"Going Up The Blue" Reading

After my last game, giving the Western Desert theatre a sort of trial run out, it became rather obvious to myself of how little I actually know about how the battles were fought. This is in complete contrast to North West Europe, Italy and the Eastern Front, where I feel I'm pretty comfortable wargaming these periods, given the reading I've done over many a year. Even the Far East and the Pacific War come ahead of the Western Desert.

Having seen the 'Tank Battles in Miniature' books at the recent CWD, I thought they might be a good place to start. Normally a lot of sellers, especially at shows, have them for sale at rather eye watering prices. For once I managed to find a couple of them for very reasonable prices and so, with my birthday coming up, I decided to treat myself.

This really is a gem of a book and a perfect introduction to the period, covering aspects such as tactics, terrain, navigation, visibility and communication, plus the usual vehicle stats and some rules suggestions. All perfect information to build on some ideas I've had on how to tweak BKCII to make the battles more interesting. I'm looking forward to giving it a good read, make some notes and give the ideas a run out.

I've enjoyed previous books by Robert Forczyk, but I had not heard of this one, probably because I wasn't actively looking at gaming the Western Desert. So thanks to Neil Patterson for the 'heads up' on this:).

Quite a tome of a book, but at a first glance, it's got plenty of information in an easily accessible format, especially with regards to the infantry's part in the battles, which is rather neglected in Featherstone's book. Whilst having plenty of tanks on the table is fun, I would want to include the 'all arms' aspects of the battles, as that is much more interesting.

This was bought as a treat for that pure nostalgia hit! I'm pretty sure we used to use these rules at one point, as the infantry movement section rank many bells, or maybe it was the same in the Airfix WWII rules, given that it's by the same author.

Reading the book made me realise how useful and important these were, as they are a great 'one stop shop' for the gamer, when books back then were rather expensive in real terms and there weren't that many good books on WWII compared to today. The rules however are way too detailed and complex for today's tastes I would venture, but interesting to look back at how games were played back then. Thankfully things have moved on leaps and bounds, but each to their own.

What Next?

Aside from some more trial Western Desert games, I've dug out my notes on the Canadians in Normandy campaign to try and get the next battle in, as it's been far too long. I had planned on painting up a load of kit for both sides, but that is looking unlikely for a while. Ditto on the terrain front. So needs must and my Fallschirmjager will have to stand in as and when required. Oh the shame of it;)!

In a week of so's time, a bunch of us are meeting up for a trial game of Keith Flint's 'Startline' rules, based upon some old WRG rules covering 1925-1950. I believe the setting will be the Ruhr pocket in 1945, so this will be somewhat different to my normal games for sure. Photos and a sort of AAR to follow in due course.

It would be nice to get some painting in, but I'm not going to sweat over it if it doesn't happen, especially as the next few weeks are rather busy on many fronts. I might get lucky, you never know...

Thanks for reading and as always, any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.