It was interesting to note at the recent Tunbridge Wells Mini-Convention that it is possible to buy five or six different sets of rules for most wargaming periods. All of them probably give a good game so that choice depends upon ones aims and temperament. It takes me ages to assimilate a set of rules so that I never see their be t ter points until I have played a number of games using them but as the unusual aspects of the earlier games usually irritate me, I rarely go along very far with it all! However, I think that one of the most far reaching points that has arisen out of any rules in recent years comes from the Ancient Rules put out by the Wargames Research Group (Bob O'Brien and Co.) I am referring to the manner in which one man equals twenty, so that no figures are removed from the table until twenty casualties have been suffered. In this way one is able to keep large numbers of troops on the table so that those laboriously painted figures do not spend two-thirds of their lives in boxes, having been shot off the board! Incidentally, the Tunbridge Wells Mini-Convention was an excellent affair and could well serve as a guide to other groups desirous of putting on these pleasant one day functions. It was interesting to see how many clubs were represented although the organisers were fortunate in being in a fairly favourable position for most points of the compass. If my immediate acquaintances notice that I am looking a little more smug than usual these days then they must blame it on to recent successes in the writing of books. In the last three weeks I have checked the proofs and compiled indices for "Battles with Model Soldiers" (David and Charles); "Military Modelling" (Kaye and Ward); "Wargame Campaigns" (Stanley Paul) and also a professional book on ballet dancing injuries "Dance Without Danger" (Yoseloff, New York). I have also signed recent contracts with Leo Cooper for "MacDonald of the 42nd" (The Black Watch in the Crimea & Indian Mutiny) with David and Charles for "Victoria's Small Wars" (Victorian Colonial Campaigns) and I have almost completed a book on the Western Desert Campaigns for Bellona Publications and, in conjunction with Mike Blake of Bristol, I am doing another one for them on Airfix Conversions. Couple all this with an encouraging boom in the circulation of this magazine and one has a reason for smugness. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 99 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1970 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com