“With Flashing Blades” – Recommendations for Background Books

Since my last Blog post, a couple of people have asked me about reading and viewing material which might accompany the game which Nick, Rich and myself have been working on.  I thought it might be fun to mention some of the books I’ve been reading as background and inspiration for “With Flashing Blades”.  Like any list, this is not comprehensive.  The literature for swordsmanship, duelling and swashbuckling of all kinds is huge, and spans different genres from historical fiction to swords-and-sorcery, and from the supernatural to science fiction.  Here, I’ve confined my list to the books which I personally found useful as encouragement for the game.

Another couple of small caveats:  I’ve not listed any historical sources here.  I’ll prepare a Blog post in a week or so on that subject, looking at some of the background to early 17th Century France and also the ‘Schools’ of swords-handling, duelling and fencing which I found really interesting in the context of working on the game.  I have also limited this blog to written material.  A future Blog post will contain all the film and TV inspiration, including that theme tune!  

So let’s start with the grand-daddy of them all, “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas.  I thought I knew this book, but I’d never read it before as a complete novel.  As I read it from cover to cover for the first time last month, I was really surprised.  It is not the book I thought I was going to read.  The actual sword fighting is infrequent in the book, and takes place quickly over very few pages.  I’ll not give too much away (just in case you, dear Readers, have not read the book), but it is not one of those novels where there is a sword-fight every twenty pages.  What is, however, very much present is intrigue.  There are plots, plans, stories, developments and yet more intrigues on top of all that.  When you read the novel, all the various plots hang together very well and the central arch of the story is not difficult to follow.  This is not “The Name of the Rose” or an Agatha Christie novel – the intrigue, though deep and pernicious, never obscures the story in which the lives of our heroes is unfurled. 

And, while we’re speaking of heroes, it surprised me that huge chunks of the book are placed in the in upper echelons of society.  We are frequently present in the world of the King, the Queen, the Cardinal and the Duke of Buckingham. Dumas loves to name-drop the titles of Dukes, Counts, Duchesses and nobles generally.  The actions of the musketeers frequently revolve around noble and royal characters, not the opposite.

Dumas also loves place-name dropping.  Much more familiar to his 19th Century French audience than to me in 2021, there is a litany of French street and place names, including prisons, palaces, market places and execution sites.  Some we know (La Bastille), but some are much more unfamiliar.  I thought that a map would be helpful in reading the book, and I found myself reaching for a guidebook of Paris in the early chapters.  You don’t need to do that, but it’s fun to have alongside you as you read the novel.

Finally, a huge shout-out to one of the Audible audiobooks of the “The Three Musketeers”.  I was reading the Penguin Classics version of the book, and chose the accompanying Audible version, narrated by the well-known actor, Paterson Joseph.  The narration by Paterson is a total delight. 

I love Audible generally, and Mr Joseph’s narration was one of the finest narrations I’ve heard on the site.  He has a real ear for French names, and really evoked the sense of place with each of the names of the people and places being pronounced. I was really thrilled to learn (from a Twitter post) that Paterson regarded his work on the Audible narration of "The Three Musketeers" as one of his best pieces of work.  I think its amazing and, if you have any interest at all in Dumas’ novel, I would strongly recommend you give Paterson’s Audible narration a try.

From Dumas’ classic, the next suggestion I have on my list is the canon of books by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, featuring Captain Alatriste.  I came to these books the long way around.  I first read Pérez-Reverte’s books in the 1990s and early 2000s, starting with the complicated (but remarkable) “Club Dumas”.  This book, incidentally, has a rich seam of connection to Dumas and “The Three Musketeers” (no spoilers, folks), but that was rather lost on me at the time, as the book is really about the supernatural, or – more accurately – the possibility of the supernatural. 

From there I read Pérez -Reverte’s other books, including the most excellent “The Fencing Master”.  Don Jaime, the main character of the book, is one of my literary heroes, especially as I have got older.  His sparse, austere and controlled lifestyle in Madrid as a 19th Century fencing master is something I’ve often thought about, particularly as an antidote to the uncontrollable and byzantine mess of my normal family life! I really enjoyed the book when I read it in 2003, and I enjoyed re-eading it last year in the depths of the pandemic.  

But I digress.  All of these books just prepared me for Pérez-Reverte’s “Alatriste” series of books.  Several of my friends recommended the “Alatriste” series to me (thank you!), and I have not been disappointed.  Captain Alatriste is the hero of the series, being a battle-scarred and indefatigable veteran of Spain’s wars of the early 17th Century.  Perhaps inevitably for a literary hero, Alatriste finds that fighting the French and Dutch in Flanders to be less dangerous than navigating the treacherous alleys and squares of Madrid, Seville and Toledo.  The books are narrated by a wonderful character, Inigo Balboa, a young companion and sometimes-manservant.  Unlike Dom Jaime in “The Fencing Master”, Inigo gives depth and humanity to Captain Alatriste's journeys, and I feel Inigo as a narrator adds to the stories considerably.

All of the Alatriste books I have read are fun and worthwhile.  So far, I’ve really enjoyed “The Purity of Blood” the most, but I have yet to tackle “Pirates of the Levant”.  Recommended reading and very much in the right vein for “With Flashing Blades”.

And finally, two left-field inspirations.  “With Flashing Blades” is set in Paris, in 1622, a city with a good claim to being the centre, or one of the centres, of the world at that time.  Thinking about the 'place' of the city in a game might seem a little bit abstract.  While we wanted to make our game of “With Flashing Blades” to be a miniature wargame (and “not a roleplaying game”), I did also want to think about how we could make the idea, and the themes, of a city come to life in a small table-space. 

In that context, I’d like to recommend two wonderful books, from very different genres.

“Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino is a tour de force about the potential of the city as an experience.  Is it literature?  Is it philosophy? Is it a mediation?  Or perhaps it's a mystery?  Who knows?  Not me, for sure.  But I loved every page and some of the images conjured by Calvino in the novel are simply spell-binding.  “Invisible Cities” is not the city of “With Flashing Blades”, but it might hopefully help us capture some of the chaotic fun and confusion of setting a game within our chosen city of 1622 Paris.

And last but never least, is a slim booklet which I bought through Drive Thru-RPG.  If you've never come across Chris Kutalik’s “Fever Dreaming Marlinko”, you are missing out. 

Chris’s book is small in size (only 68 pages), but it's a masterpiece.  “Fever Dreaming Marlinko” is a roleplaying guide to the strange city of Marlinko, and serves as a ‘city adventure supplement’.  You don’t need to be a fan of role-playing games, or play the Labyrinth Lord system to be inspired by Chris’ book. 

Funny, rude, dramatic and constantly inventive, it’s a terrific example of how to create a city which really feels like it exists as a backdrop to the gaming action.  If we can do anything like this in “With Flashing Blades”, we would be very pleased. 

So that's my very personal list of books which have inspired me in playing and helping develop "With Flashing Blades". I am sure Nick and Rich will have their own to add to the list, perhaps in a future episode of the TooFatLardies Oddcast.

I hope you can join me for the next Blog post, when I'll either be posting about converting and painting figures for "With Flashing Blades", or blogging about the films and television inspirations behind the game. Until next time, dear friends!

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"The Pikeman's Lament" - Pike & Shot skirmishing from Osprey Games

One of the great things about the wargaming hobby is seeing friends and fellow wargamers enjoying fantastic success doing the very things which make our hobby such fun.  For many years I've been enjoying the excellent "Dalauppror" blog authored by Michael Leck, who I had the great pleasure and privilege of meeting at Salute a few years back.

Michael's rules for pike and shot wargaming, "The Pikeman's Lament", written with well-known wargames rules supremo Dan Mersey, were published yesterday by Osprey Games.  I'd pre-ordered my copy, and they were waiting for me when I arrived home last night.

They are a lovely looking set of rules, and feature everything that you would need for recreating small scale engagements and large skirmishes in the 17th Century.  There are many fine illustrations from the Osprey books, and some terrific photographs from many well-known wargamers and modellers, including Michael himself, the super-talented Matt Slade and all-round blogging superstar Mr. Michael Awdry, who posted some great photos on his own blog HERE which didn't quite make it into the finished rules owing to space constraints.

I'me really looking forward to giving these rules a try.  The "petite guerre" of raiding, forcing contributions, scouting and skirmishing was a major feature of many seventeenth century campaigns, particularly during the winter months when main field armies were in winter quarters.  

Michael and Dan's rules should be perfect for recreating these kinds of actions - swirling cavalry skirmishes, desperate last stands of small companies of soldiers in remote villages, plundering of supply columns.  These types of encounters were a very popular theme in mid-seventeenth century 'battle-paintings' - and there's plenty of inspiration to be gained from searching out paintings such as the above canvases from the Dutch artist Pieter Meulener.

I really looking forward to using the rules for my own chosen period of the 1680s in Flanders - a brief read through of the rules last night gave me some (hopefully) good ideas for the games we can stage and the terrain I can build for these kinds of actions.

Here's hoping these rules spark everyone else's imagination.  Congratulations to Michael and Dan, and best of luck with the venture!!

Roundwood Recommends - number 7: "War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries": Myron P. Gutmann (Princeton University Press), 1980

“Then, when it appeared they were going to put siege to Maastricht, they camped, some at Montenaken, others at Laneken, and a large part of the army here at Emael. The Marques of Salada lodged here with three regiments, one of foot, and two of cavalry. They behaved worse than barbarously: they destroyed everything: they cut trees, completely demolished many houses, and trampled whatever grain they did not steal, not even leaving enough for the hunger of the poor farmers” (Priest at Emael, 1632)

I’ve always been envious of roleplaying supplements which describe in loving detail the background, political and economic environment, demographic features, weather and geographical context of the world in which the player characters’ undertake their adventures. Everything is to hand, and the characters exist in a world which really lives and breathes. Information which people in that world would immediately know can be looked up, or simply made up. 

Real life history isn’t like that, at least not in the more obscure periods of history which wargamers sometimes like to visit. Those kinds of details which might be obvious to historical contemporaries can be difficult to track down, scattered over dozens of books. Which are the main population centres, and did they serve as viable winter quarters for assembling armies? Why was a particular town so attractive to armies looking to establish an encampment? Which was the lowest point on the river which was bridged in 1688? Where were the rural areas in which armies were marshalled, and how did this correspond with good foraging opportunities? Answering such questions can add a lot of context to our understanding of how any military campaign developed. 

These are questions which would be obvious to a 17th Century general, but often are lost to us. Reconstructing that lost world takes time. Once you stray off the beaten English-language path, and into the dustier periods of history, you find that sooner or later you’re forced to rely on academic studies, the primary focus of which is not military history, let alone wargaming.

“War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries” by Myron P. Gutmann is one of those academic studies. It is most definitely not a military history book. I am sure that you could successfully wargame any campaign in North West Europe in the late seventeenth century without ever reading it. 

But it does include a host of invaluable information about 17th century campaigning and warfare which has never its way to the more general military history books for the period. And a great deal of that information helps provide answers to those questions which a 17th Century general may well have just simply known, but which have been lost to us a long time ago.

Published in 1980, by Princeton University Press, “War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries” is not hard to find on the various second hand online book sites. I picked mine up from ABE Books for around £10. 

It focuses on the region between Liège and Maastricht along the banks of the Meuse River known as the Basse-Meuse.  The region was a magnet for armies in the 17th Century. In addition to the ‘Spanish Road’, the important military corridor through which Spanish armies marched from Italy and Southern Germany to the Low Countries, the Basse-Meuse was strategically central to the designs of Dutch Stadtholders and French Kings. The passage and visitation of armies into the region was also encouraged by a complex sovereignty and internal divisions among the leading noble families of the Basse-Meuse. The principality of Liège was the dominant sovereign of the area, being a significant ecclesiastical principality not incorporated to the Dutch Republic or the Spanish Netherlands. Formally a neutral player during international disputes, the position of the principality became increasingly complicated and vulnerable in the late 17th Century, as France and Holland both exerted influence and attempted dominance in the area. 

We may be able to tell this from casting a careful eye over any map of the region, and one of the general history books of the 17th Century. However, Professor Gutmann’s book tells us a lot more. He examines what brought armies to the Basse-Meuse in the late 17th century. Not to fight, but to use the area as a route for armies travelling through the region, either west to the Spanish Netherlands, east to Germany, or north to Holland. The River Meuse was a central route for transporting troops, not just as part of the Spanish Road used in the early 17th century, but still critical as a route by which troops could march along while their artillery was floated down the Meuse on barges. Such tactics gave the river a vital strategic capability for north/south movement.

The Basse-Meuse region was also important for east/west transport. The land was flat, relatively unwooded, with key bridges at Liege and Maastricht (the Meuse not being bridged further north than Maastricht in the 17th Century). Shallow water crossing points also existed on the Meuse at points between Liege and Maastricht, at Visé, Argenteau and Herstal. Maastricht in particular became a central strategic location for control of the River Meuse. Major sieges were mounted in 1632 (by the Dutch against Spanish defenders), 1673 (by the French against the Dutch) and 1676 (by the Dutch against the French), and the visits of armies to the region to mount these sieges led to some of the most challenging conditions in the region for local civilians. Importantly for such visiting armies, another attraction of the region was that there were no natural barriers to keeping armies out. “Flat, virtually unarmed, and riven by internal disputes, the Principality could not resist being crossed or occupied, frequently with dire consequences for its finances and citizens” (page 17).

The region was rich in farmland, grain, cattle and the industrial goods needed to supply armies. Liège in particular was well known as a centre of heavy industry, producing iron and coal, and manufacturing guns, armour and military equipment. “This armies that came and camped around Liège could find not only full granaries, but could leave with all the new weapons they needed, provided by the obliging craftsmen and gun-merchants of Liège and its neighbourhood” (26). Any army camped near the City of Liège could rely on being well supplied for the following campaign. Also, while armies in the 17th Century did not generally fight in the winter months, they did not disband. They attempted to find a place to make winter quarters. And it was wintering armies, quartered in in transitory, winter camps and lodging with the local communities in the villages and smaller hamlets of the Basse-Meuse which were the real scourge of the region. 

In such an environment, “military incursions exacerbated weaknesses in the Basse-Meuse economy” although such incursions did not inevitably result in destruction. Military presence focused local attention on attempting to profit from the relationship with military actors. “The result was a socially and economically healthy society that was capable of surviving the potential hardships associated with repeated and protracted military operations” (page 27).

Much of the rest of the book is a detailed examination of this relationship, and has a mine of information for anyone looking to stage a campaign set in the 17th century. The sections of the book focusing on the billeting of military forces in local villages are particularly striking. “Barracks hardly existed before 1600, and troops rarely carried tents with them. Rather, if an army was going to be in one place for a week or more, especially in winter, soldiers slept in the homes (and probably barns) of the citizens” (page 36). Such billeting could be hugely burdensome on local societies, with requirements for food, clothing, wagons, livestock and wagon-drivers all being significant. The book goes on to describe many examples of the burdens of military quartering, coupled with the other consequences of living in a conflict zone such as raiding, the forcing of ‘contributions’ from civilians and the negotiation of bribes to secure smooth passage of armies.

Reading these accounts brings home a rich context of an army’s relationship with the land on which campaigning took place. Some armies would be accommodating, seeking a mutually profitable relationship with the civilian leaders of the various communes of the region. Some armies would be brutal, (like the quotation at the start of this blog post) calculating that the murder of a foraging party might be an acceptable price for levying greater contributions. Of course, there was always the possibility of devastating the land as an army marched through it - although, as commanders in Germany in the Thirty Years War had ultimately found, no army could live off the land once the people had been driven away. 

Gutmann explores the changes in military organisation in the 17th century in tandem with the changing approaches that army commanders had towards the civilian population of the Basse-Meuse. Famous commanders such as Duke Charles IV of Lorraine and the Prince of Condé drift into the narrative at various points as the high-water mark of the war-by-devastation approach in the Basse-Meuse, their noble-dominated, quasi-mercenary forces soon to replaced by national armies with greater resources and enhanced discipline. The late seventeenth century developments in military discipline and in the housing and feeding of troops, lay more in the need for larger, effective fighting forces than in any desire for the well-being for civilians living in the conflict zone. However, the consequence was a far more complicated and nuanced relationship between the armies moving through the region, and the civilians living there. 

For those looking for detailed economic data to underpin any campaign, there are numerous graphs and charts in the book. There is a chapter concerning the fluctuation of grain prices as a result of varying stages of conflict, introduced by Professor Gutmann’s question: “Did prices respond to the lessening of military destruction at the end of the seventeenth century?” 

OK, OK… I know, that’s a long way from thinking about push-of-pike, and even longer from thinking about rules mechanics for cavalry charges in wargames. And I’m not suggesting that Professor Gutmann’s detailed economic arguments (extensively researched and beautifully written) will be every wargamer’s ideal New Year reading material. But, if you’re interested in the working of local rural economies in an early modern conflict, the book is a gold mine of information and a wonderful read. 

Yes, this is one of those books - maybe not a page-turner as regards rushing to the end to find who won the battle, but certainly a terrific research source to return to again and again.

There’s a very useful 17th Century chronology to the region, allowing you to chart the progress of armies through the region each year by number, commander, location and nationality. Most useful of all is a guide to the historical weather experienced in each year, together with details of epidemics and diseases in the region and the locations where these happened. Anyone keenly searching out orders of battle and curious regarding the locations of encampments and winter quarters will find a lot of good information in the chronology section of the book.

A later chapter considers the degree of depopulation associated with conflict in the 17th century in the Basse-Meuse region. The story of the region in this regard is, surprisingly, of resilience of the population in the face of war. Unlike the population of areas of Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Lorraine and the Duchy of Burgundy which suffered heavily from militarily related depopulation, the population of the Basse-Meuse was relatively stable in the later 17th century. Gutmann’s exploration of why this was the case forms a key section of the book, alongside a number of insights into the correlation between disease, bad harvests, military action and the peaking of rural deaths in the months of September, October, and November each year. Over-work, malnutrition and the infectious diseases accompanying a visiting army could frequently have a deadly effect on local populations - perhaps another event worth including or referencing in war-games campaigns of the period. One notable event I spotted was that in the late summer of 1676, the local chronicler de Sonkeux noted that a mechante dissenterie (wicked dysentery) was to be blamed on a French pillaging expedition. If that’s not an authentically historical campaign chance card waiting to be written, I don’t know what is. 

And to my mind, this is what is wonderful about this ostensibly rather dry, academic book. Reading through the book the reader is simply immersed into a lost, forgotten world which fell outside the frontiers of the rapidly growing powerful states of France and the Dutch Republic. There are numerous anecdotes which bring the region of the Basse-Meuse to life, alongside more than enough information to create a viable historical background to any wargaming campaign set in the region in the 17th Century. Just as we might research flags, uniforms, formations and tactics, there’s no reason we, as wargamers, cannot also research the background to, and impact of, campaigning in the historical world where such wars took place. 

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I’ve always enjoyed RPG campaigns with a deep setting of place and region - whether urban or rural - and I've always been more than slightly envious that wargaming campaigns have not often been available which provide the same background information. In wanting to correct that imbalance, this book is a great start. 

Highly Recommended.

Roundwood Recommends - Number 3: One Stop Campaign Guides

One of the great things about our hobby is being able to develop the setting and background of our wargames, immersing the players in a particular historical period. Sometimes the creation of that world takes on a dimension of its own. We research uniforms, flags, tactical deployments and historic battles. We spend time thinking about the terrain of the conflict, the buildings, the landscape, even the animals which would have been present in Roman Britain, Napoleonic Russia or wherever our armies take us. And, in the process, we read a lot. I think every wargamer I have met has been a great reader, often many amassing fine collections of books which any public or university library would be delighted to hold.

It often seems hard just to find one book for a particular period which tells you, the wargamer, what you need to know.

Modern periods such as the Second World War have an embarrassing wealth of publications, with every possible detail of the combatants described and catalogued in depth. More distant periods, such as the early Middle Ages, sometimes appear to lack any definitive text which contains everything you’d need to start a wargames campaign – instead, more general historical books need to be trawled for the jewels of military history tucked away in obscure paragraphs on Pictish standing stones, Viking longboat building (or whatever).

Whatever the period, the hunt for an elusive single guide to a wargames period or a campaign can be difficult.

With this in mind, I thought another post for my Roundwood Recommends series could be One Stop Campaign Guides. These are single books (if possible) which give a really sound and comprehensive coverage of armies and tactics for a particular period, and which are still fairly readily available.

The idea would be for a newcomer to a historical wargames period to pick up the book and, after reading through, to have a good idea of how the respective armies were organised, fought tactically and strategically, some insight into the major battles and the terrain on which they were fought, and some understanding of the key elements required for victory by the commanders in the particular conflict. Also, if possible, the book should contrast the forces on either side – their organisation, their tactics, their leadership and their methods of fighting.

Looking through the books I have at home, and thinking about the wargames I’ve played in, I’ve narrowed down my list to five books. There were quite a few which almost made it, but each of them fell at one of the hurdles. Some focused too much on one side of the battle. Others paid little attention to the terrain over which battles were fought. Others neglected the strategic aspect of the conflict being discussed.

I should add that my list is very personal. You are very free to disagree with the books I’ve chosen! I am sure you have your own titles which you think do the job as well, or better, than the ones I’ve listed. If so, please do add them into the comments below.

So, in no particular order, here’s my list of the Roundwood Recommends One Stop Campaign Guides.

First up is a relatively new book, “Waging War in Waziristan”, by Andrew Roe. The book features the campaigns staged and policies adopted by the British in Waziristan during the late 19th and early 20th century. Particular attention is played to the role of diplomacy employed by the British and Indian army in controlling the wild tribal highland areas in what is now the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although it’s not a wargaming book, it provides a wonderful summary of the different motivations of the relevant combatants in the area’s conflicts for almost 100 years. Rooted in the analysis of the fighting is an understanding of why the hill tribes of Waziristan were so hostile, uncontrollable and resilient – through understanding the motivation of the hill tribes to fight, and the particular terrain on which campaigns were staged, the British and Indian political officers and commanders in the area were eventually able to calm, control and sometimes suppress this challenging part of the Raj.

Like the other One Stop Campaign Guides, there is a wealth of information in the book to stage skirmishes, set-piece actions or campaigns. Reading through it, the possible scenarios just tumble out from the history of the region (one of my favorite being a mule train of rifle smugglers, whose locally produced rifles were concealed in the false bottoms of a dozen wooden coffins).

It’s a wonderful book, and it’s still in print. If you’re tempted to campaign in “The Grim”, or North India especially in the early 20th Century, it’s a book you can start with and use through a host of games.

Second is an old favourite – Bruce Quarrie’s “Napoleon’s Campaigns in Miniature”. I am not a Napoleonic buff by any means, but I’ve loved this book for well over 20 years since I first saw a copy in one of the Humberside public libraries in the 1980s. For its time, it was a great attempt to fit everything a wargamer needed to know about the Napoleonic Wars into a single book. Battles, commanders, uniforms, march distances per day, organisation of artillery trains – if it was in the Napoleonic Wars, I imagine that there’s a reference (however brief) in Bruce’s book. 

 
Of course there are probably dozens of mistakes, over-abbreviations, confused misreadings of historical events. But the scale of the attempt to condense everything a wargamer needs into a small volume is deeply impressive. A grand, even Napoleonic, book. It is sadly out of print, but the internet is a wonderful resource for tracking such titles down.

From Napoleon, to America – and a couple of books which could well be brothers in arms. Both are by Paddy Griffith. The third of my chosen One Stop Campaign Guides is, if various reviews are to be judged, very controversial – being Dr. Grffith’s “Battle Tactics of the Civil War”. Those far better qualified than me can judge whether the book’s thesis (that the ACW was the last “Napoleonic war”) is accurate or not, and to what extent. For me, I greatly enjoyed the way in which the book provided a coherent argument as to how the ACW was fought at a strategic and tactical level. I personally found the late Dr. Griffth’s arguments persuasive, and was impressed by the way in which the tactical and grand-tactical battlefield events were referenced to the location and terrain of the battlefield, and to logistics. 

If nothing else, the book serves as a wonderful introduction for the fourth of my One Stop Campaign Guides – which is Dr. Griffith’s “Battle in the Civil War”. This is a slim, lovingly illustrated guide to the Civil War which sets out in a summary form many of the arguments made by Dr. Griffith in “Battle Tactics of the Civil War”. The illustrations, by Peter Dennis, are simply magnificent. The book is a model of clarity, describing organisation and tactics from the army level of campaigning, to brigade actions, and down to the regimental level. Tactics and terrain are well covered, as are the contrasts between the opposing forces. The two books, taken together, form a great introduction to the ACW, and I would guess that many of you will have them already on your bookshelves. If not, “Battle Tactics of the Civil War” is in print, and there are copies of the illustrated “Battle in the Civil War” available online from time to time.

And finally, to the fifth of my One Stop Campaign Guides. “The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough” is Dr. David Chandler’s book about how warfare was staged in the late 17th and the early 18th centuries. 

While many of you will no doubt love his “Campaigns of Napoleon” (an undoubtedly brilliant book), for me, I feel “The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough” is his magnum opus. At the time the book was written, probably less was available to Dr. Chandler about how Marlborough, Villars, Eugene of Savoy and Bouffleurs fought their battles, compared to Napoleon. The book is therefore a great volume of historical detective work. How did firefights take place? How many men were in action at any one time? How did armies manouevre, lay siege, fight? I doubt that many of these questions had been addressed in so comprehensive a way before “The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough” was published.

It describes the workings of the respective armies, their organisation, tactical handling, deployment, and campaign methods. It focuses on terrain – rivers, roads, strategic theatres. It considers the role of the chief commanders of the age, and of the great engineers. In short, you can start Marlburian wargaming having this book and needing very little else. After many years of playing that period, I found it as useful a guide to how Marlburian armies fought as I had done at the point I started. I was not always sure that Dr. Chandler’s conclusions were the last word on the subject (mainly because he had inspired so many other writers to add to his learning on that period), but they always needed to be borne in mind, and measured carefully before disagreeing. It is also beautifully written, in a clear, careful style which is a model of precision and brevity. Simply, one of my favourite books.

Well, there you have my five One Stop Campaign Guides. I know you’ll have many more. Please feel very free to add yours in the comments.

"A Mere Question of Pluck": Elandslaagte, 21 October 1889

For the next of the recent set of playtests featuring battles of the Second Boer War, Rich chose the ballet of Elandslaagte on 21 October 1889. This action is known for well-coordinated British attacks and skilful deployment of the British infantry under Boer fire.

In another of our strange echoes of Boer War history, the table top game played out very much like the actual battle. British deployment in the game was patient, well-thought through and made full use of natural features, such as the dead ground on the British west flank. Boer deployment, by contrast, was more passive and was hampered by the loss at an early stage of one group of Boer vedettes and some difficult card draws.

Interestingly, our play-test results seem to be shifting slightly as regards the results. Our initial games a few years back, and earlier this year, favoured the Boer, with the British struggling to achieve any sense of order in their deployment, especially in the “beaten zone” of German Mauser fire. In the Elandslaagte game however, the British were more assured in their deployment and patient with the build-up. Does this mean that we, as a club, are getting more comfortable with the challenge of playing British forces? Or is Elandslaagte an easy game for the British, with their wealth of good mounted troops. As we approach re-fights of the “Black Week” and Spion Kop, we should have a better idea of how we’re collectively doing in re-creating British forces’ deployment and fighting methods.

As before, I have added the details of the AARs into the photos below. I find written AARs sometimes a little tricky to follow, so please continue to let me know if you prefer this format (and thank you to those who have given a response on that already).

A few other points…

First, I can strongly recommend the excellent book “From Boer War to Great War” by Dr Spencer Jones which covers the evolution of British tactics through the Boer War and on to the first battles of the First World War. Dr Jones’ book is taken from his PhD thesis, but remains a very clear, concise and well-written examination of the struggles and eventual success of the British army in the 1900 to 1914 period.  A really excellent read.

Second, I apologise for the blog posts here being rather erratic of late, and also my absence in the last couple of painting rounds for Curt’s splendid Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. My Mum has been in hospital for the past four weeks in Yorkshire and this has caused a lot of dislocation in normal family (and wargaming) life with travelling and visiting and what-not. Hope you can bear with me for a while if the posting is more erratic than normal.  And, above all,…get well soon, Mum!

Third, I should be at Salute 2014 in London this coming weekend. It’s certainly one of the highlights of my gaming year and I am greatly looking forward to seeing friends, old and new, and helping out running the TooFatLardies’ game, which will be Chain of Command. I’ll also be dropping by the Bloggers Meet-Up at 1pm, so hope to catch you all there if not before.