Grand Battery book review and competition

One of the things I love about wargaming is the idea of total immersion; not only learning the fluff, and spending hours painting the models; but playing a long game and getting deeply involved in every move, discussing the tactical aspect of potential moves with my opponent, as well as trading the occasional piece of ‘trash talk’ or gentle mocking.

I have always been attracted by the idea of larger and more complex gaming, with orders, chains of command and lots of cross referencing on complex charts.  This is the territory of the ‘old-school’ historical wargamer and, dare I say it, the Napoleonics wargamer.

Recently I was sent a review copy of ‘Grand Battery’ by husband and wife writing team Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell (who you may have seen writing an excellent column in Battlegames magazine).

The book is a standard (novel sized) hardback running to nearly 200 pages, with lots of photographs of models, mostly being used for games.  As with all the Pen and Sword titles that I’ve seen, the book is well laid out.   My only criticism is that there seemed to be a few spelling and formatting errors, which distracted from the content from the book a little.  Anyway, with my history of spelling and grammar errors I’m in no position to get too upset.

The book starts with a very warm and friendly introduction, which immediately puts the novice gamer (or n00b) at their ease, before getting straight into the good stuff.  The first half of the book provides the background (what we modern gamers refer to as the ‘fluff’), discussing the history and main battles of the period, followed by a breakdown of the composition and armament of the various forces involves.  The second half of the book introduces the rules.

The rules are primarily designed for 15-28mm scale miniatures, but there is discussion of using smaller and larger scales on the table, and I don’t believe that this would impact on gameplay.  The game is based around an orders driven system, assigning actions to units in advance, and ensuring that the chain of command is maintained (or else having to send couriers between units to pass orders!).  This leaves players having to plan well in advance, fighting against the fog of war which will frustrate players as much as it did their historical counterparts. 

There is an unstated assumption from the authors that the two generals reenacting the battle are there to enjoy the gaming experience and discuss potential historical events rather than focus on winning at all costs, or using definitions of the rules that take away from the spirit of the game.  The rules are clearly to be played for enjoyment, rather than in a competitive environment, the spirit of the game is on an enjoyable gaming experience, rather than smashing your opponent. 

The rules provide a great degree of flexibility which will allow a large number of historical battles to be refought with ease, a number of scenarios are included at the end of the book for this very purpose, though you could easily refight you own particular Napoleonic battle (if you have one in mind).

If I had a friend or older child who fancied getting into historical gaming, or an interest in learning about the period, this book would be an excellent starting point; steering clear of the ‘rules lawyering’ that is present in other systems.  Though I wouldn’t attempt to take this along to my local club or try to win over some hardcore 40k players, but that's just me and my group and is no way a reflection on the book.

But the most important question; Is it frugal?  Well, yes.  If you fancy learning a bit more about the period or historical gaming, this book is reasonably priced and well presented, and will undoubtedly provide hours and hours of enjoyment.  Combine it with a couple of boxes of Perry Plastics and you’ve got yourself a fantastic starter set for a really good price.  If this sounds like something you'd like to try, I’d certainly recommend picking it up.

The book also hints at future wargaming titles from Pen and Sword, and I’m looking forward to other titles in this series.   The website already has ‘Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls: A Tabletop Game of Naval Battles in the Age of Sail’, promising both small and large scale fast play battles, on pre-order and if the quality is as good as Grand Battery, it’ll be a great read.

As is becoming the custom, I’m giving away my review copy of ‘Grand Battery’, no matter where in the world you are.  If you’d like to go into the draw simply send me an email with the title ‘Grand Battery Book Draw’ by midnight (British Summer Time) on Thursday 23rd June.

Happy Gaming

Exeter Legionary

As regular readers know, there’s nothing I like better than getting in a car and driving up a dual carriageway for an hour to spend all day in a cattle shed with like-minded gentlemen before driving home again.  This weekend was no exception as I journeyed to the frozen north (Exeter) to participate in, and bring a bit of class to, the Legionary 2011 wargames event.


In fact, before we go too far, don't forget you can still win a copy of the latest Unseen Lerker magazine featuring my own article on Frugal Gaming, see the last post for details.  But hurry, you only have a few days left!

Anyway, this was the third year that I’ve visited Legionary, and it’s the third venue in that time.  There were a few criticisms of the layout last year for gamers (I didn’t participate in the tournament so I couldn’t say) but this year the venue was pretty good.  It was in an agricultural auction house on the outskirts of the city, though was nowhere as bad as you may imagine.  The large open space meant that all the gamers were in with the traders which created a good atmosphere and lots of people were wandering over from the trade stands to watch the games being played.

As with previous tournaments, I met plenty of people.  This included two of my Exeter twitter chums; Domonet and Wartrader (both well worth following) who turned out to nice guys rather than murderous psychopaths, which is always the risk of social networking.  Domonet and Wartrader were running a demonstration game of Infinity which looked very interesting, but I’m currently afraid of taking up another game system as I’d probably end up selling a kidney to fund my ridiculous gaming addiction.  But if you’re on the lookout for a new game then check it out and let me know what you think.  Of course I would be remiss to not give a big plug to Wartrader’s business; so have a look at that as well.

I also met James, who had made the epic journey from Surrey to compete in the competition (for my American readers; Surrey is a separate state, east of London Island, two timezones East of here.  Everyone there speaks like our Queen Elizabeth and drives around in Rolls Royces Automobiles).  It also happens that James’s wife had to travel to Exeter that weekend for work, but I’m sure that's just a coincidence.  James mentioned that he reads this blog (Hello) so I knew he was a man of taste.  As it turned out he also a great looking Warriors of Chaos force, which was one of the nicest painted armies I’m ever seen with my own eyes.  I’m sure that my pictures don’t do it justice, so take my word for it that his ‘Amy Winehouse’ champion conversion was superb. 

"They tried to make me go to the Realm of Chaos, I said 'No no no...'"

The bring and buy stall was well stocked and most things seemed to be reasonably, priced apart from the obligatory £100 copy of Space Hulk.  As it turns out, I did end up buying an original copy of the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook.  This was a bargain and was bought purely for nostalgic reasons, it was the first gaming product I ever saw and it opened up a whole new world to me!  Looking back over the badly rendered Space Marine drawings and crudely painted miniatures would have brought a tear to my eye if it wasn’t for the fact that I'd just sold my soul to Satan to learn to paint like James.

The bring and buy also featured this amazing 5ft long spaceship for £30.  File it under ‘Looks cool, but I’ve no reason or space for it’.

As for my games of Warhammer; I got beaten like an incontinent puppy at a carpet factory.  I did take a few of the enemy down, racking up a few hundred victory points from each game.  My overall ranking was the same as at my last tournament (second from last) but I feel that my game has improved massively in the last few months and I’ll be expecting a win or two next year.

Yeah, next year.  I’ll definitely be back to Legionary 2012 for more, a lot of the guys from the Cross Swords club agreed that it was a great tournament and we’ll be back next year.  Well done to all those who took part in the tournament and a great big ‘THANK YOU’ to all who organised and ran the event.

Happy Gaming.

The Frugal Lerker

If you listen to gaming podcasts such as Heelanhammer, Podhammer, and Bad Dice, you'll probably have heard of a Warhammer based magazine currently on the market called 'Unseen Lerker', after hearing a number of positive reviews I decided to give it a go.  I've not been a fan of gaming magazines in the past, but I decided to give this one a go for a number of reasons:

• It's had some fantastic reviews
• It focuses on Warhammer Fantasy
• It's only published six times a year.

Yeah, my main problem with previous gaming magazines was that I wasn't getting the chance to read them cover to cover before the next issue came out; this was combined with the fact that most magazines covered a wide range of games systems, of which I only played a small number. 

But anyway, Unseen Lerker is much better, even with my super-slow reading rate (I'm not stoopid, I'm just busy, okay?) I manage to read the magazine (and re-read my favourite articles) before the next issue drops through my letterbox.  Oh, and that's another point, and perhaps the greatest attribute of the magazine; it's a proper print and paper magazine, so you can, as they say themselves: 'Read it on the loo, not on the screen'.  It's not one of those horrible pdf magazines or blogs that you can only read while sat in front of a computer.  Erm...

I subscribed a few months ago based on the positive reviews and I've not regretted it, the magazine is a great mix of hobby and gaming articles written by those people who are genuinely involved and excited by gaming. 

Yawn... Frugal who?

Speaking of which, I must admit that the normally high quality of the magazine has dropped considerably in the latest issue; they've included an article on 'Frugal Gaming' by some scruffy bloke called Dave.  That's right, I've got an article in the latest issue of the mag, introducing their readers to the ideas of Frugal Gaming.  Of course, you lot don't need to read about all that stuff, but if you're interested in reading my article from the magazine, the Editor ('Bobo') has sent me a free PDF copy of my work that you can access here.

In addition, Bobo has kindly given me an extra copy of the mag that I'll pop in the post to one lucky reader.  If you'd like to go into the draw for a copy of the magazine simply send me an email, with the title 'Unseen Lerker competition' and I'll draw out one lucky winner.  Get your entries to me by midnight (British summer time) on Wednesday 11th May (that's nearly two weeks from now) and I'll get in contact with the winner within a couple of days.

I hope you like the article, if so give the magazine a try and make sure that you tell them that Frugal Dave sent you.

Happy Gaming!

Party Time!

Comic taken without even asking from http://nedroid.com/

 Okay, this has got a little bit out of hand.  I'm a gamer yelling at the other gamers to spend less money on gaming and I seem to have accrued a few followers.  As I write this, the blog has 179 followers and there's a distinct possibility that in the next few weeks it could pass 200.  If (I'm too much of a pessimist to say 'when') I do pass the 200 followers mark, I propose that we have some sort of celebration, probably involving me giving some prizes away or whatever, maybe a competition, maybe lots of little prizes? 

My question to you is, what the hell shall we do?  Any ideas?

Want to be a Winner? Or a Blogger? Or Both?

The Banner competition closed last weekend and I'm pleased to announce that the prize goes to Lawrence for his sterling efforts.  I'm really impressed with his design and as his was the only entry it made the judging process a lot easier.  Yes, that's right, only one of you lazy lot could bother your backsides to enter the competition, shame on you.  Fortunately, you have a chance to redeem yourself as you can always enter the current competition to win a copy of the book 'Wargaming on a Budget', details are here and you have until next saturday to get your entries in, if that's not too much trouble.

Anyway, back to the winning design; I'll be changing the banner to coincide with the new year, so keep your eyes peeled.  I'm afraid that I don't have a photo of Lawrence, but as he was the only heroic character who took on the might of my evil competition this will have to do:

As is becoming traditional, December is the year when I open up the blog to all you muggles out there who fancy a go at blogging (In fact, I'm always keen to welcome new posters at any time of the year but I get particularly lonely in the winter months).  If you're interested in writing occasional words about any aspect of wargaming, boardgaming or RPGs then send me an email with the title 'I want in, how much does it pay?' to the usual address.

Look out next week for the traditional 'End of Frugal Year Review' when I waffle on for a couple of hundred words about how great I am, before listing some of the least worst posts on this blog from the past twelve months.  See you soon!

Wargaming on a Budget - Book Review and Competition

Where do you read this blog, are you currently sat at your kitchen table? Are you at work? How about on the beach, or in the bath?  Though I’d like to think that this blog is a useful resource, you can’t beat a good old fashioned book to sit down and read wherever you fancy.

 
This week, I’m reviewing ‘Wargaming on a Budget’ by Iain Dickie.  For those of you unaware, Iain used to edit Miniature Wargames magazine, so he knows what he’s talking about.  The book presents ideas for gaming ‘constrained by money or space’, so you can see why it piqued my interest.

The scope of this book is huge, everything from ideas for campaigns and satellite combat rules, to descriptions on making ships and even casting your own figures.  It really does have it all, but the wide breadth of areas does not allow a large amount of depth; the book could quite easily be twice as long and still contain plenty to keep the reader entertained on each page. 

This reflects the slightly more ‘grown up’ tone of the book, it gives plenty of ideas and instructions, but doesn’t go into them in the type of explicit detail that many gamers are now used to.  As somebody who’s read lots of gaming and modelling articles, I appreciated this approach.  The book is decidedly ‘old school’ wargaming, covering all gaming periods and scale, again this may scare a few of the GW Fanboys off, but it shouldn't, there's so much content in this book and the majority of the ideas can be read across to any system or scale you choose to play.

The book doesn’t mention the internet as prominently as may be expected, which is a little strange.  I firmly believe that the internet is the single biggest gift to the frugal gamer; it allows price comparisons, reselling, discussion of tactics, free magazines and downloads, and a wide range of other resources. Though of course, any talk of ‘modern technologies’ instantly dates a book, so perhaps this was a wise move on the part of the author.

One of the ideas raised in the book is that, as gamers, we also need to be frugal with space.  It’s not something really covered in this blog, but it’s an area that surely affects us all.  Only a lucky few have dedicated gaming rooms where we can store all our figures, terrain and boxes of unfinished projects.  The author looks at ideas for changing scale, storing figures and making gaming tables that can be easily collapsed and stored away, ideas definately worth considering.

For me, the greatest strength of this book, alongside the huge amount of ideas, is the format.  I know this sounds stupid, but having a proper sized paperback to read, rather than an oversized glossy paged book is so convenient.  It can be read in the bath, in bed, or on the bus, without having to jostle for elbow room or tilt pages to look at the text. 

So don’t expect hundreds of glossy pictures and detailed instruction, (though colour pages are included).  This book makes a refreshing change from the step by step 'How To' guides that gamers have been spoon fed over the last decade.  If you want something with lots of genuinely novel and useful ideas in a friendly format, this is well worth adding to your Christmas list.

I'm giving away my review copy of this book in a prize draw; to enter simply send me an email with the title 'Book Giveaway' and I'll choose a winner at random.  The draw will close on the Saturday 18th of December at 1200 GMT.

Wargaming on a Budget by Iain Dickie is available through Pen and Sword books.  Many thanks to Rachele for the review copy.

£30 in Vouchers up for Grabs!

Just a quick reminder that the competition to design the a new 'Frugal Gaming' banner ends this saturday, so get designing!

The winner will receive £30 (or equivalent) in vouchers to a gaming store of their choice.

The full details of the competition can be found here.

Good Luck!

Competition Time!

Yes, that's right, it's time to give you the chance to be a winner!

I've decided to give away £30 (or crazy overseas equivalent) worth of gaming vouchers to an online gaming store of your choice.  All I ask in return is that you design me a logo.  The 'Year of Frugal Gaming' logo that you see at the top of the page is a bit old, and I'd like a new design to be able to apply to the blog and some future merchandise (for more competition prizes!).

The logo must:

• Include the words 'A Year of Frugal Gaming' and our logo "Spend Less, Game More'.
• Be of similar dimensions to the current banner, or a standard 'blog banner size'.
• Be colourful!
• Be in .jpg or similar computer friendly picture format.

I'll give you two weeks to send in your designs to me here, including 'Banner Competition' in the title. I'll contact the winner by email and arrange sending out the tokens.  The judges decision is final and the competition in not open to any people that currently post on the blog (Sorry Von, Pete and AK!).  There should probably be some legal stuff about me taking ownership of your design or something, but we'll sort that out in court in the rare event that this design makes me a millionaire.

I'm not looking for great technical skill here, just something interesting.  In other words, don't be put off, have a go, I'm really interested to see what you come up with.

So get designing and get your designs to me by 1200 GMT on Saturday 4th of December and I'll announce the winner shortly after.  If there's any questions, post them below or send me an email.

Happy designing!