Diana Preston’s Boxer Rebellion:The Dramatic Story of China’s War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 was a primary source when I was researching scenarios for my Boxer Rebellion miniature wargaming project. The book reads like a novel, carrying the reader from one exciting event to another. While it doesn’t have the copious numbers and orders of battle so favored by wargamers, it more than makes up for this by providing dozens of raw ideas for good scenarios. Highly recommended.
colonial
Queen Victoria’s Little Wars By Byron Farwell
This is a book that should be on every Colonial Wargamers’ bookshelf. It is a brilliant study of the conflicts and personalities involved in a continuous series of wars for the British Empire between 1837 and 1901. It is by no means an exhaustive study of the period, but offers the reader a good slice of the times. If you don’t already play colonial miniature wargames, this book will make you want to.
‘Splorers, Savages, Soldiers and Slavers
‘Splorers, Savages, Soldiers and Slavers is a set of miniatures skirmish rules by Alan Hamilton for the Morvalistan wing of the Morval Earth project. Morvalistan is:
a fictional area of Africa. It covers the general region of the current Congo, Kenya and Tanzania. It was created in 1999 by Alan Hamilton … Set in Victorian times the main characters are British, European and tribal. That is not to say that the Americans and Chinese do not appear.
Adventures In Jimland Rules
Jim Wright’s Adventures in Jimland is a set of rules for conducting expeditions into the fantastic worlds of Darkest Africa. It’s a massive work, with 35 pages of rules, playcharts, encounter cards and more.
Afriborea Colonial Wars Rules
Prolific games designer Rudi Geudens offers Afriboria, a fast play, card driven set of colonial rules. What’s really neat about this game is that Rudi has designed some gorgeous custom cards, as well as labels to stick to six sided dice for use with the game.