Fighting 15s at Colours Sept 14-15

As a blogger who gets a fair amount of traffic, I feel obliged to share this from Henry at Miniature Wargames:

As a result of an administrative error, the incorrect version of the Fighting 15s ad was published in the Colours Show Guide which was published this week as part of MW365. 

Huge apologies to Ian Marsh of Fighting 15s, who had been beavering away painting up samples of the Eureka range for which he is now the UK distributor. Naturally, he was extremely disappointed that his hard work would not be seen by the MWBG audience. 

Therefore, I'm placing his ad here and I'd be grateful if you could help spread the word – by all means post the pic of his ad on your own blog. 

Being an 18th century fan, as you know, I will certainly want to see those beautiful 18mm Seven Years War figures 'in the flesh' at Colours.

It's probably a good job I'm not going to Colours, as Fighting 15s stock AB's 'large 15mm' Napoleonics, which are a pretty decent match for the Napoleon At War 18mms in my unpainted pile... :D

I should get round to reading this month's MW, too - been madly too busy this past few days!

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!