The WORLD’S PREMIER TABLETOP GAMING MAGAZINE FFRREEEE ONE OF FOUR BOLT ACTION WWII FRAMES! Excludes non-UK subscribers ** SCAN HERE WITH YOUR IIssssuuee 441177 PHONE TO SEE SSeepptteemmbbeerr 22002222 WHAT’S INSIDE UUKK ££55..9999 ITALIAN BERSAGLIERI THE BATTLE OF NEW ROSS First look at these new plastics In a free form style WORLD WAR TWO DESERT WAR: Painting, Modelling, And Gaming FEATURED wargames illustrated issue WI417 september 2022 THIS MONTH from the editor After a couple of months without a bagged gift we decided to hit you hard with a haul of possible freebie frames this month. Courtesy of our friends at Warlord Games you will have received one of four splendid sprues: British Commonwealth Infantry, British 8th Army, Afrika Korps, or Italian Infantry and Blackshirts. If you didn’t get the one you wanted - quick, get back to the shop and buy another copy of the magazine! All of these minis are suitable for your Bolt Action WWII adventures in the desert. Desert warfare has been described as a tactician’s paradise and a quartermaster’s nightmare, and this was evident in North The Desert War Africa in 1940-43. As wargamers, we tend to be less concerned with the supply issues and delight in the in miniature ............................ 42 nuances of the combat. Although harsh, the desert battlefield was almost devoid of interference, allowing the professional skills of the soldier to be applied tactically for purely military purposes, something that we can bring to the tabletop in our games. On page 30, our resident painter Callum brings you a guide to getting your free figures desert-ready in no time at all, and we have hat-trick of further forays into the sun with articles on building Biscari Airfield, an excellent 10mm Desert War figure collection, and Rommel’s Favourites - the Bersaglieri. I would also like to point you in the direction of our Historicon 2022 report - it’s great to see this grand old convention firmly back on its feet again after last year’s lockdown curtailed event. Dan Faulconbridge Owner and Editor This month’s cover artwork: Bersaglieri by Neil Roberts. Below: The Battle of Gazala in 10mm/12mm by Dr David B James. See more on page 42. The Battle of Trautenau ........................ 48 ROMMEL’S FAVOURITES ......... 54 29 Eldon Business Park Attenborough, Nottingham NG9 6DZ United Kingdom wargamesillustrated.net wargamesillustrated credits contacts Produced in the UK. Customer Service & Subscriptions [email protected] The Wargames Illustrated team: Tel (UK): 0044 (0)115 922 5073 @wargamesill Daniel Faulconbridge, Ian Bennett, Contributions: Asun Loste Campos, James Griffiths, [email protected] Joe Smalley and Callum France. Advertisments: [email protected] /WargamesIllustrated Printed in the UK by: Warners. Quick Fire: [email protected] Copyright © Wargames Illustrated 2022 Distribution: [email protected] wargamesillustrated Wargames Illustrated are proud to support War Child. For more information visit www.warchild.org.uk contents The Battle of Trautenau ....... 48 Inspired by our June 2022 magazine theme, QUIcK FIRE! .......................................... 8 The Prussian Empire, Colonel (Retired) Modelling snippets from your fellow Bill Gray introduces us to the great gaming wargamers. potential offered by a little-known battle THE GLOSTERS’ LAST STAND - fought on 27 June 1866, during the Austro- OBSERVATION POST ........................ 12 PART two ....................................... 62 Prussian War. Your monthly roundup of notable new releases in the hobby. theme: Rommel’s Favourites .................. 54 RELEASE RADAR ................................ 20 Dom Sore looks at the Bersaglieri, dapper Dom Sore scans the ether for quality or looking Italian elites who made a huge quirky new wargames products. impact during the World War Two North Africa campaign. FULL PAPER JACKET ......................... 26 Neil Smith’s look at forthcoming book THE GLOSTERS’ LAST STAND - releases that would be worthy recipients of PART two .......................................... 62 your shelf space. In our last issue, Charles Rowntree showed us how to recreate the landscape around theme: Frame focus - North Africa painting the River Imjin in Korea, this time he talks about gaming over his lovingly crafted Building Biscari Airfield - part one: tabletop ready ....... 30 tabletop contours. Sicily 1943 ...................................... 70 Callum grabs this issue’s four free Warlord Games frames and shows us how he theme: achieved great results in no time at all. Building Biscari Airfield - Sicily 1943 .......................................... 70 Horses for Courses .................... 38 Anschluss Wargames’ Peter (Bunny) Napoleonic gamer Jack Travis checks Warren takes us through the build process out how the new Victrix British Heavy for this highly detailed 12mm scale demo Dragoons measure up against the other game made for Partizan, May 2022. Heavy Dragoon plastics on the market. The joy of six - theme: The Desert War show report .................................. 76 in miniature ................................... 42 Dr David B James has been working on his Editor Dan travels to Sheffield, England to indulge in The Joy of Six. 10mm/12mm WWII desert warfare figures for over a decade. Wi recently visited The The joy of six - the battle of new ross ........... 80 show report ............................... 76 Worcester Wargames Club, where David is Following on from last month free form a member, and snapped some photos of his gaming article, Pete Brown presents a inspiring collection. Here David tells us all battle fought in that unrestricted style. about them. Historicon 2022 .......................... 88 Our stateside roving reporter Dave Taylor heads to the biggest historical wargaming convention of the year and reports back on some of his favourite games. the battle of new ross ........ 80 SSUUBBSSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONNSS PRINT PRIME ENJOY WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED OR PPRRIINNTT WI CONTENT INCLUDES: 12 ISSUES FROM ONLY ££6600 QUARTERLY SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE FROM £20 RECEIVE THE WORLD’S BEST-SELLING WARGAMES MAGAZINE DIRECTLY TO YOUR DOOR AND SAVE ON THE COVER PRICE! PPRRIINNTT SSUUBBSSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONNSS NNOOWW AAVVAAIILLAABBLLEE DDIIRREECCTT IINN TTHHEE UUSSAA VVIIAA IRONHEARTSARTISANS.COM AANNDD IINN AAUUSSTTRRAALLIIAA AANNDD NNEEWW ZZEEAALLAANNDD VVIIAA KHAKI-GREEN.COM.AU FREE $10 K&G VOUCHER WITH EVERY ISSUE! 4 PPRRIIMMEE WI CONTENT INCLUDES: MONEY 0FF EVERY MONTH AT: BEHIND THE SCENES GOODIES: S P EC I A L EDITOR’S EXPLOITS, FROM THE VAULT, O F F E R AND ARTICLES FROM UPCOMING ISSUES 25% OFF SELECTED PERRY MINIATURES BOX SETS EVERY ISSUE OF WI AVAILABLE (AND SEARCHABLE!) VIA TTHHEE VVAAUULLTT ALL FOR A MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP OF ££55..9999 TRY PRIME FOR JUST £1.00 CCOOMMBBIINNEE TTHHEE TTWWOO FOR A FOR THE FIRST MONTH DDIISSCCOOUUNNTTEEDD MONTHLY COST OF ££1100 INCLUDES THE MONTHLY PRINT MAGAZINE AND ALL THE BENEFITS OF A PRIME MEMBERSHIP. WARGAMESILLUSTRATED WWW. .NET 5 QQUUIICCKK FFIIRREE!! Short, quick-read posts from Wi readers about their hobby projects, notes, news, and observations. TALES OF THE RIVERBANK By Tim Lee Inspired by Wi396’s riverine warfare theme, I thought I would make a river for my 6mm Napoleonic armies to cross and was delighted to find that Warbases do a starter set of river pieces for a very reasonable price. I ordered some straight away, and looking at the various shapes that make up around three metres of river, I did consider just painting them as they were; however, I felt that the excellent pieces deserved better than that. 1) I mixed up some of my home-made basing compound of ready-mixed filler and PVA glue, leaving out the sand or grit I would normally add for basing purposes. This was spread evenly on one side of the river pieces; then with a clay tool, I scored some wavy lines in the mix to represent the moving water. I wasn’t too worried about the shapes or patterns I made as long as the marks were generally in the direction the water would flow. 1 2) I picked up cheap darker and lighter blue acrylic paints and applied the lighter blue along the sides of the pieces, then I painted the darker blue down the middle where the water would be deeper. Painting the second blue while the first was still wet allowed the two to mix freely and created a gradual darkening of the water. 3) Once dry, I added some white to the tops of the waves and stippled some around the rocks and fords. I also decided to add some simple riverbanks by painting a brown line along each side. I could have added some flock but felt the ‘muddy’ brown riverbanks were sufficient. After the paint was dry, it was time to varnish. I chose a cheap, hardwearing gloss varnish, so that the ‘water’ would catch the light and a matt varnish for the riverbanks; and there you have it, a simple but effective river! 2 Encouraged by my initial results, I 3 decided to be a bit more adventurous and added small stones on some pieces and placed grit on two pieces to make fords. Once the mix had dried, I tidied up the edges where I had been a bit overenthusiastic with the filler, and then it was time to paint them. I had wondered whether I should go with a stylised blue river or a more realistic green/brown; eventually, I decided on blue, which I think is traditional and easily recognised by wargamers everywhere. 8 3D PRINTING IN 6mm By Gareth Beamish I’ve recently been working on a 6mm project for fighting some of the smaller battles of the Sengoku Jidai. The figure to man ratio that I’ll be using is very low; from one figure equals five men down to 1:1, and the units will consist of anything from 15 to 50 figures, so the armies will still use quite a lot of figures. I’m concentrating on the 1550s to 1560s to begin with. Armies of this time would have been organised as feudal entities: a lord, some of his family and household, and however many extra men he managed to raise. These men would all have a mix of arms and equipment, so there are some challenges with modelling this on the tabletop, both in terms of rules and in the units themselves. [Gareth has articles that look at unit organisation in Wi408 and Wi411 - Ed] Until recently, there haven’t been any 6mm Sengoku Jidai ranges with the variety of figures to convey the sense of a mixed band of men, but this has changed with the advent of 3D printing. The figures used here are designed by Project Wargaming and printed for me by Sabotag3d. The figures as designed are the typical late-16th/early-17th Century figures familiar from the Osprey books, but with 6mm it’s possible to increase the variety of the unit and to convey a sense of an earlier period army; conical helmets can be painted as straw hats, lower legs and arms can be painted as bare flesh, etc. For the later armour, I usually just paint it as the lacquer colour, usually black, but here I’ve painted some with more colourful laced armour to represent older styles. CHANGING THE ARMY WITH COMMAND Because of the less organised nature of these earlier armies, I’ve created the base units as ‘generic’ ones rather than having all the figures wearing sashimono with clan mon that I used for my large battle units. A specific command stand can then be added to the units to represent different armies. In this way, a generic pool of several hundred figures can be used for any clan army by painting a hundred or so command figures to bolt onto the individual units. The idea is shown in these images, where the same figures can be an Oda army or an ikkō-ikki army through the addition of the relevant command groups. 9