Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

Wargaming is a big hobby with many diverse factions and perspectives: striking a balance that pleases everyone can be truly challenging! We like to think what sets Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy apart from other historical wargaming magazines is its focus on having fun, no matter what kind of wargamer you are or what your background is. WS&S is a light-hearted publication, that pays particular attention to games themselves and how to play them: it doesn’t get bogged down in lengthy historical expositions or recycle content you can read yourself in any history book. While popular periods like WWII, the Napoleonic era, and the ancient world get frequent coverage, we also try to feature the unexpected, with articles on spies, monsters and gangsters to name but a few.

Wargames Soldiers & Strategy

Editorial

MINIATURE REVIEWS • A look at some of the newest miniatures, terrain pieces, and more from across the wargaming world.

THIS GAMING LIFE ONE OF THE QUESTIONS • One of the questions I'm asked all the time is, ‘where do you get ide- as for games’, and my stock answer is always the same: anywhere, everywhere and occasionally elsewhere. Inspiration might arrive via a film or TV programme, from fiction, from a historical account, or simply from a mechanical idea for how game interplay might work. Sometimes a conversation might trigger a thought which suddenly cascades into unfettered ambition and before you know it, you're leaping out of the bath shouting ‘Eureka!’ and hastily scribbling the basis for some new endeavour. In the case of my latest project, the idea sprang from the pages of Casino Royale by Ian Fleming.

DEATH OR GLORY • I've seen it time and again. Give a wargamer a cavalry unit and they will charge them madly into the enemy and gloriously waste that unit as it hits a solid block of infantry. Time and again… ex- cept sometimes it works: the infantry break and the cavalry stand bloodied but victorious… or trample down their fleeing foes.

REVENGE FOR RAPHIA • The Seleucids and Ptolemaic Egypt frequently clashed for control of the border land between these two great empires. In 217BC the Seleucids under their youthful new king, Antiochus III, attempted to assert their dominance over Gaza at the head of a huge invasion force in the Fourth Syrian War, but the Seleucids were met with fierce resistance at the epic battle of Raphia. Ptolemy IV's army was able not just to blunt their thrust but also to throw the Seleucids back with heavy losses. Humiliated, the young Seleucid king retired to lick his wounds.

SUGGESTED FORCES

BOUVINES AND BEYOND • When medieval sources comment upon the success or failure of knights charging their foes, much is made of whether that charge was conducted ordinate, in good order. At Brémule in 1119, the French charged in disorder, were beaten off and turned tail. At Bouvines in 1214, it was the rashness of the Imperial knights’ charge and their disorderly pursuit that led to their downfall.

UNIT TABLE FOR BLOOD AND HORSE DROPPINGS

A HEROIC DEFENCE • As Napoleon was facing overwhelming odds with two large, allied armies gradually moving towards Paris, he saw an opportunity to ambush Blucher's Army of Silesia. But to give him the critical window of opportunity, Nogent-sur-Seine – which blocked the path of the Army of Bohemia to the south – would have to be held for 48 hours. This task was given to a mere 1,200 men with civilian support, who with-stood countless enemy charges and overwhelming odds.

THE MAP

MELEE PROCEDURE AGAINST TOWN SQUARES

THEIRS BUT TO DO AND DIE • “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred…” so begins Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem on one of the most iconic and disastrous charges in history, the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. This...