From Jack Scruby's The Wargames Digest, Book I, Volume IV, published in December 1957.
Scan courtesy of Mike Taber, from the Tabletop Talk Facebook group.
The ideas in this article are said to have significantly influenced the original CHainmail rules by Gary Gaygax and Jeff Perrin, the small Lord of the Rings fantasy section of which was the precursor to Dungeons and Dragons...
I don't recall every seeing Charlie's Medieval figures in action, but there was that famous Chainmail based campaign at UConn in 1974 based upon the contenders to the French Throne circa ? 1200, featuring a certain gamer of Swedish descent as the Vikings and yours truly as the Dauphin, along with many others....
Are you planning to bring these rules to your table for a game?
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really thought of it, Jon. These rules are designed for singly mounted figures (skirmish wargames in today's parlance), as they predate Joe Morshauser's revolutionary idea of gluing the figures to stands. On the other hand, Charlie was a BIG believer in gridded games and you can see a hint of that here where he refers to "squares", although in this context he probably meant 1" squares. There's certainly no reason the individual figures couldn't be replaced by stands, etc., with minor modifications. It's a thought!
DeleteWhile based singly, what figures and scale did Charlie use for these games?
DeleteMy guess would be that he used the 40mm resin Elastolin figures for these games, but I have no certain knowledge of that.
DeleteWow, the rules are a great look back to all the wonder in Charlie's basement. I do confess to all the mayhem alluded to my character being responsible, including the the first use of the 'assassination ' card.
ReplyDeleteThe points kill off is familiar, and IIRC there were rules about the pikemen being charged in the TYW rules of Charlie's.
DeleteA very nice piece of nostalgia there Peter. I do miss rules put together on a typewriter as they had a certain charm. I recently pulled out some old WWII naval rules and navy lists and redid them in Word, and even with the ability to make corrections it was very laborious.
ReplyDeleteYes, I still have many copies of grown grown rules that I typed out by hand pre word processor. Imagine producing those early newsletters from typed drafts, photos, etc.; it was truly a labor of love for Jack, Don, Dick, Hal and others!
DeleteNice slice of nostalgia, it reminds me of D&D scenarios and magazines when I first started with miniatures!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
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