Another bunch of books

Having been gifted a few book coupons, I ordered a few books off my wishlist. The book on the Grande Armée in Germany has been on the list for over a year. Based on numerous first hand accounts and archives I'm interested in the way the French behaved as an occupation force, but also on it's relations with the population.

And with the coming of Project 217 (the as yet still mysterious project about ancient warfare around 217 BC), I decided to finally order the 3rd edition of the De Bellis Antiquitatis rules for ancient warfare. I still think that it is a very innovative rule set that regretfully developed in the wrong direction.

If I return to ancients wargaming, it will be in 6mm using DBA. I just don't have the time for painting another large army and learning a complicated tactical rule set that feels more like recreating Napoleonic warfare than ancient.

And it was just a bit to easy to just add the newest edition of Hordes of the Things, the fantasy version of DBA. By the way check out this fantastic blog that shows how incredibly creative people can be in designing their HotT armies. Or have a look at the HotT facebook group. Pure joy.

I had also ordered a book on maroons in North America, after reading a very interesting article on the maroons in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia.

And as I went to pick that up, I just happened to look at the new Ospreys just in and I was kind of spineless.The campaign book on the Battle of the Thames is a kind of a no-brainer since it covers the Indian part of the War of 1812.

I am also quite fond of the work of Sean McLachlan, who does thorough historical research and occasionally combines it with interesting fiction. I was happy to pick up his combat series instalment on the Apache warrior vs US cavalryman. An interesting contest and it seems McLachlan has done a good job on both sides.

That said, the third booklet will be the proof on how the combat series is doing because King's African Rifles vs Schutztruppe Soldier might expose the weaknesses of the series by pitting two similar troop types against each other, but might also show interesting differences in their deployment by their colonial masters. Anyway, a much understudied topic in itself.