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Saturday, 9 June 2018

Training Manuals - Airfix Guide Nos 12 & 20

Having been mentioned several times in previous post comments and as they are a constant source of information and inspiration, I thought I should mention these two little gems that have been in my collection for decades, They are Airfix magazine guide 12, Afrika Korps and number 20, 8th Army in the desert.:
These slim little books are packed with organisation, uniform, equipment and campaign history, all supported by great photographs and drawings:




Over the years I have collected a number of these guides and here is my complete collection:


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24 comments:

  1. Vintage Wargaming9 June 2018 at 11:13

    I particularly love the 8th Army in the Desert book as I remember the excitement of the original series of articles which repeatedly left me awestruck

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 00:55

      I agree the 8th Army guide is very good. I recall the series in Airfix magazine too, but sadly do not have copies.

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  2. Jonathan Freitag9 June 2018 at 11:56

    Nice collection. Which booklet does the best job at its task?

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 00:58

      They are all very different in style as they are written by different authors. The most influential as far as I am concerned was the Napoleonic wargame guide by Bruce Quarrie. We used these rules for years, but they did invilve quite a lot of record keeping.

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    2. Jonathan Freitag10 June 2018 at 08:36

      Are these the same Quarrie rules as in his Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature? Loved that book but never tried the rules.

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    3. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 11:45

      Essentially the same rules in both books.

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    4. Jonathan Freitag10 June 2018 at 14:35

      Thanks for confirming.

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  3. The Good Soldier Svjek9 June 2018 at 13:14

    Wasn't there one on the French Foreign Legion as well ?

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 00:59

      There was. I almost bought it, but it had little in it for me that I could use in wargaming.

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  4. Jeffers9 June 2018 at 14:11

    ACW wargaming, 35p from WHSmith in Staines got me started in 1978. Totally confused me as it is virtually diceless: my understanding of wargaming then was that dice were integral to the game! Not sure if I'd ever use them again, but I' keeping the book.

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 01:03

      I tried these rules several times and could never get into them. Interestingly I was reading an article in this month's Miniature Wargames taht discusses rule sets - maybe I should have tried for longer?

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    2. Paul´s Bods10 June 2018 at 05:21

      I had quite a lot of those way back, all sadly now gone but I recently re-aquired the ACW one and apart from the rules which with a bit of Adaption can be made to work, they are full of great ideas..particually the "in those days" conversions..very transferable to todays wide range...


      ...and apart from that...the pure nostalgia :-)

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    3. Jeffers10 June 2018 at 05:58

      I use a free set of ACW rules from Wargames Illustrated that use innovative order cards. I wondered if I could just transpose the command rules onto this set... Now I have a new challenge!

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  5. Norm9 June 2018 at 14:41

    Nice collection. i had several of them but the Napoleonic and WWII stick out in my mind as being the most significant to me. I have always kept stuff pretty prestine and looking back there are just so many things that I got rid of that I still wish I had MY copy.

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 01:04

      Over the years I have dumped loads of stuff, sometimes buying it again years later. I would never part with these little books though.

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  6. Conrad Kinch9 June 2018 at 17:15

    Lovely to see.

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 01:05

      I see from MW this month that you too have quite a collection of rules and reference books! Good article by the way.

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  7. Aly Morrison10 June 2018 at 03:22

    A lovely set of books...

    Sadly I have no idea what has happened to my few copies...
    I am of course now tempted to buy them all again... :-/

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 11:46

      Most of the titles turn up on ebay and not too expensive either.

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  8. Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com10 June 2018 at 03:23

    It was Phil Barker' "Purple Primer" for me, I suspect that that Airfix guide was the main reason for WRG's long domination of the ancients scene. Still a fun read.

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 11:43

      Primer indeed, unfortnately this guide has only snippets of the WRG rules.

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    2. Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com11 June 2018 at 08:12

      It does but not only were the descriptions of how to go about ancient wargaming and the battle reports based on the WRG rule. They had the the first 'official' army lists. (shudder!)

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  9. Archduke Piccolo10 June 2018 at 04:30

    I used to have 6 of those titles, now have but two: the Quarrie WW2 rules and the Wise ACW. The latter is quite a good read, and I mined it for ideas, but never actually played the rules. The WW2 was very popular in Wellington in the mid-late 1970s, but you practically HAD to have armies of Europe 1945 to be competitive in a pick-up game.

    I do regret letting the other four slip out of my grasp, though (yeah, all right: I sold them).

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    1. Bob The Old Painter10 June 2018 at 11:44

      I never used the WW2 rules as written, but they contain lots of good data. I preferred Operation Warboard rules at the time.

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