Smudge Marks & Engel Werks Inside GMT Flash of Steel Wargame [space] Playing at the World Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories CRRPG Addict Fantasy Cafe Lynn’s Book Blog Sitrep Hong Kong Wargamer Hex and Violence Grumble Jones Desperation Morale Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Let’s GURPS The Collaborative Gamer Don’t Forget Your BootsOsprey’s various medieval armies Men-At-Arms books are generally solid, and this one does not disappoint. It’s not spectacular, either. The main thrust of the text is that Scandinavia lagged behind West European fashion/technology. Denmark of course, had lots of influence[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I know I’ve heard of the Volga Bulgars before, but certainly, the Volga is not the area I commonly think of when discussing the Bulgars. So, this is a good book for broadening my horizons right there. The Bulgars are[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I’ve been a bit leery of Osprey’s “Combat” series, since it’s impossible not to think ‘pirate vs. ninja’, or ‘Enterprise vs. Death Star’ when looking at their titles. But their recent electronic book giveaway included one of the more interesting[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This is Osprey’s third book looking at the most emblematic part of Japan’s military history (starting with the 1979 Men-at-Arms Samurai Armies, to the 1989 Elite The Samurai, to this 1994 Warrior book), and it still manages to miss a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
First, I must express a certain amount of disappointment. Osprey’s Men-at-Arms series has a number of good books on medieval military history of various countries. These are generally in two volumes, one covering 1000-1300, and the second 1300-1500. That Poland[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Cavalry has nearly always been the prestige arm in the military, so the Osprey Elite book on the Sassanian empire is indeed focused on the ‘elite’ branch of their military. It does also touch on the rest of it, but[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Osprey’s battle tactics series continues to be well done overall. This one concentrates a bit more on background, but that doesn’t really interfere with the main parts of the presentation. Despite the title, Fields takes a look at the situation[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Osprey’s book on fortifications in the Kingdom of Wessex is a well-done introduction, but didn’t quite dive into some detail I’d like. At the end, Lavelle admits that the book is even more limited in scope than it could be,[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The second volume of Osprey’s New Vanguard books on medieval siege weapons is pretty much just like the first: Thompson’s gouache illustrations do a good job of showing some specific examples, while the text goes through variations on terminology and[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Osprey’s book on siege weapons does it’s intended job of introducing the subject, but that’s about it. Sam Thompson’s gouache illustrations show a nice variety of specific examples of machines, but the rest of the book tends to be unspecific[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…