Take a journey with us back to October 1975, when a small wargame club in Amarillo Texas (led by Steve Cole) produced an award-winning magazine filled with articles, variants, and reviews. The "Iron Age" of JagdPanther continued with color cardstock covers, one-piece multi-color maps, and die-cut counters.
The editorial said that the staff now felt a sense of accomplishment (rather than relief) as each issue was finished, and that we now had a product we were proud to show non-wargaming friends. We had even reached the point that much bigger game companies were buying advertising in our pages (Battleline bought the back cover).
The big game in this issue was The March on India by Thomas J. Fowler. This was a little known Japanese Imphal-Kohima offensive in 1944 that caught the British off guard and could have penetrated into India itself. The problem was the remote terrain and poor road network, which made actually moving any significant number of troops difficult. (The game reflects a period of wargaming history where companies tried to find a battle that had never been done as a game, rather than doing the 15th Gettysburg game.)
Variant articles in the issue included a 1948 variant for World War 3, placing all of the Grant tanks in one brigade for The Fall of Tobruk, anarchists in our own Spanish Civil War game, better political rules for Oil War, a historically realistic variant for World War I (plus more variants covering naval, Iberian, and air operations), historical alternative for Schutztruppe reflecting that a German battlecruiser (rather than a light cruiser) might have been trapped in Tanganyika, naval units for Blitzkrieg, a four-player variant for Triplanetary, poison gas in Overlord, reorganized US Army units for our own Marine game, a large number of new units for Modern Battles, alternate victory conditions and combat table for Gettysburg, counter-battery fire in Panzerblitz, a new aerial maneuver for Richthoffen's War, improved rules for the dinosaur game Gar-Garouk, tinkering with the rules for Dreadnought, updates for Sinai reflecting the 1975 peace treaty, a variant for D-Day in which NATO must retake France from the Soviets who conquered it, and minor rules improvements for Zeppelin.
New scenarios were presented for Panzerblitz (a balanced tank battle), Third Reich, Napoleon at Waterloo (French and Prussian units that historically did not arrive), Tank (a breakthrough battle), and SSN (a simpler introductory scenario).
Articles included better ways for using stock market numbers to roll die in play by mail games, an analysis of Kasserine Pass, how to conduct playtesting effectively, better ways to cut off the south end options in Anzio, a grid system to allow ships in any naval game to move in eight directions (not just six), an improved naval search system for any naval game, and corrections to the order of battle in Wilderness Campaign.
This issue has been scanned from the best available copy.
Written by Stephen Cole
