Wargamer's Guide
to the Boxer Rebellion

booklet

By Bob Beattie

Lynn Bodin, Frontier Miniatures, 1985, $6.00. Recently I reviewed the currently available figures for the Boxer Rebellion and concluded by saying that there was nothing to keep gamers from getting into this colorful and exciting episode. Well, I was not quite truthful. Uniform information on some troop types has not been readily available. But now I can say with full veracity that there is nothing to hold you back. This happy circumstance is due to the recent publication of A Wargamer's Guide to the Boxer Rebellion. This booklet is written by Boxer expert Lynn Bodin, illustrated by Greg Rose, and published by those prolific folks at Frontier Miniatures, under the direction of Atley Turner.

The 25 page booklet consists of three parts. The first part, of 11 pages, is a good overview of the events of the Boxer episode: background of the Boxers; the siege of the legations in Peking; Seymour's rescue attempt and the allied siezure of the Taku Forts and Tientsin; the advance on Peking; what happened ater the rescue of the legations; and a short bibliography. The second part is a 2 page discussion of wargame ideas; interesting but only superficial.

The third section is the most important and worth the price of the booklet by itself. It contains a painting guide fctr almost all of the troops involved in the Rebellion. The guide is keyed to the figures produced by Frontier Miniatures. Just as the Frontier figure range is quite comprehensive so too is the guide. Each figure is represented by a drawing and a short descriptive paragraph. There are 52 drawings and 42 descriptions including Boxers; infantry, cavalry, and artillery for Chinese regulars; Americans, Russians, Germans, and Japanese; plus various French and British native types. The Guide does not contain information on every European type; for example, no info on sailors other than Russian or on British regulars; but what information is missing is fairly common and easy to find elsewhere.

This is not a replacement for a complete history of the Boxer Rebellion but it is an excellent survey at a reasonable price. It is a must for all Boxer episode gainers and because of the uniform information useful for colonial gamers in general.

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