James II's reign.  It's really pleasing that this loose slip of  heavy-grade  paper  has remained  all these years between the pages of the magazine - I get quite  annoyed at advertising  'inserts' in magazines these days, but this is a cut above. I wonder how the book sold? ( it looks like you can buy second-hand copies on Amazon for £25, and this image is on the front cover )

Note the prices of the magazines  -  Number 10 cost 10 shillings and sixpence ( for younger and non-UK readers, that is  52.5p  or about £0.52 ), but by number 47 the price had risen to a serious 17 and six ( 87.5p ), and following decimalization , the two later editions were offered for 90p.  I am impressed by how 'reassuringly expensive' these were - I looked around the web for 'prices adjusted for inflation' and found  a multiple of about 15.5  from 1973 to now.   So that 90p issue of Tradition 50 years ago  would be the equivalent of about £14 now ( current wargame magazines are priced at around £6 per issue) - quite pricey!. Fairly obviously this was well outside my childhood pocket-money price range, even though  I may have been  aware of  its existence thanks to mentions in books by the likes of Featherstone, Grant and Wise.  My early issues of Miniature Wargames, from about ten years later  (hence after the really  big inflation surges of the late 1970s)  cost only 75p. 

All in all, a nice piece of serendipity,  I am very glad to have come across these and will enjoy browsing through them. I should point out that Tradition of London Limited seems to be still going in online shop form, and will even sell you copies of the magazine - for consderably more than I paid! 

Now back from holiday, time to get on with painting and gaming - next time, a rumination on the role (and the roll) of the dice. And a bunch of shows coming up soon! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

Partizan - yes, I was there too..

..and you know what they said? Well, some of it was true...  Especially the part about it being a really good show -  with loads of great games and a good turnout of traders, in a decent venue with good facilities. All in all, a really good day out. 

I had never been to any 'Partizan' show before, and it was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go along, but I had the day free and decided the journey should be OK. It turned out to be just over 2 hours by car, so not too bad.  I didn't rush it, arriving at about noon ( I think the show opened at 10:00) to find a pretty busy hall. The attendance had clearly exceeded expectations, and they had run out of programs! As a result I just progressed around the hall taking in games and traders as they came up, rather than marking out specific targets to see - I don't think that mattered, though I think I did manage to miss one or two displays ( I seem to have blanked out the 'Lard Zone' area, not sure why, a shame as their setups always look great ).  

Overall impressions very good, as I said above, Not as big as Salute but that's no bad thing, and a much more pleasant, light and airy venue - with free parking right outside. A higher ratio of 'historical' games compared to Fantasy/Sci-fi etc than at Salute - and I thought that may have been reflected in the demographic of the punters, I'd say an older crowd than at the Excel last month. I had the feeling Fantasy etc were better represented in participation games than demo games - make of that, what you will.  I took a few pictures of some of the games I liked  : 

Westbury Wargamers :  Paraetacene  316BC

 

The Iron Brigade : Hopton Heath 1643

( that standard says 'Come Out You Cuckold'! )

 

Boondock Sayntes : Laswari, India 1803

the camels are coming..

Immaculate uniform - and a tray of chips!

Y

The Bayonets: fictional ACW 'December 1862' 

Eagles & Lions: Sherwood Rangers at Gheel, Sept 1944

This game  was clearly inspired by James Holland's book 'Brothers In Arms' (which is in my 'reading backlog' pile) which  has loads of detailed maps of actions the Sherwood Rangers tankers  took part in, including this one at Gheel. A great  source for a wargame scenario.

Sherwood Rangers tanks

The Bunker : raid on Entebbe

I loved the fact that the Hercules aircraft in the Entebbe game were not just there to look impressive, they were clearly units in the game, being moved around the taxi-way as I watched, and I think one of them was getting shot at by a T-34 tank!  Quite an ambitious setup, to say the least..

Also on a grand scale, the ever-reliable Simon Miller's  'To The Strongest'  Ipsus , which he says is 'quite feasibly the largest ancients game ever fought at a show'.  Can't fault his ambition, either: 

 

Look at those Pike phalanxes!

Forest Outlaws - Vellinghausen 1761 're-imagined'

 

Lovely 15mm 7YW figures

 

1st Corps: McPherson Ridge, Gettysburg

Glasgow Tradeston club: Lutter am Barenburg 1626

Nice to see the earlier 'Danish' phase of the Thirty Years War being gamed : and I liked the carpet tile scenery with cut-out river, simple but effective. 

Chesterfield Old Boys: 28mm AWI ( Springfield 1780? )

Barnsley Association: Death in the Snow, Finland 1939

Lincoln Miniature Warfare: With a Rebel Yell

 

The big spectacular games are great, of course, but I am also interested to see games which make me think 'I could do that at home', which was the appeal of the Lincoln group's game, on a simple hex terrain ( 12 by 9 hexes or so? ) which would fit many home tables. They were using the rules of the old 'Battle Cry' boardgame, which I think is related to 'Command and Colours' - again, keeping it simple. 

There were loads more games of course, it's just that I didn't get pictures of all of them, or failed to get good pictures! For some reason I completely bypassed the 'Lard Zone' which had several games using Too Fat Lardies rules, and of course they always have lovely terrain - I'm afraid you'll have to look at other blogs for those! One I can thoroughly recommend is Ray Rousell's Don't Throw a One  - he has more and better pictures than I do!  I had a good chat with Ray at the show, he had come up from 'down South' with the Posties Rejects crew - I think he said he was up at 4:30am to get to the show when it opened!  Very nice to chat with you, Ray!  I also got to meet Graham Evans aka Trebian, author of the excellent Wargaming for Grown-Ups blog, had a good talk with him and his Northamptonshire Battlefields Society crew - now I can put faces to some of the names in their game reports! Great to meet you guys, too.  Needless to say it seems almost everyone who is anyone in UK wargaming was there, I'm only sad that I didn't make the acquaintance of Norm Smith  or  Epictetus, or catch up again with Rob of The Eastern Garrison - all of whom were around and have put up their own reports of the show.  Maybe next time..

Of course there were also plenty of traders, tempting us all to spend our money; having not planned ahead very much, I hadn't made a big list, but I seem to have picked up a few things anyway: 

- WW2 vehicles and figures for my 20mm  'D-Day Dodgers' - a couple of Steyr Heavy Cars and a Lloyd carrier from the Rapid Fire guys,   PIAT and Panzershrek crews from Brittannia Miniatures  

- a pack of Hexon flocked single hexes from Kallistra, to slightly expand my potential gaming table

-  'A Mighty Fortress'  starter pack for WW2 Air Combat  from Tumbling Dice, with rules and some nice 1/600 B17, P51 and Me 262 models.  Me and air warfare games go back a long way ( thanks  to Mike Spick ), it should be fun to have a go at this one. 

Finally a rather lovely nostalgic bargain - a gentleman running a demo game under the name of 'The Hornsea Contempibles'  ( he admitted the 'Contemptibles' were just him!)  had a pile of old wargaming magazines for sale, very cheap, and I remembered I have been looking for Issue 35 of Miniature Wargames ( from 1986 ) for ages - lo and behold, there it was! So now, I have a complete run of issues 1 to 48, all the editions produced by Duncan MacFarlane before he jumped ship and set up Wargames Illustrated the following year. This is strangely pleasing to me...

The Holy Grail..

 

What's more, some other rather veteran mags were in the pile, and I couldnt resist:

..and some lovely bonus nostalgia

 

Blimey, Battle - before it was even for wargamers... Really interesting stuff - one of these has the very first 'Observation Post' column by Terry Wise - I think the teenage me caught up with it a few issues later. And Stuart Asquith's  Practical Wargamer is surely still worth reading? I only bought a few back in the day, I feel another collection coming on! 

So there we are; I stayed till pretty much the end at 4pm  ( as I left, I witnessed a dubious-looking crew making a final raid, on the ice cream stall :

cheers guys! )  

Thankfully it was a fairly easy drive home again, after an excellent day,  with loads of great games and fine people, 'tired but happy' pretty much summed up my evening - and with lots of new ideas and inspirations. There's another one in October, I gather, and I hope to be there. Meanwhile, thanks to all involved in the organisationof a great day, and  keep well, everyone.

Lurking in the Loft

Every now and again, real life impinges on 'hobby life' : this week's real life event is the need for a de-clutter and re-organise at home. That required a bit of a review of what lurks in the loft - which is where real life and hobby life cross each other's paths.  I pulled out some quite interesting stuff, which will be spared from the de-cluttering. Such as this: 

Cry Havoc  from Standard Games, c. 1982.  Skirmishes in the 13th Century. Lovely graphics (I think Peter Dennis was involved), three quite large hex-based terrain maps (which could be used for other games/rules, I'm sure) and pretty simple rules - though I seem to remember the bowmen (firing twice each turn) tended to just shoot up all the other characters?   On BoardgameGeek, user HiTracey comments  Time waster for really bright little boys who have lived in a time warp since 1981.  Hmm, I wouldn't claim to be especially bright..

Of a similar vintage, but slightly more obscure, we have Raiders and Traders from The Chaosium, 1979

 

Quite unusual in that it is set not in Classical Greece but the Bronze Age. I seem to remember this got a few plays back in the day, and I love the map - again, surely could be used for other purposes, would make a nice campaign map. The rules may not be quite so elegant, though! 

Which is all well and good, but I do need to de-clutter after all, and the biggest challenge may be this: 

magazines sah - thousands of 'em!

 

I bought Wargames Illustrated from issue 1 in 1987, and managed to keep buying every issue up to early 2004 - I think I have 196 of them! Mostly in binders, as you see. Now they've been in the loft for 10 years, which is not ideal as they are very heavy - I have a slight worry they may come crashing down through the ceiling one day! I need to decide what to do with them - are they actually worth keeping? Nowadays I don't tend to keep hobby magazines, I just keep cuttings of any particularly interesting articles, but in my mind these have been  a sort of totemic 'resource' which I have held on to.  However, they do take a lot of space, and they do weigh a lot - are they worth it? I am going to try to go through them, to see just how much of their contents are still of interest. I am reasonably confident that there will be quite a lot of good stuff - to my mind Duncan MacFarlane did a great job in publishing articles that reflected and encouraged original  thinking about the hobby. (only recently I was describing an AWI game using Loose Files and American Scramble by Andy Callan, which were published in  WI's first issue).  I do suspect that by the early 2000s, things had shifted towards the domination of articles giving 'a scenario for XYZ rules',  but we'll see. This could be my coffee-break reading needs sorted for many months ( or even years!) into the future.  Just for good measure, by the way, I also have nearly all of Duncan's issues of Miniature Wargames - which I think is another 50-odd magazines! 

You may have noticed that considering this is a post about de-cluttering, I haven't actually got rid of anything yet... a good point.  I do really need to reduce the number of books in the house - at some time in recent years  ( probably related to my discovery of the delights of charity shops ) the ratio of books bought to books actually read has increased way beyond where it should be. So, time for a clear-out. I wonder if anyone is interested in any of these : 

Western Desert trio

and 1914-1918

and some 'Horse and Musket'

Specifically they are : 

Campaign Series :  Operation Compass 1940  and Tobruk 1941 by Jon Latimer 

                                Jena 1806  by David G. Chandler 

Battle Orders Series: Desert Rats ( British 8th Army, North Africa 1941-43 )  by Tim Moreman

                                British Expeditionary Force 1914-15 by Bruce Gudmundsson  SOLD 

Elite Series :         World War I Trench Warfare (1) and (2) by Dr. Stephen Bull SOLD

Men at Arms Series:   Louis XIV's Army by Rene Chartrand

How about £5 each including postage  ( £4 for Louis XIV, it's slimmer ) - UK only, I'm afraid, if overseas you are probably better off buying from a proper business. It may be a bit cheaper overall if you want more than one.   Leave a comment on this post with your email address, I won't publish it but will get in touch.  

Or if you are going to be at Salute on April 22nd,  £1 less  for 'cash in hand' and the chance to put a face to the name? 

That's enough for now, coffee time, now where are those old issues of Wargames Illustrated? Keep well, everyone.  

  

Fnurban #17 : Free Rules and well-stocked Magazines

This week I picked up the latest issue ( no. 418, October 2022 ) of Wargames Illustrated magazine, and found an interesting suprise: it features a complete set of rules for Napoleonic wargames. These are Valour and Fortitude  by Jervis Johnson and the Perry Twins, which have been specially commissioned by the magazine.  This issue  naturally goes big on the whole concept, including a feature and Q&A article on Jervis Johnson,  a scenario suggestion and  battle report of the same scenario played by the authors, and army lists and  'special rules' for French and Prussian armies. 

 

As the magazine says, 'everything you need to play intriguingly simple Napoleonic big battles'.  Of course I'm not strictly a Napoleonic gamer, but this is an interesting concept, so I am reading the rules and the articles.  Jervis says in his introduction to the rules 'I said it might be interesting to come up with a shorter set of rules designed to fit onto just four sides of A4'.   Well, technically he does just that - the core rules are on just four A4 pages, though they are pretty closely printed! No room for pretty pictures here, it's all in the tightly-written text. 

don't try to read this, buy the mag - or there's a free download!

Actually there's a bit of cheating here, as there are quite a lot of 'special rules' which are included in the separate  Army Lists articles  - given that the 'special rules'  include those for artillery firing canister and infantry skirmishing or forming square, you could argue they should really be in the core rules! But of course this doesn't really mattter, you get everything one way or another if you buy the magazine.

I read the rules, and  I can report that they passed the important test of  'finished before the bath water got cold' (!) , and that they read perfectly well. They use a brigade structure for the armies - units are grouped into brigades and activations ( and morale )  apply at brigade level, which I like as it seems the right for the period and 'bigger' battles. And the mechanisms are simple; both firing and melee are 'attacks' with similar procedures, simple D6 die rolls.   The more powerful the attack, the more dice rolled - but not 'buckets of dice'- which may inflict losses. After a certain number of losses the target unit becomes 'shaken',  and the parent brigade in turn suffers a 'setback' , after a number of which the brigade too may become shaken. Commanders can then attempt to rally shaken units/brigades -  I won't go into more details, you can get the rules yourself easily enough.

For an idea of how a basic  mechanism works I looked at a French Line Infantry ( 1812-1815 ) unit firing at a Prussian counterpart - essentially the French get 3 dice, with a 'hit' on a roll of 4,5 or 6, so I suppose they should expect to get one hit, maybe  two, for their volley. A Prussian Line Infantry unit has 'Tenacity' factor of 4, meaning that they would become 'shaken' after 4 hits. So, two or three decent  volleys from the French unit should do it - seems fairly reasonable? The Prussians' musketry ratings are the same, so an exchange of fire between these two should be evenly-matched. 

There's no specified base sizes, but unit sizes are specified in the army lists, e.g. that French Line Infantry unit is 24 to 36 figures, and the possible unit formations are defined very simply but effectively. Move distances and ranges are given in inches and I assume for 28mm figures,  but it's suggested that for smaller figures and/or smaller tables, you can halve the distances ( or use cm for inches ), and/or halve the strength of units.  This all seems very flexible and straightforward, and I think that's pretty much the same throughout the rules.

Of course I have not actually played them : but Norm has, over at Battlefields and Warriors ( which may of course have rendered my comments redundant! ) , with a positive verdict - well worth a read, as ever. I couldn't help noticing that the magazine provides army lists and a scenario for French vs. Prussians c.1813, and the magazine's recent issues have included sample sprues of Warlord Games 'Epic' French and Prussian Waterloo figures - indeed, Norm used his collection of the same figures for his game. I have a feeling that the combination of these rules with the Epic figures range might be a winner - though that is perhaps  not so helpful  for sales of Perry figures or Warlord rules! 

You can download the rules, army sheets ( also Austrians and Russians, I think ) and scenarios from perry-miniatures.com for free,  but I think it would also be polite to buy this issue of the magazine if available,  to reward the work they have done - and get a nice glossy-printed copy of the rules booklet, plus the other articles I mentioned above.  About £6 for a decent set of rules and background ( and the usual selection of other  articles too ) is not too painful, is it?

 

top  piece from Brian Cameron in MW473..

 While talking about magazines, I have continued to buy most issues of the three mainstream wargaming magazines in recent months, when I see them, and am quite glad to support them. In particular  I think John Treadaway is doing pretty well  at Miniature Wargames. He has a regular squad of excellent writers like  Conrad Kinch ( whose  Send Three and Fourpence in particular is always interesting ) , Arthur Harman, Dave Tuck and Jon Sutherland ( it was interesting that Jon's Command Decision, usually historically-set column recently used a fantasy setting, I liked the 'cross-over' effect ).  And then in September's MW473 there was a really, really good piece by Brian Cameron on Wellington in India, called Sepoys and Soldiers. This was inspired by Brian's rules for the 'Maharatta' game at Salute last year - now I am not going to rush out and start gaming this period, but the piece is actually a bit of a masterclass in rules/game design and how to think about the subject. How about the bullet points below, for example  ( if the publishers object to my reproducing  their text here, I will of course remove it ) : 

 

Those should be in every rule-writer's mind, shouldn't they? Brian's piece runs to 8 pages, and I thought it was worth the price of the mag on its own, pretty much! 

 

 

has anyone seen this mag?

Having covered the other two, I'd better mention Wargames Soldiers and Strategy too - but oh dear, where is it these days?   I bought WSS 120 ( June/July 2022 ) as normal in my local WH Smith,  but what happened  then? There are still a couple of copies of issue 120 in the shop, but no sign of WSS121, and the same applies in a couple of other branches I've tried - and by now, shouldn't we be seeing Issue 122  for Oct/Nov ?  On the WSS Website,   WS121 'Warfare in the Age of Arthur' only fairly  recently seemed to appear as 'out now' ( with no dates on the cover image ), and the 'where to buy' button for the magazine gives no details of stockists.  I wonder if there has been a falling-out with distributors who supply the retailers like WHS ( other retailers are available, as they say ).   Has anyone else had this, ahem,  'issue'?  I hope WSS is doing OK.. Meanwhile, The Arthurian issue looks quite interesting, even if 'not my period' - I may have to  put in an online order, and we'll see what happens. 

I know I promised last time to report on my experience with In Deo Veritas rules and a 30YW transplant of Cheriton, but I'm afraid 'time and space, dear boy' has intervened rather - including a vey nice week in Shropshire, I admit. But the game will go ahead - I am hoping to play it ( hmm..start it ) tomorrow. So I do hope to bring you a report soon, honest.... In the meantime keep well, eveyone - and maybe even  buy a magazine?