Recent Book and Rule Purchases

Maybe I mentioned this in a recent post, but one of my big resolutions is to hold the line on hobby purchases, other than glue or new paintbrushes, for the new year. Its not helping that Heroics & Ros keeps putting out new and improved infantry, GHQ has added some new vehicles that I could use, and who knows what O8 will be putting out for 1/600! At least, I think I'm OK on my 15mm fantasy barbarian project. The only thing outstanding is a tactical modern armor boardgame coming down the pike that I pre-ordered.

Just after Christmas, several books that I had ordered finally showed up.

South American Battleships 1908-59

I preordered this Osprey book way back in the summer. The release date kept getting pushed back. In fact, I didn't even know what was in the package when it arrived. 

A fairly quick read. It has a very interesting discussion on the naval arms race among the big three South American nations. I think the book could have included a few more larger color profile illustrations of the various battleships. Instead, there are some painting recreating some of the battleships in action. These don't really add much to the discussion in my opinion. Nonetheless, its a pretty good book for the price. It would be very useful for recreating what-if naval battles among the three nations.

Before the Battlecrusier: the Big Cruiser in the World's Navies 1865-1910

This came out about a week or two before Christmas. I was weak, so I ordered it off of Amazon. It came while I was out of town at my daughter's tennis tournament. It's still in my office and I have been thumbing though it while I take numerous breaks from working on class syllabi (which has to be one of the most soul-sucking aspects of being a college prof) for the upcoming semester. Yes, I should be working on them even now rather than writing this post. 

It covers pretty much everyone in the time period listed. The ship plans are a little small and leave off things like ship's boats, but they are detailed enough that you can use them to build models off of. A nice addition is that it has an addition side few showing the extent and thicknesses of armor. The only thing that puzzles me is that the book excludes the US cruisers of the Spanish-American War. The infamous USS Maine is listed, but those cruisers that took part in the Battle of Manila Bay, the USS Olympia for example, are left out.  I can't comment on cruisers of other nations if there are similar omissions. 

Panzer Korps 2nd Edition & OPFOR 1985 to 2020

I saw a couple of reviews and some AARs using these rules. Even though they are supposed to be at the divisional level, I thought I'd check them out. I've read through them a few times, but this is not meant to be a review. I will save that when I have my test battle using them.  The mechanics look interesting particularly the activation system. My only initial criticism is that have a whole bunch of unnecessary, somewhat random pictures that actually make it a little hard to read the text. Also, it says that you need main rule set to play the OPFOR module, but it seems like the basic rules are in the module. I figure if I like these rules enough, I can use them for WWII games, too.