Boot Sale Bargains Again

Another trip to our usual Saturday morning boot sale at Sadlers farm bore fruit in the shape of three more books - one most certainly for my own use the other two more likely to head for either the club or ebay. The book I shall be keeping is 'The American Civil War Source Book' by Philip Katcher. This is in hardback with the dust jacket although slightly 'sunned' on the spine. A very useful book to dip into. I have had a curious relationship with the ACW for many years - some facets I find absolutely fascinating and others very much less so. I am very interested in the naval and riverine side - in fact I have a couple of 1/2400 Tumbling Dice fleets to prepare at some point - and also the Western theatre but the bias that seems to extend to the Eastern campaigns I find less appealing. I have also had some bad gaming experiences of the period with rules of dubious value which probably does not help my feelings toward the subject! This first edition cost me the princely sum of £1.

The next two titles I am undecided about as although I am interested in the subject matter i.e. modern aerial combat I am not so 'into' it that I would actively game it. That said, Dave Manley has produced a great set of modern air combat rules and there are some lovely 1/600th scale models from Tumbling Dice available so it could potentially be a project for the future. My own feeling though is that if I were to tackle modern combat at all it would be from the land or sea with the air element as an abstract add on. The jury is out on this but I suspect that the club or ebay will see them at some point. the first if 'Fighter Missions' and is a large format book stuffed with profiles of the many different missions flown in combat. It is a real 'under the skin' title giving details of what happens and when during a combat mission. Really useful background material for adding accurate meat to scenario design.

The second title is 'The Encyclopedia of Modern Warplanes' ans was published in 1995 with the well known aviation expert Bill Gunston as the editor. Basically the book has the specifications of around 250 aircraft in service with the world's air forces at that time. It makes a good companion to the title above and the pair of them came to the mind-boggling sum of £1.50!

All in all then it was not a bad day out but it has given me much to think about. Do I really need to start yet another project? I tend to think of air games in the same terms as naval - you don't need a lot of stuff for a good game so they are fairly cheap to set up in 1/300th or 1/600th...................oh dear, I think I need to lie down, my wallet is groaning under the potential impact!