Sunday 21 December 2014

My first Wargaming Magazine purchase

Strangely enough, in all my wargaming years, I've never purchased a wargaming magazine. I've read articles in magazines that have been lent to me but having browsed through most offerings on the newsagent shelves, the impression they given is there has not been enough content to warrant me parting with my money. That is until now...

The magazine that broke my duck appeared on the shelf in my local newsagent a couple of months ago. After quickly thumbing through the copy of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy, my first reaction was... "Hmm..Nice mag, but is there enough content as I'm always disappointed"... so it ended up back on the shelf. A couple of weeks later, while visiting the same newsagent to collect my copy of the Model Railway Journal,  it was still there staring at me invitingly. This time, after a quick thumb through temptation got the better of me and it was purchased. Not sure what tempted me after all this time, was it the clean looking cover, the refreshing layout, the quantity of articles, the lack of adverts... I cannot tell?


Over the next couple of days I picked up the magazine and read an article or two. Not all are game reports and it was these other articles that I seemed to warm to first. Well written with a slight humorous edge they kept my attention and offered good insight into a different aspect of our hobby.  It would seem each magazine has a theme as a centre spread. Edition 75s is "Great Leaders of the 17th Century" with 6 features covering 24 centre pages devoted to the topic. With a total of 82 pages and only 10 of those given to adverts there are plenty of other articles to enjoy. I also thought the reviews were nicely laid out with quality shots of the models being reviewed.

I enjoyed the magazine so much I purchased a back edition. One that has as its theme the Arnhem campaign. Next edition (76) will be published 1st January and I'll be eagerly looking out for it on my newsagent's shelf...

Apparently this magazine has been around for many years having a refresh when taken over by the current Dutch publishers at edition 54. So no doubt many that read this post will already know of its existence but for those that haven't come across it before more information can be found on the publishers web site.

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I have been wargaming for 10 years in which time I have finally settled on two eras, Napoleonic and WWII, both in 15mm (1:100). Most of my ramblings will be about gaming in these two eras. An attempt will be made to record my wargaming interests, building of armies, ideas, interests and hopefully some games played.