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Monday 8 February 2010

Birthday Books

Amongst the other presents I was given for my birthday were two books. They were given to me by my old friend Tony Hawkins, and I look forward to reading them.

The first is THE DEVIL'S PAINTBRUSH by Jake Arnott (Sceptre [2009] ISBN 978 0 340 92270 5). It is a fictional account of what might have happened had Aleister Crowley (the notorious occultist who was also known as 'The Great Beast') met Major General Sir Hector Macdonald during the latter's last few days in Paris before he committed suicide.

The second book is a facsimile of Brigadier General E Howard Gorges THE GREAT WAR IN WEST AFRICA (The Naval & Military Press Ltd [2004] ISBN 1 845741 15 3).

Although I do have a couple of books about the Great War in Africa, I do not have a specific volume about the operations that took place in West Africa. I suspect that it will give me lots of ideas for small battles and skirmishes that I can fight using my latest wargames rules.

Thanks Tony for some excellent books! If this is the standard of present I am going to get I should have birthdays more frequently than once per year!

4 comments:

  1. Bob,

    I want to alert you to another birthday present--weird as it might be. A few days ago someone posted a set of SciFi rules to Miniature Wargaming entitled "Raum Krieg" (Space War). I posted some comments in the Forum to explain that I put together the rules from some You TuBe videos by a guy named "Franz" (he never told me his last name). He subsequently took them down, so I'm glad I moved on them when I did.

    Anyway, I have no idea who posted them to MW, as I sent them only to a couple of people who asked for a copy on other discussion groups. I thought I would alert you to the rules, as they rely on a square grid, which is still seldom seen these days.

    I realize they are about as far away as one can imagine from the games you normally run, but if a guy can't get weird presents on his birthday, when should he?

    I don't know how to attach the pictures I had collected from the Internet--my favorite is the one showing Hitler at a rally, with his flying saucers hovering overhead--but if you or anyone else wants a copy, drop me a line.

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  2. Chris J,

    I will look out for these, as any rules that use a grid are of interest to me, even if the 'subject' is a bit wide of my normal areas of interest.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  3. Bob,

    I ran across a set of three games using a square grid: all involve ancient warfare (Romans v Gauls, Romans v Greeks, Greeks v Persians). Each game includes pictures of top-down units, but it should be no trouble at all to substitute stands with miniatures for these. At $6 per game it's hard to go too wrong. Go to www.wargamevault.com, and check under publishers for "Rosser Industries".

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  4. Chris J,

    Again, many thanks for the links.

    I have a growing interest in 'Ancients' as a result of starting to read the Conan stories. I am beginning to see why wargamers find this period so interesting.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

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