FLINTLOCKS & PERCUSSION CAPS

◗ caliverbooks.com ◗ £16.50

Chris Swan often writes articles in this magazine and – during the course of them – construct rule systems as well, and these are often available as downloads from the

Miniature Wargames website. However, he also publishes books and rules, usually via Caliver Books. His latest offering is called

Flintlocks & Percussion Caps and this is precisely the route he has taken.

These are aimed at the period stretching from 1800 to around 1860 and set in the Texas area. Scale wise, they are pitched at one-on-one skirmish games using – probably – 28mm figures although there’s no real reason to stick to that: I know that Chris often plays games in 40mm and 54mm, however you could also take them down to 15mm or 20mm without issue (and certainly – in that scale – I wouldn’t change any of the ranges or measurements).

The book is in an interesting format: 240mm by 170mm wide and soft bound, full colour, it’s around 100 pages in length and is clearly laid out with decent photography (full disclosure: I took the pictures...). The rules are d10 based and are fairly‘characterful’: if you’ve read any of Chris’articles in this magazine you can see that he enjoys bringing out individual traits and in the figures concocting games somewhere between a large skirmish and a roleplaying game, much after the fashion of Joe McCullough’s Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadowdeep (as just two examples from many).

Although the book is 100 pages long, the rules are – thankfully – not that enormous. The meat and bones of them are about 35 pages (and that spread out with pictures) and after that comes a series of appendices. These cover Stock Characters; Artillery (should you find the need); optional rules and taking a‘Hollywood’approach; wild animals and moving through difficult terrain amongst other topics.

After that we are presented with a series of half a dozen adventures: scenarios to play out including wagon capturing; Comanche raids and others, all set in specific periods within the time-frame.

Finally – at the rear – there are some Fate Cards and some quick-play sheets. In theory they could be cut out but the cards back onto a page of writing (as opposed to a blank page or one of the few adverts for Caliver’s other products) which means that you’d be best off scanning them and/ or photocopying them rather than losing a page of copy. All in all, a good – and very playable – read with a very usable set of rules and scenarios.