Among the musket period rules currently making the rounds are those by Brigadier Young and Col. Lawford, joint authors of this work being sold by Morgan Grampion Ltd. of London. Charge deals with good old fashioned wargaming-no concealments, no roster system, no counters or bases, just model soldiers "in different uniforms and drills."

The drill, judging from the diagrams and numerous excellent photographs, is as good as the uniforms, and the action is lively. Somehow the rules in "Charge" seem to have sidetracked many of the innovations and fine points creeping into the game over the past few years which recently led Don Featherstone to editorialize that wargaming doesn't seem to be as much fun as it was in the old days.

"Charge" contains many rules which appear stilted and inaccurate, a purely artificial recommended battallion order, and many features which may lead one not to adopt the rules in full. To face the issue squarely, however, hardly any of you were going to stick to any set of rules more than a few games in succession, so you might as well read what Young and Lawford have to say and keep the book around because the time may come when you lose (we hope for but a moment) the imaginative spark and collector's enthusiasm so much more essential to the hobby than any particular set of rules. When that dark moment strikes grab for your copy of "Charge" and let its prose and photography bring you back into a proper mental perspective! 55/- or various prices Stateside.

Rules For a Napoleonic War Game

A publication of the Western Washington War Gamers. This 36 page home published epic is rather the opposite of charge, being a detailed and definitive development of rules from various musket period systems. It employs written orders, simultaneous movement, bonus moves, etc. Skirmishers are, to my way of thinking, much too powerful, and the morale crisis of the charge poorly reflected, but for the avid reader of wargame rules, or wargamer looking for a reasonably advanced game to try out, they have much to offer. The predominate influence seems to be the massive Midwestern school including Vietmeyer, Bloom, and others which has brought a great deal of research into wargame rules over recent years, with, of course, no little innovation on the part of Bob Collman, Richard Shagrin, Terry Griner and their fellow members of "W3"