12 June 2013

The Sands of the Sudan...Peter Gilder style!


Well here we go!

After many years of putting off starting a wargames blog (for a multitude of reasons - children, work, apathy) we have decided to bite the bullet and try and use a favourite wargaming period to be the catalyst for, hopefully, a fun site which people may wish to visit upon occassion.

So why Pyjamas through the desert?  The Pyjamas comes from my old cricket club where several older characters at the club struggled severely with my surname at end of play presentations.  The Chairmen of Selectrors marched up to the bar one evening and after several botched attempts at my Italian moniker spurted out "Carlo Pyjamas" and, as things do at sporting clubs, the nickname stuck!!

My old Warrant Officer in the Army Reserves had exactly the same problem. It must have been all those syllables.

"Through the Desert"...well one of favourite early memories of wargaming as a young teenager was the pilgramage into the city after school on the train to purchase the latest copy of Miniature Wargames, and then Wargames Illustrated and Wargames World from Simulations Kite City up Cremorne Arcade in the city.  What particularly caught my attention were the Peter Gilder Sudan articles that looked absolutely magnificent and so far removed from what we had been doing as schoolboys at the club.  It also caught the attention of two fellow members of my club in Phil Cook and Mike Ward at the Napoleonic Wargaming Society who decided to put the game on at one of our early gaming weekends "Arena 1991".  I was hooked.

This particular blog will join a host of other wonderful sites which pay homage to the Gilder Games in the Sudan.  We have spent many years playing the rules and recently I have spent a good deal of time putting it all on paper, taking out some of the ambuguities, inserting explanations and examples so that the rules can finally be available in a wargamer friendly format that hopefully will get more people playing this wonderful period with 60 man battalions and hordes of Fuzzies coming over the hill intent on carnage!  Fantastic stuff.

Many thanks to Gerry Elliotr and the late Mike Ingham who were very generous with their copies of play sheets, recollections and information on the old Gilder games.  Thanks also to Mark Freeth the new owner of the Wargames Holiday Centre who has also given his blessings to the attempt to get the rules out there.  It is greatly appreciated and certainly in the old style generosity of wargamers all over the globe that I grew up enjoying and benefiiting from.

Hopefully the plan to provide free copies of these rules will be be my very small part in continuing this wonderful wargaming tradition.

Stay tuned.

5 comments:

  1. nice looking table there Carlo I would love to see how the rules go. We have a colonial competition on soon so will place some images up on my blog for you.

    Regards

    Nathan

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  2. Very nice table, Carlo. Sudan is a wonderful period to play, and I am very interested in see those rules.

    And welcome to the Blogosphera!!!

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    1. thanks Juan - I popped onto your site as well and will be following keenly.

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  3. Great stuff!! Would love to get those rules!

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    1. Hi WP,

      First two chapters now up with many more to follow.

      cheers and thanks for popping in.

      Carlo

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