Early Wargaming II

Inspired by the discovery of Colonel's George Alfred Keef’s army and 60 pages of a campaign history from perhaps 1878-1882, I have been researching the start of hobby wargaming with toy soldiers. Colonel Keef's games seemed to be dependent on gunpowder in toy cannons, so were truly in the toy end of the wargame spectrum. 

Polemos (1886) published in Early Wargames Volume 2 was the earliest contender for a toy soldier based wargame, however I have now found an earlier game. 

The game is from approximately 1860 and was discovered by the late Hans Roer (an expert on early German figures). The two photo's below are reproduced from his book and are copyrighted to Hans Roer. 

This is clearly the earliest example of a hobby wargame with toy soldiers found to date. However, as I write this I already have more information arriving about even earlier wargames. 

My thanks to Brian Carrick for further information about the game. Brian is one of the editors of Plastic Warrior that marvelous hobby magazine all about collecting plastic soldiers.

Early Hobby Wargames- a 19th century lead collection

A recent edition of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow (Eastbourne Bandstand 2) had an intriguing item on a collection of around 1,000 metal figures dating from the 1860s and 1870s, which had been used for wargames by a boy who became and officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1878. He took the bulk of them on his first posting to Rangoon, where he played wargames on the floor of his bungalow with the Regimental Surgeon on a large canvas map spread on the floor. It is apparently a very early example of hobby wargaming from the 1870's.

More details can be seen at:

video onto You Tube http://youtu.be/3YHRTtBWv8Q

Hmm, I may have to update my Early Wargaming series of books as a result!