People who influenced your wargaming 3.

 It was inevitable that I would select Charles Grant for my 'people who influenced my wargaming' posts. When I was struggling to understand what wargaming was exactly about in the late 1960's and early 1970's I managed to buy a copy of the Military Modelling magazine which contained an article written by some wargamer called Charles Grant concerning how to fight a Napoleonic Wargame. I was hooked from the onset as each month this man produced pages of information concerning the rules for fighting such a wargame and illustrated by black and white images of wonderful terrain and figures by someone called Peter Gilder.

 In the same magazine it was mentioned that Charles Grant had written a book simply titled  The Wargame and rushing to my library I ordered the said tome. I dont think Im colouring the memory too much when I finally obtained the book and found I couldnt put it down. I knew little of the period wargamed by Charles and his son but the whole account of fighting with imaginary Seven Years War armies captured my imagination like no other book. The sight of a purpose built table fielding large numbers of wargames figures and wonderful cavalry literally blew me away.

 Even now some fifty! years on I still paw over the book enjoying the images and wonderful writing of how to fight a large wargame. What dreams I had imagining owning such a wargames table and figures and back then I was desperate to command a regiment of Arqubussiers de Garssin, clearly a favourite of Charles Grant.
 I finally achieved this ambition some 35 years later when I finally bought the unit sculpted by Eureka Miniatures..I still think the original Spencer Smith plastcs were better than my metal figures.
 The rules themselves I realised would never be suitable for me, simply because back then I had neither the money or the space to create such a eye catching spectacle, but they were the ideal I aspired to for many many years.

 What I discovered was the enthusiasm that coursed through the writing in all of Charles Grant's books and what was very clear was the amount of knowledge involved in the writing. He didnt provide a scholarly lesson in military history but one knew the man had a deep knowledge of the period he was describing and had clearly researched the subject when producing his rules. It was using his list of references that I was able to read around the subject and understand more about the warfare being described by him. I now own all of the books listed by Charles Grant in the Wargame and the information contained in these books is still very relevant.

 I am lucky enough to own all the books he wrote and most of the articles he also wrote for the various wargames and military modelling magazines. All of them are an enjoyable experience and provide any novice wargamer with the information they may need to fight a period covered in the books.

 So for my third and one of my most important choices for influencing my wargaming I would like to thank the late Charles Grant again for all his endeavors and steering this novice onto the true path to wargaming heaven. I know we wont see his like again in wargaming.