Thursday, 29 July 2010

A New Beginning

'People will ask you,' he said. 'I'm just getting in first.'

There they were, pristine on my PC, new rules for Roman Imperial battles, now sent off to Mr P. Berry, proprietor of Baccus 6mm
(www.baccus6.com). Wonderful. I can relax.

Until the next email from the said Peter, asking which rules I'd like to write next.

'What?' Hence the comment which started this post.

The Romans set (shortly to be published (hah! - ed.)) took about 6 years, by my reckoning, to even start to see the light of day. OK, this included painting armies, starting the reading from scratch and long periods of not much else happening, but it is a heck of a long time. It also included time to write the second editon Polemos: ECW rules, which will be with us "shortly". Do I really want to plunge headlong into another set?

'Greeks or Punic wars, you choose,' added the ever generous Mr Berry.

What could I say? My first encounter with wargaming on anything more than a throwing stones at Airfix soldiers level was Charles Grant's two part series on the Battle of Marathon in Military Modelling in the 1970's, which I've still got somewhere.

Greeks it was. I'm now collecting material on hoplite warfare, Persians, Alexander the Great and all that sort of stuff. I'll try to keep the world posted on progress. But don't hold your breath. There is a lot to read, especially for someone whose last encounter with the period was, um, an article on the Battle of Marathon by Charles Grant, sometime in the 1970's.