Garden Campaigns By Paul Holcroft Wright

 Below: Paul

Paul's latest book with some of my traditional toy soldiers in the foreground.

I recently received, from Paul Wright, his latest Funny little Wars book. He has previously published two versions of Funny Little Wars and a book of Campaign Wargames.

  A major focus of Paul games is playing outside in the garden. Another is building upon HG Wells games and rules. The latest book, Garden Wargames, builds on the things HG Wells would have liked to include but did not get around to it, as like most people in Europe, he was distracted by the onslaught of the great War of 1914-1918.

  I have had a long correspondence with Paul, and he has often shown me the drafts of his work. He is a major influence on my wargaming, and I often use my own version of his rules. One of the fun things is they include matchstick firing cannons with burst radius calculations to determine the casualties from artillery. What I really loved about his earlier work was the inclusion of quirky army lists for 'imagi-nations', (most of them largely corresponding to actual countries and others to literary ones).

  The setting for the rules has been late Victorian to Edwardian period. The latest rules largely concentrate on the immediate pre-WW1 to the WW1 era. Paul has refined some of his earlier rules and added new ones. Among the interesting rules are those for 'creeping barrage', something very WW1. The tactic is designed to assist assaults on enemy trenches but has the inclusion of the possibility of hitting friendly forces. other rules allow for shells destroying barbed wire and other obstacles.

  There are also detailed rules about supplies, aircraft and fortifications among others

  Paul has plans for further wargame books in the future.
Garden Campaigns (lulu.com)

Here is a link for his latest book: 

Here is a link to the FLW blog. If you can get the original FLW book it is worth it just for the photos and army lists. I don't know if Paul is still selling it but you can send him a message.