The First Sikh War, 1845-1846: Order of Battle Book (including a concise history of the First Sikh War), Written and edited by Andrew Preziosi, with contributions by Chris Ferree and Neil Carleton, January 2004, Khyber Pass Games and Books, 75 pages, $16.00.

Many of you may remember Andy as the former editor of the Heliograph, so he is no stranger to colonial history or gaming nor is Chris Ferree. When I first heard about this I thought it might be pretty dry reading, especially since I’m not interested in collecting figures for the Sikh Wars. But, I did contact Andy for a copy to review and he sent by email a pdf copy. I do not have a final printed version to review, which is fine with me, but, some might want to know the color of the cover, I have no idea.

While it was downloading and then printing I went through the military history dictionaries and encyclopedias for some background info so I would have a vague idea about what I was about to read. I also did this to play devil’s advocate as you try to do when reviewing a book.

As it turns out the text read pretty well, was much more informative than my dictionaries, and very much more than the Sikh War pages I found on the web.

I got almost interested in the war with The Sword in the Punjab (review elsewhere this issue) and The Virtual Armchair General’s Sikh War Flags, but not to collect the figures and paint them. I made a list of units from the TVAG flag set and compared it with the OB, and found no differences all the units that served in the war were represented. I then took the time to visit the U of SC’s library, which is not the greatest but remarkably has a very good collection of military history especially for the colonial period. I searched and read about the Sikh War with the intention of poking holes in both the text and OBs. Well, I had no luck poking holes in units of the war description.

Not only does the book give you the OB for the Brits and Sikh forces for 1845 for the battles of Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, Sabraon, and Sikh garrisons not engaged 1845/46; but there are also OBs for 1799, 1808, 1821, 1831, and 1839 for the Sikhs.

On the whole this is a well written and very informative book, possibly the best part (for me) was the discussion on the various sources of published First Sikh War history, a must read. Even though the title says a concise history of the war there are sufficient details to allow you to follow the course of the war and the OBs to put it on the tabletop.

If you are interested in the First Sikh War or gaming the 1845 period this is a must have book. The First Sikh War, OBB along with The Sword in the Punjab and TVAG Sikh War Flags allows the war to maneuver on to the tabletop. The only thing the booklet is missing are some maps that would make the text easier to follow, at least one map to place the action in. Other titles/games available from Khyber Pass Games include:

Attaturk $16, Turkish War of Independence 1919-1922
The Battle of Jassin 1915 $14
The Jewish War $12
Cufra: Defiance in the Desert $12
Sand in the Whirlwind $12
Togoland 1914 $12

They also carry booklets from Balkan Books, Imperial Press, and Picklehaub Press (19th century European Wars) and El Dorado Books (everything you need to know about wars in Central and South America).

Overall, I think this The First Sikh War, OBB booklet is more than worth the $16.00.

Highly Recommended!!