Rebels & Yankees v2.0 Released

I'm pleased to say that version 2.0 of these smashing rules is now available from Wargame Vault as a "pay what you want" download.  Author Nigel Emsen & I have worked hard over the last two weeks to bring the fast play mechanisms in the rules to the fore.  They are well worth reading.

I've written quite a lot about our collaboration recently.  So here I'd like to: muse a little about how I approach editing; show some pages before and after editing; and finish by offering a few tips for would be authors.

Editing Wargame Rules

In the last week I've written four posts illustrating how to improve the presentation of wargames rules with basic table design and formatting. In case you missed them they are:

• Tables & Redundancy in Wargames Rules
• Tables & Grouping in Wargames Rules
• Tables & Colour in Wargaming Rules
• Tables & Text in Wargaming Rules

This might seem a lot of work for a free set of American Civil War rules from the internet.  In some ways it is and in others it isn't.  It's good to keep your hand in but the strong structure underpinning these rules made it both quick and fun.

Tables & Text in Wargaming Rules

In what's turning into a bit of a series, I've looked at how to tweak table design for clarity and speed of use during a game. Now I'd like to look at adding impact to text with tables.

The starting point is this block of text:

Tables & Colour in Wargaming Rules

On Thursday I showed how grouping could improve table design as follows:

The improvement is clear but there was something nagging me.  Mainly it was the Command modifiers. These had to share a merged cell primarily for space reasons but also for extra brevity and clarity.   However there's another issue: these modifers are optional and are part of the advanced rules.  This needs to be made clear in the table somehow.

Tables & Grouping in Wargames Rules

Here's another refurbishment of a table from Nigel Emsen's American Civil War rules "Rebels & Yankees".  This time it shows the the benefit of explicit grouping to improve ease of use in play.

Tables & Redundancy in Wargames Rules

I recently discovered a free series of rules from Nigel Emsen and was particularly taken by the set for the American Civil War: Rebels & Yankees.

At only 29 pages, with a clear well spaced layout, the rules are very easy to read with a good structure and lots of useful tables etc.  If they play as quickly as they read I'll be well pleased.

I did spot a few things that I would class as glitches in table layout and design but that doesn't detract from the rules themselves.  However, I would like to use them to highlight how simple changes can have a large impact of clarity and readability.

Hobilar Archive: Volume II

After eight years (yes eight) the second volume of the Hobilar Archive is on it's way to the printers.  As before this will be a data CD in a full colour wrap around card wallet for £12.00 plus delivery. The CD contains issues 51 to 100 of Hobilar and should be available on 25 April 2020.



My roles, as archivist, has been to manage the project (part time), prepare the digital content and produce the various indices via a purpose built database. Here's an example output from the indexing.

An Insight Into Game Design

Neal Reid, the author of THACE and the Somme Series, was recently interviewed by Neil Shuck of Meeples & Miniatures fame.

In episode 209 of the podcast Neal talks about how our partnership works and the games he's designed since we started working together: the Somme Series, THACE (WWII) and Revolution! the soon to be released game of intrigue set during the French Revolution.

If you'd like an insight in to how these card games came about download the podcast, grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy.  Neal's segment begins 35 minutes into the podcast.