Wargaming Books from My Library

   In my "library" or "junk room" (depending on if you are talking to my wife or me), the bookcase nearest my work desk has a shelf set aside for my older wargame books. Here is what makes up one shelf in that bookcase.

This is not a mistake; I have two copies of this volume.

This book is actually a kids history book on the Battle of Trenton.  I bought this book and another in the series Gettysburg, as they use toy soldiers to illustrate the books.

My Bedside Reading

       I started my current job 19 years ago. I was happy with the job as I no longer had to work two jobs to pay the bills. The one down side was it was second shift; my wife worked first shift so during the work week we rarely saw each other. It also meant lots of free time for me.  The great thing is I had a new computer and soon found myself researching wargames, and the hobby became an obsession for me.  I soon found the real possibilities of computers and could track down books online, instead of visiting every local bookstore (although I do miss the hunt of going through those bookstores).  Most of my earliest books were the classics of wargaming. I soon had a stack next to my bed for late night reading. I built a small shelf for my nightstand to hold my favorites, which still set on that shelf.

This is actually my second copy. The first copy is a paperback book. The paperback copy was my second wargaming book I had bought and used for my earliest games.

Of these books, this was the only one I found in a local bookstore; not surprising really considering most of the others were published in the UK.

Future Ancients Plans

        I have watched just about all of the Time Commanders videos on Youtube. Between these shows and reading up on Command & Colors Ancients, I have found myself excited about doing more gaming of this period.  My knowledge of Ancients is next to nil. This is one reason why I have done little with all the Peter Laing Ancients I have, which, by the way, is what I have most of. I do have a book, Greece and Rome at War, and several books put out by Barnes and Noble, including  Battles of the Bible 1400BC -73 AD, Battles of the Ancient World 1285BC- AD451, and  The Ancient Warrior 3000BCE-500CE (which I am currently reading).  However, I really do not know anything about the period.  The fact that 20 years ago, when I started really getting into wargaming, I concentrated on the Horse & Musket period, dabbling in other periods.  It is quite exciting to take the plunge into another period.

   As I know little of Ancient armies, I wanted to find a book that might have a good overview of what different armies looked like. I also wanted to find a book from the period that Peter Laing was active.  Someone pointed out to me that Peter Laing seemed to use Wargame Research Group books to design his figures. I looked up what WRG books were available, being interested in the period before Rome's dominance of the ancient world.  What I found were quite pricy.  then I came across a title that I had seen in the past, Blandfords' Warriors & Weapons, which was published in 1972. Having several Blandford books from this period, it seemed that this book might be a good book to begin with.

     Right now my plans are to use C&C Ancients scenarios on Heroscape terrain.  The ruleset to be used is still unknown. Among sets I plan to test play is Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame Anicents, Command & Colors Ancients (without the card set), and variants of both Battlelore and Battle Cry.  As for the armies, I haven't worked that out. I have several ideas on armies. One is having generic "blue" vs "red" armies that would be made up of random figures. I also have large collections of PL Greeks and Assyrians. Using these, I could make up two or more Greek city-state armies to fight against each other. Another possibility is an Assyrian army vs another army similarly dressed as the Assyrians. one idea I had was to make a core of an army, say, the king's bodyguard, then having the majority of figures painted and the king could build up his army using these figures as mercenaries. Right now all is on hold until Warriors & Weapons arrives; hopefully this will inspire me on how to proceed with my armies.