New book: Forging the First Fantasy Wargame: A Companion to Tony Bath's Hyborian Campaign

 

Tony Bath’s Hyborian Campaign stands as one of the most ambitious and influential wargaming experiments of the twentieth century. Drawing inspiration from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, Bath constructed a fully realised, pseudo‑historical world—complete with its own geography, cultures, economies, and military systems—capable of sustaining years of strategic play.

While the mechanics of the campaign are preserved in Tony Bath’s Ancient Wargaming published in 2021, this volume tells the rest of the story: how a friendly contest between Bath and Don Featherstone grew into a sprawling, international campaign involving pioneers such as Charles Grant and Joe Morshauser, many of whom issued orders by post for years on end.

Hyboria was more than a battlefield. It was a living world where rulers schemed, armies marched, treasuries rose and fell, and characters developed ambitions, rivalries, and consequences. In doing so, Bath helped pioneer the long-form, open-ended style of play that would later define role playing games.

This book charts the rise and eventual end of the legendary campaign and includes, Bath’s earliest medieval rules, his micro‑wargaming system, and an overview of his never‑published World War II project.

The book only took me over ten years to finish. It took a while to go through the thousand plus pages of documentation from Phil and Sue Barker, who took part in the original campaign.  

Alexander the Great’s Campaigns: A Guide to Ancient Political and Military Gaming

 Upon request I have just republished a classic book by the one and only Phil Barker.

  

The story of Alexander the Great is of a young titan who took control of what its neighbours thought of as a backward nation, used an army of radically new kind invented by his father to impose unity on the highly civilised but bitterly quarrelling states of Ancient Greece, then turned east as the champion of civilisation. His strategic and tactical genius quickly crushed the huge Persian Empire, the most feared military power of his day. Continuing east, he imposed his rule on nations beyond the boundaries of the then-known world, battling against armies relying upon huge and terrifying unknown beasts. Before his premature death at the age of 32, Alexander had conquered the Middle East, Asia Minor and large tracts of India, and was about to turn his attention on Rome and Carthage. Had he succeeded, known history would have been significantly different.

The chances he took in leading his troops personally into battle, exposing himself to end-less danger and being frequently wounded, give wargamers endless opportunities to alter history for themselves. The continuous intrigues, betrayals and jealousies between the various military and political leaders give tremendous scope for imaginative and Machiavellian players, while the individual battles - which are described in vivid detail - will certainly tax wargamers’ tactical skills.

This book includes a detailed and accurate account of Alexander as a military commander as well as all the information on march rates, logistics, pay, loot, sieges, armament, organisation and other related factors required by wargamers. It describes the troops of Alexander’s own armies and their opponents, their tactics and weapons and how these altered to meet changing circumstances, As well as being a tremendously exciting and imaginatively stimulating read, the book is thus an essential reference source, at once of immense value to Ancient wargamers and food for thought to serious historians.

The author is widely acknowledged as an authority on the period and. as well as being co-author of the famous Wargames Research Group ‘Ancient’ rules, has written widely on the ancient world.

Sue Laflin-Barker's Introduction to Ancient Wargaming using DBA 3.0

DBA is amongst that rare breed of wargaming rules; it has been enduring and popular for over twenty five years. Written by a team effort of Phil Barker, Sue Laflin-Barker and Richard Bodley Scott, it was a radical shift from the wargames that had gone before. The interesting story of the DBA rules was included in the book DBA 2.2 Simple Ancient and Medieval Wargaming Rules (also published by the History of Wargaming Project). DBA has developed from the first edition of the rules presented at the Conference of Wargamers and the Society of Ancients Conference in 1989 and now, in 2014, the rules are version 3.0.

When the WRG Ancient Rules were first published in 1969, they were soon very popular amongst the tiny number of wargamers in the world. As the hobby of wargaming expanded, there were new players who were keen to start, but who needed a guide to help them get started in ancient wargaming. There were calls for a book about ancient wargaming to accompany the WRG rules. In 1975, Phil Barker answered this call and wrote The Airfix Guide to Ancient Wargaming; this so called 'The Purple Primer' provided such a guide and was sought after second hand long after it was out of print.

The aim of this new book by Sue Laflin-Barker is to provide a new 'Purple Primer' for those starting the hobby of ancient and medieval wargaming with the DBA rules. It covers a range of topics from choosing and assembling an army, to a discussion of the rules and sample army lists with explanations. This guide has been written for the current version of the DBA rules, version 3.0 and it is hoped this book will be of equal utility as its predecessor, The original ‘Purple Primer'.