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Even the lives of good men must come to an end, and so it is with this issue

that we wish bon voyage to one of the best-loved doyens of the hobby, Terry Wise. Stuart Asquith and Steve Dungworth have kindly penned affectionate farewells to a man with whom, sadly, I spoke only once on the telephone, but I feel as though I knew him for most of my life.

His iconic Introduction to Battle Gaming was a constant companion throughout my youth and, in case the penny has never dropped for you, provided the inspiration for the name of this very magazine. Everyone who knew him speaks of a life well and honourably lived and he truly deserved the high regard in which he was held. Whilst we are saddened by his passing, his legacy in the hobby is assured.

This issue also sees another ending of sorts: as you will read on page 15, Charles Grant bids adieu to his regular Table Top Teasers slot. I can see the ash and sackcloth flying from here, and your pitiful lamentation fills my ears but, for goodness sake, give the man a break! Twenty four issues and a Teasers special (with another still to come) is a darn good innings by anyone’s standards. In any case, fear not, you can’t keep a good man down, and being freed from scenario creation will give Charles the opportunity to write about other aspects of the hobby that he loves so much, so you can expect to see him pop up again from time to time with nuggets of wargaming wisdom.

Battlegames will continue to carry scenarios aplenty, both big and small, from all historical eras and for fantasy and science fiction too. Talking of which, some of you, I know, may recoil in horror at the fantasy content in this very issue but, frankly, not to cover it every so often is rather akin to ignoring ‘the elephant in the room’. The latest Warhammer fantasy rulebook is a gargantuan release in hobby terms, and will be read, played, enjoyed and argued over by tens of thousands of wargamers around the globe, so giving it a good once-over seems appropriate.

Likewise, I was impressed by Bob Barnetson’s determination to find a low-cost approach to gaming the ever-popular JRR Tolkien’s vision of Middle-Earth; what better way than with 1/72 plastics and a free set of well-tested rules?

Anyway, the Old Schoolers out there will be happy again next issue. Spencer Smiths and hand-drawn maps, anyone?

Editorial Contents

Cover: The latest Warhammer fantasy edition on trial. Citadel miniatures from the collections of Roger Smith (Beastmen) and Mike Russell (Vampire Counts). Big editorial thanks to them for stepping in with last-minute help!

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Tiles of a wargames widow  4Diane Sutherland, UK

Forward Observer  7Mike Siggins, UK

Battle games forever  9Stuart Asquith and Steve Dungworth, UK

Table top teaser  12C. S. Grant, UK

Basic Impetus for Lord of the Rings  16Bob Barnetson, Canada

Warhammer the 8th I am  20Roger Smith, UK

Manzikert 1071  24Daniel Johnson, UK

The new wargaming  30Keith Flint, UK

Historicon 2010  32Chris Scott, UK

Recce  34New goodies reviewed by our team

The Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal: update  43Our campaign to help support ex-service personnel continues

The Battlegames shop  44The place to order your subscription and much more

Events December/January  46Richard Tyndall, UK

Competition and classified ads  47Another great competition

In-depth interviews with hobby personalities and reviews of miniatures, strategy boardgames and wargaming rules

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Miniatures Review VidcastsM

“View from the Veranda” specials with Henry HydeM

Available direct fromwww.meeplesandminiatures.co.uk

or subscribe via iTunes

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Tiles of a wargames widow part 1The continuing tales of a wargames widow

by Diane Sutherland

Two weeks of lazing around on the glorious sundrenched island of Crete – not quite. How about fourteen days in a cellar? How about a

fortnight smothered in wood glue and brown paint. Worse still, what about the damage to my nails?

This time I went into terrain building with my eyes open. To be precise, kind of half open. This was going to be terrain building on an epic scale. The wargamer wanted a new wargames table, not the size of his existing one at home either. Oh no, this one was going to be big. I’m going to go all European on you now. Fifteen metres long and just under two metres wide: now, that is a lot of table.

The wargamer has been planning this ‘little’ project for the past nine months. Every week, a courier has been turning up and taking away the wargamer’s buildings and soldiers and all that other hobby clutter. Great, I thought. Perhaps my dining room table might survive the daily onslaught from glue guns and static grass. Maybe my lounge won’t look like a shed anymore. Just maybe my garage might house a car one day?

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Friends of ours on Crete own ten apartments around a pool. It’s an idyllic setting and, what’s more, they have a large, light and airy, redundant cellar under their restaurant. I saw the wargamer pacing about in it last September. Like a fool, I thought nothing of it. Perhaps he was just working out the average marching speed of a hoplite formation? Then out came the camera and a tape measure. (Henry, do all wargamers have some kind of internal pouch for these, as they always seem to have one on hand?)

On the flight home, he broke it to me. “A wargamers’ holiday centre, that cellar is ideal,” he announced.

I smiled sweetly, a whim perhaps, it would pass. On the other hand, if he followed through with the idea, there was the prospect of acquiring a perma-tan without the risk of going orange. However, little did I know that this short sentence was to consign me to cellar duties for days, nay weeks, at a time.

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The first major task was to source the fabled blue insulation foam boards (actually, extruded polystyrene). Luckily, our friend Theo in Thessaloniki, on the Greek mainland, came up trumps. He found a manufacturer and sourced a distributor barely twenty minutes from the ‘construction site’ of the table. In May, we arranged a reconnaissance and purchasing visit. The wargamer made several trips to wood and builder’s merchants to buy all of the other essentials.

After great deliberation, we decided the table would consist of:

• Six 2.5 x 2 metre base boards (roughly in a capital E formation)

• Each of the base boards would accommodate twelve 60cm squares (to ensure that the table was as geomorphic as possible)

• The insulation boards (roughly 2.5 metres by 65cm each) would be cut into four 60cm squares, then mounted on a 3mm MDF square

• Each of the boards would have wood glue applied to the upper surfaces and then be covered in a sand and gravel mix

• We would then paint the upper surface and the sides of each of the squares in a dark chocolate brown (we used exterior acrylic paint)

• The squares would then be dry brushed to as close a match as possible to our existing freestanding terrain piecesWhen you buy insulation boards you can be

forgiven for not realising that they are not designed to make terrain squares, hence the decision to drop down from the familiar two foot square so beloved of wargamers, to the more continental size of 60cm. The method in the madness was the fact that the insulation material only has 60cm of usable width.

The precautionary measure of buying 3mm MDF was born out of previous encounters with the ‘lesser white polystyrene sheet’. Polystyrene’s tendency to warp if unsupported or boxed in wood is legendary. As it turned out, the superior blue board does not have these irritating habits; nonetheless, the MDF squares proved to be invaluable cutting templates.

Placing one of the MDF squares above the insulation board and one below, we simply lined them up and began the cutting. We used a long-bladed Stanley type disposable knife. Do not be tempted to cut through in one slice. Deeply score the insulation board, trying to run the cut at right angles to the templates. As Rod Stewart would say, “the first cut is the deepest,” and if this is too deep and you have cut at an angle, it means making cutting adjustments later.

You can get four 60cm squares from each of the large boards of insulation foam. Fast forward twenty boards later, and you have a neat mountain of 60cm squares. You are ready for stage two of operations.

Being patriotic and all that, even though we were in Crete, we opted for the Union Jack approach to painting on the wood glue. Give the MDF boards a nice thick line around the edges and then, being generous again, paint a Union Jack onto the board. Now, carefully apply the insulation board to the MDF. Some heavy objects are ideal to hold the first one down, but as the process accelerates, you create a pile of the boards and their combined weight will ensure that the bond is good.

A good precautionary measure is to check the joins at this point. However careful you have been, some of the boards will have angled edges or will be slightly off true compared to the MDF squares. Trim off excess material if required, set aside those that are too short on one or more edges and they

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will have to be dealt with later by applying some wall filler.The next stage, given the extreme weather conditions, was

something of a trial. We covered the uppermost surfaces of the boards with wood glue and laboriously carried them up the stairs, one at a time. There was a convenient sand and gravel pile where we threw the material onto the wet glue. A quick shake, then back down the stairs for another board.

Two days later, the boards were all covered in sand and ready for the first coat of paint. Having carefully chosen a near match to our favourite Sandtex Bitter Chocolate, we ran into two snags. Firstly, the colour of paint in no way resembled the paint chart; it was like molten milk chocolate. It will dry darker, we convinced ourselves. Second problem was applying the paint. Although not thick, the paint simply rolled up onto the brush on contact with the sand and gravel. We realised that every board would need to be brushed to remove loose dust before painting. Another half day.

With time running out, it was all hands to the pump. Mary, the owner of the apartments, rushed to our aid and within two days, the job was done. Every board was ready for the next stage, dry-brushing.

That would have to wait for three weeks, as we were due back in England. Writing deadlines wait for no man, eh Henry? Back in the saddle, so to speak, the dry-brushing got underway. Now this job is going to destroy your brushes, so the cheaper the better, provided they have some strength in the bristles. We got through at least five €1 beauties. This was what might be called a ‘heavy dry-brush’, in other words, do not totally dry your brush before applying it. We went for a caramel and a cream. Long and bold strokes of the brush are recommended. Apply the second colour straight away. Doing this, you will find that the colours will blend better. Any patches left over from the first brushing will be covered.

It is worth bearing a few things in mind about the design of the boards. Our first attempt at home-made boards, having used TSS for twenty years, taught us several lessons. We had built in terrain features like hills and gullies. It is the trend to do this with your boards, but we found that we needed to make roughly double the amount of boards to give us enough variety. For this project, the only boards with fixed features are roads. All of the other terrain features, except the rivers, are free-standing. Out of the eighty boards we made, sixty or so were flat and featureless, the balance consisted of roads.

It is always a compromise, but we wanted to make terrain boards with infinite options. We also wanted to be able to achieve the ‘quick change routine’. Opting for flat base terrain allows you to simply focus on moving the roads and rivers around when you reset the table. It does reduce the pain of breaking down and packing away a game.

On colours, we also decided against having patches of green on our boards. The more you clutter your boards with other colours, the less generic and adaptable they become. You can inject plenty of colour and realism with the freestanding terrain, the hills and the trees. The only thing we added were irregularly placed pieces of Woodland Scenic clump foliage along the roads. This was to simply highlight the roads a little more.

The insulation board is easier to find in the US than in Britain. However, it is available, generally sold as Styrofoam in Britain. Some suppliers include:• http://www.floormate-online.co.uk/• http://www.styrofoam-online.co.uk/

From these sources, you will have to buy in bulk. Smaller quantities can be found at:• http://www.homecrafts.co.uk/products-

Styrofoam-Sheets-And-Blocks_M831.htm• http://www.rapidonline.com/Educational-

Products/Graphics-Art-Design/Materials/Modelling-foam/66027/kw/Opt for the 25mm or 50mm thick boards; thicker boards

are unnecessary for terrain board building projects.

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In part 2, I’ll continue the tale of two weeks in the cellar, which rapidly developed into three weeks. We’ll look at how to finish the boards, make rivers and take a sneak peek at those hills and mountains. I still cannot believe that I adapted to a life as a troglodyte without kicking and screaming. So, anyone who ever doubted my willingness and ability to actually make anything should now send an immediate donation to charity!

On the upside, with the wargamer down in the cellar and the pool so tantalisingly close, I can hear those sun beds calling me, those iced coffees trickling down my throat as I bury my nose in a big fat holiday read (no, not Anthony Beevor’s book on the Spanish Civil War). If you ask me, what more could you want – a gainfully employed and happy wargamer and an equally ecstatic wife? Where’s my suntan cream?

This is the basic table construction and configuration. It is made up of six thick ply boards each measuring 2.5 metres by 1.25 metres. These

measurements will allow a lip around the whole table.

The tricky job of cutting the 60cm squares from the blue insulation board sheets. Deeply score the board with the first cut, and then slice through with

the second cut. Use the MDF base boards as a template.

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Alarmingly chocolate boards! A lesson in never trusting colour charts. The chocolate appeared to be rather like Sandtex Bitter Chocolate; in reality it resembled molten Galaxy. A careful selection of the dry brushing colours

soon alleviated our concerns.

This illustrates the Union Jack approach to applying the white wood glue onto the insulation board. If you use good quality, neat, thick glue, then you will not suffer from the dreaded warp. As the glue is neat, you will need to apply

the board to the MDF fairly quickly or it will begin to dry.

All the 60cm squares cut and glued to the MDF boards. Now look at the joins very carefully and make necessary adjustments and deal with under- and

over-cuts. Remember, the boards may never be in this configuration again, so check every one of the boards by swivelling them around 90 degrees at a time.

We cut 8cm wide grooves in a number of the boards for the roads. Mark the centre of one edge and measure 4cm each side of the centre so your roads

match up wherever the road boards are placed. After applying the wall filler, run a cocktail stick along the length of the roads to simulate cart tracks.

This is a close-up of the dry-brushing. There are only two dry-brushing coats put on to the basic chocolate. One coat is a caramel and the other a very pale cream. We tested a board with an additional white coat and discarded this

approach as it was too pale.

Dave Ryan takes his first look at the finished table. It has been set for our inaugural game – Crete 1941. Dave played one of the two German

commanders tasked with the capture of Maleme airfield. Photograph by Joe Dever.

After applying another thick layer of undiluted wood glue, we made the mad dash up the stairs to the front of the building and covered each of the tiles in a mix of sand and gravel. Experience taught us to leave them alone for a day,

and then to use a soft brush to remove all of the loose sand.

One dry-brushed board shows the immediate transformation from the chocolate to a more acceptable base colour. Our initial worry about the

boards moving around proved to be unfounded: the combined weight and good fit holds the boards in place.

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