A Compendium of the Charles S. Grant Publications

Two of the Charles S. Grant books from his most recent series, "Refighting History."

A Grant battle always features big battalions of 53 figures and cavalry regiments of 27 figures. The above picture depicts one of our "Batailles de l'Ancien Regime" (or BAR for short) battles last year. Our 60 figure battalions and the rules are inspired by The Wargame Rules, in part.

In the course of looking up some information in one of Charles S. Grant's books, I started to write down the various titles of his books and publications so that I could go back and find articles or stories that I might be looking for in the future. So I figured that I might as well post that list on this blog so that others could benefit from it too.

The list does not include any of Grant's books on the Napoleonic Peninsula War, Egypt or any of his books on Marlborough.

The Wargame Series

"The Wargame" - originally printed in 1971 by his father, Charles Grant, and reprinted in 2007 by Ken Trotman.

"The Wargame Companion" - (2008 - Ken Trotman) a paperback supplement to the original "The Wargame" book. This is one of my favorite Grant books because it provides a lot of the background story to the original book and is chock full of anecdotes about his Father and Peter Young that will bring you a good chuckle or two.

"The Wargame Rules" - (2012 - Ken Trotman) a paperback publication that puts all of the original rules found in the book, The Wargame, and includes all of the rules additions that the Grant family has added over the years. With all of the rules adjustments, the rules have advanced far beyond the "Old School" designation and are a modern set of rules that are a joy to read and easy to play.

Wargaming In History Series

These were a set of 12 hard cover, full color books published by Ken Trotman from 2009 through 2015. Seven of the titles were writen by Charles S. Grant and cover 18th Century topics, other than one title for the Peninsula War. The first two volumes were co-written by Phil Olley, with Grant going solo after that.

Volume 1 - Krefeld, Sandershausen and Lutterberg - 1758 (2009 - Ken Trotman).

Volume 2 - Dettingen, Fontenoy and Laufeld (2010 - Ken Trotman)

Volume 4 - Hastenbach, Rossbach and Leuthen (2011 - Ken Trotman)

Volume 5 - Minden, Kunersdorf, the Action at Torgau and Maxen

Volume 7 - Peninsular Actions (2012 - Ken Trotman)

Volume 9 - Lobositz, Reichenberg, Prague and Kolin (2013 - Ken Trotman)

Volume 11 - SYW Small Actions (2015 - Ken Trotman)

Battle Games Magazine and related Publications

"Battle Games Table Top Teasers - Volume 1"  (2008 - Battle Games Publications). 

This is a set of 12 of the Table Top Teasers that appeared in Battle Games magazine. It features a reprint of the articles, but then does something unique: employes a group of wargame writers to play the scenarios on their own and then report how their game went.  Many of the teaser reports conveyed the scenario to a completely different historical period. For example, my contribution takes a SYW action and transfers it to a battle during the American Civil War.

Battle Games Issues with Grant's Table Top Teasers

Issue 1 (March/April 2006) - Pontoon - using pontoons in river crossing scenarios.
Issue 2 (May/June 2006) - Can you demolish "The Bridge at Kronstadt"?
Issue 3 (July/August 2006) - The Tactical Use of Forests in Your Wargames
Issue 4 (September/October 2006) - Plunder and Pillage - a raid scenario to fetch supplies
[NOTE: this issue also contains a marvelous article about a refight of the Peter Young "Battle of Sittangbad" from his "Charge"book, that accurately recreates all of the forces and terrain featured in the Charge book.]

Issue 5 (November/December 2006) - Trouble on Treasure Island - a lighter Beer & Pretzels game.
Issue 6 (January/February 2007) - Napoleon's troops rob Egypt of Ancient Antiquities
Issue 7 (March/April 2007) - River Convoy, or "Messing About on the River".
Issue 8 (June/July 2007) - Seize the Pass, "The Battle of Soggy Bottom".
[NOTE: this issue also has an article about a recreation of the Grant "Mollwitz" scenario at Partizan. Grant himself participates in the game and brought all of the original plastic Spencer Smith figures that featured prominently in the book, "The Wargame".]

Issue 9 (August/September 2007) - Turning the Flank, or "Losing Two Fords".
Issue 10 (November/December 2007) - Siege Train, or "Caught on the Move".
Issue 11 (January/February 2008) - Insurgency, or "All's Well That Ends Well".
Issue 12 (March/April 2008) - Fighting rearguard actions.
Issue 13 (May/June 2008) - Fighting withdrawal, or "Over the hills and far away".
Issue 14 (July/August 2008) - Reconnaissance in Force
Issue 15 (September/October 2008) - Visitors with Intent. 3 different sides, each with own agenda.
Issue 16 (January/February 2009) - Confrontation on the Islands. Crossing 2 islands in a major river.
Issue 17 (March/April 2009) - A Dashing Rescue. A small skirmish raid style of game.
Issue 18 (July/August 2009) - Breakout! or "Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak".
Issue 19 (September/October 2009) - Gaining the Initiative (by Charlie Grant) - a battle that carries over to a second day's new action.

Issue 20 (November/December 2009) - An Affair of Outposts - an introduction to map moving.
Issue 21 (January/February 2010) - Night Moves. Preliminary action leading to main action.
Issue 22 (March/April 2010) - The Defense of Twin Peaks. A desperate rear-guard action.
Issue 23 (September/October 2010) - Cavalry Encounter. An exciting all-cavalry scenario.

Going forward, Battle Games were only numbered by issue number, without the month dating.

Issue 24 - Run on the Bank, or "A Bridge too Far?" This is the last Grant Table Top Teaser to appear in Battle Games, as Charles needed to devote more time to his growing book publishing commitments. Going forward, Battle Games used the Table Top Teaser format in a new series called "Command Challenge". Similar to TTT, but writen by different authors, including several that I wrote.

Refighting History Series

After Ken Trotman ceased publishing new books in 2015, Charles started a series of larger format hard cover, full color books that are published by Partizan Press. The first three titles (I assume that more are in the works since this is an on-going and active series) are listed below:

Volume 1 - SYW Fighting Withdrawals (2016 - Partizan Press)

Volume 2 - WAS Mollwitz, Chotusitz and Sahay (2016 - Partizan Press)

Volume 3 - WAS Hohenfriedberg, Soor and Rocoux (2016 - Partizan Press)

Charles S. Grant's Mini-campaign Series

Charles has developed and published (via Caliver Books) a series of six mini-campaigns, each of which are independent of the others. Each campaign has five Table Top Teasers that you can play linked together in a campaign, or fought as an independent scenario.

This is a nice way to fight a series of related battles in a short period of time, wherein the results of the earlier battles bear on the troop strengths of the succeeding battle. The campaigns generally involve Grant's own Grand Duchy of Lorraine (France) army fighting the Vereingte Frei Stadt or "VFS" for short (Prussia and its Electoral allies), but one could easily substitute one's own SYW armies or any other Horse and Musket period wars and armies.

"Raid on St. Michel" - (2008 - Caliver Books) a collection of 5 table top teasers.

"Annexation of Chriraz - (2008 - Caliver Books)

"The Wolfenbuttel War" - (2012 - Caliver Books) a mini-campaign based on the 1815 Waterloo Campaign, but played with SYW era armies.

"The Seige of La Crenoil" - (2013 - Caliver Books)

"Attack on the Junger" - (2014 - Partizan Press)

"Border Raid - Pillage of Procraster" - (2015 - Partizan Press)

The Wargamers' Annual

In 2009, Charles commenced publishing an annual magazine on wargaming which featured written contributions by an All-Star list of wargamers including Phil Olley, Barry Hilton, Stokes Schwartz and many, many more including, ahem, myself. I apologize for leaving anyone's name off of this short list. The magazines were probably inspired by the ones that Duncan MacFarlane did for his Wargames Illustrated publication (these were the four issues with the yellow covers). All of these new Annuals are published by Partizan Press. In 2014, Charles had so much content available that he added a second Summer Special issue for each year.

2010 - Volume 1 Annual for 2010 (78 pages)
2011 - Annual for 2011 (88 pages)
2012 - Annual for 2012 (88 pages)
2013 - Annual for 2013 (increased from 88 pages to 112 pages)
2014 - Annual for 2014 (120 pages)
2014 - Summer Special for 2014 (72 pages)
2015 - Annual for 2015 (72 pages)
2015 - Summer Special for 2015 (72 pages)
2016 - Annual for 2016  (72 pages)
(there might be a Summer Special, but I am not sure of this)


Links to Book Reviews that I have done on my blog

The following is a list of book reviews (click on the links to my blog reviews) that I have done on my blog. It looks like I need to do a few more:

Wargaming in History Volume 1

Wargaming In History Volume 4

Wargaming in History Volume 9

The Siege of La Crenoil



Conclusion

Well there you have, nearly all of the articles and books writen or published by Charles S. Grant listed in one place and at your disposal to find and peruse. For a long time I had been trying to find the TTT scenario that I finally found in Issue 17, so in the course of gathering all of the information, I happened to stumble upon the scenario, much to my joy.

There are probably a number of other Charles S. Grant articles that I have missed, notably those prior to 2008 when I first became acquaited with Charles' articles and books. I like his writing so much that I will usually buy the books sight unseen, because I know that the content therein will provide many enjoyable hours of reading or the playing of wargame scenarios. There are some other Grant articles in Practical Wargamer magazine, which is now out of print, edited and published by Stuart Asquith.

I continue to be enamored by the continuing conflict between the Grand Duchy of Lorraine and the Vereingte Frei Stadt armies. I am a bit partial to the VFS side of the frey since it has a Prussian-like quality to it. I have no doubt that there will be many more books to add to this list in the future.

mm