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Tuesday 15 March 2011

The portable wargame: Watching from the sidelines ... and enjoying every minute!

For reasons that I have already bored people to death with in previous blog entries, I have not had time lately to do much wargaming or to undertake a lot of wargame-related activity. One thing that I have been able to do, however, is to follow Ross Mac's play-tests of the rules I have written for my portable wargame ... and I have had enormous enjoyment reading them.

What has been of particular interest has been the very helpful and insightful feedback he has given me (including some very searching and challenging questions that needed to be asked!) and the fact that he has modified them to suit a much earlier period than I originally designed them for ... which goes to prove that the basic architecture and mechanisms I used are sound.

The battles he fought included two Russian Civil War battles (where he used 20mm-scale figures) ...

... a refight of the famous 'Battle of Hook's Farm' (as featured in H G Well's original LITTLE WARS book, and which was re-fought using Ross Mac's collection of Britains toy soldiers) ...

... and the 'Battle of Little Chrysler's Farm' (where Ross Mac's collection of 40mm-scale 'War of 1812' figures were used).

Ross Mac is also using these figures to fight another battle on the Hook's Farm terrain, and I am looking forward to reading this forthcoming battle report in due course.

My favourite photograph is an overview of the 'Battle of Hook's Farm'. Taken in black and white, the photograph could almost have been taken during one of HG Well's own battles, and to me, it captures the essence of all that a good wargame should have ... lots of fun!

My thanks go to Ross Mac for fighting these battles (although I get the impression that it was not too onerous a task for him), supporting me with lots of good ideas, advice, and positive and helpful feedback, and giving me permission to use some of his photographs.

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