When deciding on a new army to lead into battle, it is important that you look into its history, tactics, leadership and success or failure on the battlefield. Not only does this research yield valuable insights into the actual battle formations, strategems and tactical use of the various components of your new army; it also often gives you a sense of your army's place in the fabric of the evolution of military science. You will find leaders who appeal to you as human beings, and others you despise. You will discover interesting historical anecdotes and stories of certain generals and their warriors that will provide you with plenty of verbal ammunition to flower your battle reports with. And the lessons learned on the fields of battle by the flesh and blood counterparts of your lead army will give you invaluable tactical advice to try out as well. How do you go about researching an army? First of all, start with a general military history, such as Dupuy's Encyclopedia of Military History (Harper & Row) and Corvisier's Dictionary of Military History (Blackwell Publishers). These books are available from the library or at most major bookstores. They will give you a brief, but interesting overview of the army's history and some names of famous generals and battles of the period as well. Once you have this information, you can begin an in-depth study. Either go to your local university library or the Internet and keyword the names of the generals and battles into the data bank/search engine. This will give you a number of specific sources to check into. Let's say you are deciding to do the Huns. Dupuy's book has given you some names: Attila, Battle of Chalons, Orleans, etc. Keyword these and you will find books by E. A. Thompson, Thomas Hodgkin, Arthur Ferrill, myself and many others. Now that you have the necessary texts to work with, it is time to take notes. Always keep several notebooks or legal pads handy when reading through any of the historical texts. While reading, make a note of any battle references, tactical strategems, leadership qualities, etc. which will aid you in exploring the history of your chosen force. Also, when you have finished looking through a book, go to the bibliography and notes section, and write down any further periodicals or texts that might be interesting and make a note to check on them at the library. I have found that this paper trail can be most interesting. One book leads to another and the information gleaned from bibliographies and notes can be better than the text of the book itself sometimes. Along the way, you will encounter all sorts of interesting tidbits. With luck, you will find out about clothing colors, shield designs, battlefield tactics (i.e. what worked and what did not), the character and skill of your various generals and sometimes their personal characteristics as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Research is fundamental to understanding how you army works, To ignore the history of your army might result in repeating its historical failures on the wargames table. ED NOTE: Terry has a Medieval Period Web Page which also serves as support for his magazine SAGA. http://www.angelfire.com/on/saga. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #76 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com