A Blast from the Past

Now that is something you don't see very often....

Another Sunday and another boot sale. This time I was able to acquire something very special indeed. I am sure that many wargamers of a certain age will remember the magazine Miniature Warfare published by John Tunstill. I can remember buying a copy of this with my pocket money from the shop that John ran near the Imperial War Museum and being mightily impressed - it seemed altogether a more polished and serious offering than the Wargamer's Newsletter. In retrospect one could argue that Miniature Warfare, with its mention of such things as national conventions and such like, was attempting to bring gaming to the masses and more in the mainstream. It is ironic that after the passage of some forty years my thoughts are more Featherstone-like than Tunstill but things change.

I was able to acquire the first three volumes of the magazine in binders from issue number one for the princely sum of £3 in total and will also be acquiring some later volumes gratis. The seller was disposing of the last of the collection belonging to a deceased distant relative and amongst the bits and pieces therein are a number of books and a lot of unpainted Spencer Smith plastic figures that I will be taking a closer look at later next week.

A quick glance through the contents has some rather interesting articles although naturally some of the adverts are a little on the 'quaint' side....

This is a wonderful piece of wargames history that I shall enjoy reading - I will also take a look at Discovering Wargames and the various spin offs that used to be available from Shire Publications - and it will be interesting to see how much of the content has stood the test of time.