Tag Archives: New Release

MWBG 398

Publication date Friday 20^th May

The show season is in full swing and at last, the weather is warm, so there’s plenty of reading material in this month’s issue to keep you busy.

• In The Stalin Line, the second instalment of The red empire strikes back – fighting the Great Patriotic War one battle at a time, Andrew Rolph continues his series of Ostfront scenarios with a classic situation of a small, elite, mobile force taking on a big, lumbering enemy in fixed positions.
• The Editor is delighted to present a major piece, Push of pike and dint of butt, English Civil War tactics in wargames by Andy Copestake, coming as it does at just the right time for his own ECW project. Sit back, relax and absorb these nuggets of wisdom from a real aficionado of the period.
• In Eindecker Part 3, Tony Harwood cheekily adds a third instalment to Chris Russell’s WWI air warfare series, describing how to build your very own dogfighting monoplane. With step-by-step photos taken by Tony as he was working on the project.
• American writer Robert Piepenbrink makes a welcome return, and With a fistful of figures presents a dozen ideas for small games that require, in most cases, no more than a couple of handfuls of figures. Small can, indeed, be beautiful as he proves right here.
• In The look of the thing – artistic licence in wargaming, Arthur Harman asks whether aesthetics should be allowed to dominate our enjoyment of a wargame, or deter us from getting stuck in. Is our terror of the roving photographer or blogger to blame?
• Further thoughts on inspiration has David R Clemmet and Thomas Davidson asking how we attract new blood into the hobby, and they outline their vision for a new show designed to encourage cross-fertilisation between different creative hobbies.
• And finally we have an extended show report from Salute 2016 by Neil Shuck.

Of course, we have our regular spots too:

• In his Briefing The Editor finds himself at a happy conjunction, where several articles coincidentally arrived together to help answer the ‘overcoming the greying of the hobby’ conundrum; and in his World Wide Wargaming, he continues his research into English Civil War gaming, discovers the joys of Google hangouts and this month has three Blogs of the Month.
• Neil Shuck discusses the scales we use to play skirmish wargames, gives us some tips for deciding whether to invest in new games, and finds himself looking at old toys in new ways.
• Diane Sutherland gives us The Gates of Azera in her Continuing tales of a wargames widow. She’s has given husband Jon a good roasting for demanding a theme this month that is more Arabica than Araby. So, grinding away at the problem of sci-fi structures, she comes up with an instant solution expressly designed to have you feeling full of beans.
• In Fantasy Facts, John Treadaway has some post-Salute thoughts before plunging into another batch of genre goodies, including one for fans of Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation™ shows.
• Boardgame specialist Brad Harmer-Barnes explores the second wave of pulp gaming – what he calls ‘VHS Gaming’.
• In his Send three and fourpence column, Conrad Kinch insists we should be cutting to the chase, and has some handy tips for ensuring that you make the most of your precious gaming time.
• Of course we have our Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal; our regular review slot Recce; and finally, our competition this month features the 100 Years War range from Old Glory UK, with no less than four £25 vouchers to be won.

The front cover photo, taken by the Editor, is of just a fraction of the delightful 10mm English Civil War miniatures in the collection of Suffolk Gamer Andrew Brentnall. There’s a couple more photos of them accompanying Andy Copestake’s article.

Remember also to check out the new “Downloads” section on the new website for additional material for Andrew Rolph’s article.

Roll ‘em high!

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