Games Designer Daniel Mersey has at least six Osprey Games titles under his belt, including several in the very popular ‘… Rampant’ series. But, like many a well know author, Dan cut his teeth writing for Wargames Illustrated, years before he made a career out of it; check out the Vault and his very first article on Llewelynap Gruffyd in Wi100 for confirmation. Recently Dan gently chided us for not including enough rulesets in the pages of Wargames Illustrated anymore: “When I started buying Wargames Illustrated, in the late 1980s, free sets of rules appeared in quite a few issues. Where are they all now?” quoth he. And so began some high-level discussions that went along the lines of me saying, “you write some then Dan!” and him saying, “I will then Dan!”. Hey presto, quick as a flash (a flash is very slow in the world of writing) Mr Mersey had written, play-tested and provided us with a set of simple skirmish rules, set against a comic book style background with the appropriately silly title of ‘Blam! Blam! Aargh!’. Just to keep Dan M in his place we’re still not including the rules with the magazine, but what we are doing is publishing them as a separate freebie booklet and giving them away with the August 2021 issue of Wargames Illustrated à la ‘Never Mind the Billhooks’ and ‘Death in the Dark Continent Lite’. Prime Members will be able to download ‘Blam…’ as a PDF, and order copies of free of charge (plus P&P). All of the above has been leading me up to tell you that this week’s ‘Exploits’ have all been about preparing ‘Blam! Blam! Aargh!’ for print. With my good self being involved in both the photography and (just to keep my hand in) the graphic design. You will get to see the finished publication on the 20 July when Wi404 and ‘Blam! Blam! Aargh!’ are released. In the meantime here’s a few pics of this week’s efforts. Blam! Blam! Aargh! has a definite (quite silly) comic book style … … as you can see from the layout. The rules are all contained in 16 pages, with easy to follow examples. Blam! uses a grid layout (although you can play it without), D6s, tokens (provided), and around a dozen figures per side. It’s token-tastic! It’s multi-period. Go from the jungles of Nam … … to the ruins of the Western Front … … to the zombie ravaged wild frontier … … or the real Wild West.
