Published again!

For those who hadn't noticed, permission to blow my own trumpet a little and note that the Irregular column in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy issue 90 (available online or from any reputable magazine supplier) is by your humble servant. (On the subject of wargames clubs and herding cats - with a tip of the hat to James Morris for turning up with questions at just the right time to be sent a draft for comment!)

Rather pleased with myself...

Madly busy day in London with work followed by a band rehearsal today, and I am knackered.

But...

I have just submitted my first paying article for one of the big three wargames magazines :D

Happy Mike.

Wargame Bloggers Quarterly

Just as a heads up, issue 4 of the above is out. Well worth a look if you haven't seen it before, and... why not contribute?

The Wargame Bloggers Quarterly

Ok - how come no-one told me this existed till now?

Issue THREE (yes, that means I missed two completely) is out, edited by the worthy PanzerKaput. Issue four will be edited by my good friend Sidney Roundwood.

It's only 25 pages, but it's a collection of excellent articles from a variety of bloggers, many of whom may be know to my readers - heck, several of them are my readers! :D

The Facebook page for the 'zine is here - grab a copy or two, spread the word.

Review - "Miniature Wargames" issue 362

Scarily, it must be a month since Salute.

I can tell this for a couple of reasons. First up, the credit card bill's arrived - cue the 'you've been spending money again' cries from the Keeper Of The Privy Purse...

Next, and far more satisfying, issue 362 of Miniature Wargames dropped onto my electronic doormat yesterday morning. Unlike a real postman, it doesn't knock or bang the letterbox flap at 3am, so I was somewhat pleased by that!

This is the second issue under the guidance of former Battlegames editor Henry Hyde, and I have to say? he hasn't let the standard slip from the previous one. Plenty of articles on a wide range of topics, including an interesting piece on an ECW campaign setting in 1644 (which rather appealed after our club campaign last year), a pirate rescue scenario which I'm awfully tempted to try out with Legends of the High Seas sometime and another one of Diane Sutherland's excellent terrain-on-a-budget pieces.

More interesting, a couple of very thought provoking 'meta' articles on the nature of 'realism' in wargames rules, and on the 'top down' vs 'bottom up' approach to a wargaming project. I'm all for more of these in MW, as I really do enjoy talking about the meta stuff around gaming.

One small criticism of the digital edition? The contents items aren't clickable, as far as I can tell, on my iPad.

In a nutshell? If it was a brand-new gaming mag with no history attached to the title? I'd buy and subscribe like a shot.

Onto the next! (like I think I said last time!)

Review: "Miniature Wargames" issue 361

One of the perks of a digital subscription, transferred from Battlegames? It arrives before the print copy hits the shelves, or in this case, before Salute as well.

What have we got, then?

First off, a brand new cover. You've probably seen it around the net, but if not: there it is. Definitely striking - there have been comments that being white it looks like a certain model railway magazine, but I don't see that as a problem: it certainly stands out from both WSS and Wargames Illustrated.

Next impression? It's predominantly black on white with a nice clean layout, which I really like - I have trouble with light text on dark: while it looks great, it can be seriously unreadable for long runs of body text.

Ok - graphic design aside: what's in it?

What isn't in it, and this is mentioned in new editor Henry Hyde's editorial, is the "Darker Horizons" section - that's now gone, and non-historical gaming is as much a part of the magazine as historical. As a predominately historical gamer, I rarely read it anyway, but this was compounded by it being printing light-on-dark! I strongly suspect that having SF/Fantasy gaming articles in the main body of the mag is going to cause people who might have skipped the Darker Horizons section to read them by accident, and hopefully get more out of them than they might expect. The other thing on the editorial that caught my eye, is a glorious piece of art from one of my favourite artists, Victor Ambrus from Time Team. I'm a huge fan of his style, so, nice catch, Henry!

As an aside: I'm going to try not to flag bits of the magazine as 'from Battlegames' and 'from the old mag', but if you're a Battlegames reader, you'll notice a bunch of regulars have made it across, and to be fair? Quite rightly so.

So what have we got? Picking out a few highlights: near and dear to my heart, an excellent hands-on review of Dux Britanniarum, for one, and by way of contrast a command challenge scenario for Dux Bellorum. Diane Sutherland has a great piece on tricks and tips for putting together some of the ranges of MDF buildings that are growing more and more popular, and there's a delightful little retake on H.G.Wells Little Wars. Among many others, including - a piece on photography for wargamers - so if you can't wait for me to finish my series, you know where to go! :D

In fact, to be honest? There's nothing I felt minded to skim, which is pretty rare for a wargames mag. A good read, and a great start to a new era.

On to the next, Henry!

A new era for Miniature Wargames

Miniature Wargames has been a magazine I've picked up on a 'when I see it in the shops' basis. As I have digital subscriptions to both Battlegames and WSS, I've sort of toyed with adding it to the list, and decided that on the whole, two's kind of enough. Or maybe not.

Atlantic Publishing (who publish both Miniature Wargames and Battlegames) have very kindly taken the dilemma out of my hands, by asking Henry Hyde, editor of the latter and one-half of my favourite podcasting team, to take the editorial reins at MW. This means that Battlegames as a brand will cease to exist (except for specials and their Combat Stress appeal) but (according to Henry) his brief is to add a healthy dose of the Battlegames 'Spirit of Wargaming' to the MW editorial mix (as well as a good few more pages).

What do I think? Personally, I can't wait. Battlegames has always been my favourite mag of the Big Four (before you ask, Wargames Illustrated (aka the Battlefront House Mag) runs a distant fourth), and I've always liked the fact that as a magazine it makes me think at least as often as it makes me go 'oo, lookit da shiny figurez!'.

So... congratulations to Henry, who is an all around nice bloke, polymath and Renaissance Man! I'm hoping and assuming the remains of my digital subscription will transfer, and I'm only left to decide whether I want paper or digital for the new mag. Tough one.

Battlegames issue 28

When I fired up the reader app on the iPad yesterday, it downloaded me the new issue of Battlegames, so, in a break from painting horses (I've been temporarily banished from the kitchen table and it's too cold out in the workshop), herewith a review.

My comments on layout and look of the previous issue still hold - Henry does a great job in producing a clean, readable magazine with no unnecessary colour and font tricks that make some rival magazines harder to read. Several great articles - the introduction to A Very British Civil War was something I've been rather hoping someone would write, the continuing story of the Grenoussian Intermezzo is a blast to read (and I'm working on a pass for this year's encore...), and the five-way colonial scenario looks like it has the potential to be a real blast on a club night.

I did, though, find myself finishing the magazine with a slight sense of 'is that all?'. Turns out the reason for this is that all the articles this issue are actually quite long, and in fact (setting aside the review and Forward Observer columns) there were, in fact, only six, compared to eight last time and seven before that, so... quantity not quality this issue :D

Still a great read, not at all sorry I subscribed.

[Folks with http://www.battlegames.co.uk/ bookmarked (like me) should note that the new site for the magazine is http://www.atlanticpublishers.com/magazines/battlegames/ and the reader is at http://www.exacteditions.com/]

Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy issue 58

Another magazine review, not least because I sort of promised the folks on Man At War's forum, but also because I happen to rather like the magazine.

So - Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. Rescued from the ashes of its previous English-as-a-foreign-language incarnation by the good folks at Karwansaray (try saying that after a few), who are the publishers of Ancient Warfare and Mediaeval Warfare magazines as well. They've kept going with the same title and issue numbering sequence, at least in part, I understand, to keep their distribution deals with folks like WH Smiths going. Not that I mind, since good old Smiths is where I bought it, right next to Wargames Illustrated and under the last copy of this month's Miniature Wargames, for £4.20.

Right at the start that makes it pricier than an electronic subscription to Battlegames, but having said that, I do find myself on the horns of a dilemma in that I love the convenience of reading magazines on the iPad, but I do also enjoy physical paper magazines. Still - production quality is top notch: unusually the cover is satin-finish rather than out and out glossy. Minor gripe in that the colophon on the contents page (the list of things you don't really care much about like ad rates and publisher contact details) is grey on black and almost unreadably small, but the rest of the magazine has a beautifully clean layout. The graphic designer in me (he keeps trying to get out!) wonders if the page margins are a bit wide on the article pages, but otherwise - lovely look, easy on the eye to read.

Content-wise, plenty of ads, from most of the usual suspects. Each issue has a theme, to which maybe 40% of the articles stick - this time out it's Napoleonics, with a focus on the Austrian campaigns. Several good articles, with almost universally well-composed and taken photos: the one that interested me, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the comparative reviews of various rulesets, including Napoleon At War and Warhammer Historical's Waterloo set. Good set of reviews, in which all the sets came out well. None of his complaints about Napoleon At War actually seriously affect the playability of the rules: I don't really think it's fair to criticise them for the fact that the tournament rules restrict you to 6 turn games. We're all intelligent people, and I can't remember the last time I actually stuck to (for example) WAB turn limits just because The Book Said So. Equally, while Man At War have specifically designed the rules to suit their figure sets (like Battlefront, they have a vested interest in selling them!), it's not rocket science to figure out the core concepts behind the rules (infantry move == effective musket range == infantry line frontage) and scale all measurements for standard 28mm figure basing to within pretty close tolerances. That aside though, I found it a useful comparative review.

Outside of the themed articles, we have a mix of reviews, painting guides and other articles. The ones that grabbed me were an excellent set of skirmish rules for the hospital fight at Rorke's Drift (must not buy the Warlord box set, must not....), and a set of tweaks to the Warhammer Gladiator rules, which I most definitely will be making use of. In general, I find myself wishing I had figures for a number of their little one-off scenarios, as they'd make great participation games for a club night.

There were also a couple of opinion pieces, one from Rick Priestly on IGOUGO systems, which seems to have provoked some debate, if not outrage, on the TFL list, and one from the Lardies' own Rich Clarke on what he calls 'snack pot' gaming (the next size up from skirmish). On top of that there's an interview with the Lardies about I Ain't Been Shot Mum 3.

And that rather sums up where WS&S gets it right - it's not afraid to stray away from the mainstream rule sets (oh, come on, you know the ones I mean!), and it's not afraid to get stuck into meta-discussions about the hobby. My kind of magazine, very much like Battlegames. I think my long-term plan will be to subscribe to these two, and pick up WI and MW when the contents pique my interest.

Battlegames issue 27

So, to my considerable delight, as I was pondering what to do with the afternoon, an email dropped into my inbox from the new publishers of Battlegames Magazine with a link to my first subscription issue. [And, quite surprisingly, the previous half-dozen, which I wasn't expecting, and did cause me to double check when my subscription expired!]

Now, I've downloaded and devoured most of the freebies available on the site before, so I'm pretty familiar with the house style - having an entire afternoon's worth of reading after a week of madness at work was just what the doctor ordered, even if I probably should have been getting stuck in to the figure painting I have queued up.

Unlike previous issues of Battlegames, which were, I gather, available as PDFs, the new publisher makes them available via a web app or a similar iPad app. Being the happy owner of one of the late Mr. Jobs little babies (which, unsurprisingly, has a number of Battlegames' free PDFs on it!) I went for the latter approach. The app's OK - it did fall over on me a few times, but didn't lose my place on restart, which was nice - basically it's yet another digital document viewer. Pages are at print quality, zoomable in, with clickable links, which is definitely a plus - this includes contents page links, which is even better.

Content-wise? It's Battlegames - by now, I know what I'd be getting: nice production quality, nice photos, articles written by gamers with their heads screwed on right. High spots for issue 27 for me were the continuing narrative of the Grenoussian Intermezzo campaign (so itching to have been a part of this), and Neil Shuck's taking over of the Forward Observer column. Neil's Meeples and Miniatures podcast (see top right links section!) as well as his and Henry Hyde's View From The Verandah kept me sane during my long commutes to London (which thank goodness I don't do any more!), and I love his style. The I Ain't Been Shot Mum scenario intrigued me, and I was very impressed by Mike Stewart's "Wargaming Blind" piece - there but for the grace of God go I. The review of Saga has done nothing to dissuade me from buying it, either!

All in all? My kind of wargames magazine. And I really must get my thoughts about wargames campaigns vs leader-board "campaigns" down in an article for this blog sometime. So, in a nutshell - if you are into more than points-based tournament battles? get your credit card out and subscribe. Now!

Putting my money where my mouth is

Subscriptions to Battlegames magazine are back open.

So I did. One 6 issue digital sub, duly Paypal'ed.

Battlegames saved!

From the Battlegames homepage:

[...] Battlegames is in the process of being acquired by Atlantic Publishers and will therefore become a stable-mate to Miniature Wargames. Deals of this kind obviously take time, but negotiations are proceeding extremely well and we are aiming to complete the handover by early December.

After six years of hard work to establish Battlegames in a highly competitive market, I am delighted that the magazine will now have the backing of Atlantic's highly professional and experienced team to help ensure that it has a bright future.

Battlegames will remain a stand-alone, bi-monthly publication [...]

 Woot. Yay. If you're reading this, Henry, I'll be subscribing next month.

Battlegames magazine.

It would appear that the excellent Battlegames magazine is no more, at least as far as a print version goes.
Sad news, with a twinge of guilt, since a paper subscription was high on my list of things to purchase with my new extra disposable income.
Henry Hyde does seem to be an all-round decent chap, and it's a crying shame. Hopefully he can salvage what he needs to keep the financial wolf from the door from the wreckage.