A Guide to the AWI
in the North

We Had Always Governed Ourselves
and We Always Meant To

review by Al Coughlin

By Greg Novak, Ulster Imports, Box 1748, Champaign, IL 61820. $9.00, 108 pages.

The American War of Independence has always been a favorite period of mine and so I eagerly accepted Dick Bryant's request to review this work from Ulster Imports. The book is supposed to be "A Guide to the American War of Independence..." and unfortunately, as a guide it leaves a great deal to be desired. A large portion of it is mostly useless to the experienced gamer although the beginner in this period may find useful information.

The author's preface claims that the book's purpose, among others, is to provide information on organization, orders of battle, and "some information on flags and standards". In fairness, the first two are adequately addressed, but try as I might, the information on flags and standards eluded me.

The first three chapters present an accurate (but hardly difficult to find) organization structure of both the British and Continental forces, as well as a brief but useful description of their tactics. There is also a summary of the major events during the first two years of the war. The succeeding chapters provide, on a yearto year basis, a brief description of the actions and battles, the orders of battle for those actions, and when known, a recap of each unit's strength. Although this may be useful as a general overview, so little description of terrain is given (there are no maps) that a gamer would have to go to the other sources if he was attempting to create a particular battle. As there are only six entries in the "Select Bibliography", this may be difficult unless the gamer is familiar with the vast amount of excellent resource material available. In this respect, the guide fails miserably.

My major complaint is the poor job of editing and proofreading that is so evident throughout this work. I counted thirty spelling or grammatical errors in the first fifteen pages alone!

In short, I cannot recommend this book. At $9.00 it is overpriced, and as a source for the serious gamer it is next to useless. There are far too many good resources available to waste one's time and effort to seek out this slim volume.

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