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The War Gnome Crossbows pack was sculpted by Bob Olley and come in a pack of 6 with 3 poses.

The War Gnome Guard pack was sculpted by Bob Olley and come in a pack of 6 with 3 poses.

The War Gnome Ranger pack was sculpted by Bob Olley and come in a pack of 6 with 3 poses

Continuing this exciting new series of guides for wargamers, Dan Mersey gives a wargamer’s perspective on the North African campaign of World War II. Dan gives an overview of events from the opening British successes against the Italians, to the famous duels between Monty and the Rommel (the Desert Fox), right up to the US-led invasion of Operation Torch and the eventual defeat of the Afrika Korps, and offers advice on how to recreate these on the gaming table. Daniel Mersey discusses factors to consider when choosing an appropriate set of commercially available rules, or devising your own, to best suit the scale and style of battle you want and to capture the flavour of the period. The relevant ranges of figures and vehicle models are also reviewed. Analysis of the forces involved, organization, tactics and strategies will help with building your armies and there are interesting scenarios included. Whether this is a new period for you, or you are looking to refresh your existing interest in the period, this handy guide is sure to hold much if interest for you.

By the 15th century BC the valley of Hwang Ho was dominated by a palace-based military caste which owed its supremacy to a monopoly of bronze-working techniques among a still mainly Stone Age population. To the Shang Dynasty, war was a means of legitimising the power of their new aristocracy. This fascinating volume by C. J. Peers covers the period of China's history from the first documented civilisation to the establishment of an enduring unified empire, examining the history, organisation, uniform and weapons of ancient Chinese armies.

Formidable and sophisticated, triremes were the deadliest battleships of the ancient world and at the height of their success the Athenians were the dominant exponents of their devastating power. Primarily galleys designed to fight under oar power, their main weapon was a bronze-plated ram situated at the prow. This book offers a complete analysis of the most potent battleship of its time; the weapon by which Athens achieved, maintained and ultimately lost its power and prosperity.

An important aspect of the Russian Civil War were the several Allied expeditions immediately following World War I in support of the disunited Russian 'White' armies resisting the Bolshevik Revolution. Although they ended in failure, these ventures were long resented, and were the origin of the 70-year-long Soviet suspicion of the Western Allies. British and US expeditionary forces operated in North Russia and Siberia in support of General Yudenich and Admiral Kolchak respectively, and a French and Greek expeditionary force (plus Romanian and Polish elements) operated in Crimea and south-western Ukraine, in support of General Denikin. The situation was further complicated by the presence of strong Imperial German elements still under arms, and by war between various factions in the Ukraine. This Southern theatre of the Allied interventions is far less well known than that of the British and Americans in the North and East.

Featuring rare photos and new colour plates, this fascinating new book describes this major Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Dr Phoebus Athanassiou writes a compelling account of how the French and Greeks alongside White Russians were greatly outnumbered by pro-Bolshevik forces and were relentlessly pushed back by the Ukrainian forces. In just over 4 months, on 28 April 1919, the last of their forces were evacuated by Allied navies from Sevastopol in Crimea.

In 1917 Poland was recognised as a state by Russia, but the Bolshevik coup threatened this. The Polish leader Marshal Pilsudski hurried to build an army around Polish World War I veterans, and in 1918 war broke out for Poland's independence, involving the the Poles, the Red and White Russian armies, at least two different Ukrainian forces, and Allied intervention troops. The armies that fought these campaigns were extraordinarily varied in their uniforms and insignia, equipment and weapons, and when peace was signed in 1921, Poland had achieved recognised nationhood for the first time since 1794. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork, this engaging study explains and illustrates the armies that fought in the epic struggle for the rebirth of the independent Polish nation, in the bitter aftermath of World War I.

The Pacific War was the greatest and bloodiest war ever fought in the Andean region, and is one of the most important conflicts in South American history. It is also known as the 'Saltpeter War' or the 'Guano War' because the possession of these two highly profitable nitrates was the main cause of the conflict.
By the 1870s Chilean military superiority and expansionist policies exploded into full scale conflict. This book examines the troops, uniforms and equipment used by the Chilean, Peruvian and Bolivian forces and traces the events of the war from the early naval blockades, through major pitched battles, to the final guerilla campaign in occupied Peru. The war ended in total victory for Chile, and that country's military emergence thereafter as 'the Prussia of South America', while it cost Peru some lucrative provinces, and Bolivia its outlet to the Pacific coast.

The War of the Triple Alliance is the largest single conflict in the history of South America. Drawing Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay into conflict the war was characterized by extraordinarily high casualty rates, and was to shape the future of an entire continent – depopulating Paraguay and establishing Brazil as the predominant military power. Despite the importance of the war, little information is available in English about the armies that fought it. This book analyzes the combatants of the four nations caught up in the war, telling the story of the men who fought on each side, illustrated with contemporary paintings, prints, and early photographs.

On the night of 1–2 April 1982, the Argentinian Junta led by Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri made its move against the Falkland Islands. On 3 April British Prime Minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher faced an appalled and furious House of Commons to announce that Argentine armed forces had landed on British sovereign territory; had captured the men of Royal Marine detachment NP8901; had run up the Argentine flag at Government House; and had declared the islands and their population to be Argentine. This absorbing text by William Fowler details the land forces that contested the Falklands War.

The 'Confrontation' between Malaysia and Indonesia in Borneo - the war against Indonesian raids across a 900-mile border - eventually involved nearly 20,000 British and Commonwealth troops, with air and naval support; and yet, by mutual consent, astonishingly little was reported at the time. This 'secret war' saw the perfection of SAS jungle tactics and audacious secret missions deep inside enemy territory, including the award to a Gurkha soldier of the British Army's only 'living VC' for 40 years. This book will reveal the experiences of the soldiers who survived and succeeded amidst some of the world's worst jungle terrain.

At the time of the Second Empire, under Napoleon III, the French army, elevated from tactful obscurity, was re-modelled on Napoleonic lines. This army first fought in the Crimea, and then against Austria. Later, In Mexico, they had a disastrous adventure while in Europe Prussia was fast emerging as a challenge to France's military pre-eminence. Together with Austria, Bismarck first crushed Denmark before turning on Austria herself. The victory at Sadowa in 1866 stunned Europe, and in Paris Napoleon and his advisers set to thinking of a way to counter this new threat. In this first of two volumes looking at the French Army of the Franco-Prussian War, Stephen Shann and Louis Delperier examine the history, organisation and weapons of the French Imperial troops.

The capitulation of Napoleon and his army at Sedan in September 1870 shook Paris to its foundations. The Second Empire was swept from power, and a Government of National Defence hastily put in its place. To replace the weakened professional army the French called for a 'war of the people'. A companion volume to Men-at-Arms 233: The French Army 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (1) Imperial Troops, this book covers the forces that participated in the second half of the campaign, including the regular army, l' Armeé d' Afrique, la Garde Mobile, la Garde Nationale and the naval forces. The text is accompanied by contemporary photographs and detailed colour plates.

The crushing victory by Prussia and her German allies in the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, destroyed one empire and created another. It finally unified the German states into an empire under Prussian leadership – an empire proclaimed in the very halls of captured Versailles. In 1870 Prussia's reformed mobilization system put enormous armies into the field with unprecedented efficiency. The confidence which the victory encouraged among German militarists, and the intolerable humiliation it inflicted upon France, ensured that an even more destructive war was soon inevitable. This, the first of two titles, lists and illustrates the units of Prussia and her North German Confederation, the powerhouse of a formidable military machine.

Although the war of 1870–71 has gone down in history as the 'Franco-Prussian War', nearly half of the German troops sent to the frontier were from other German states – both the willing members of the North German Confederation and the southern states who were in some cases more hesitant about accepting Prussian domination. Some contingents had only one or two regiments – though these might be of high quality, like the 'Black Brunswickers'; others provided whole army corps, like Bavaria and Saxony. This book lists and illustrates the organization and varied uniforms of all these allied contingents, most of which fought well when it came to the test of battle.

After AD 304 the five 'barbarian' tribes divided north China among themselves, setting up dynasties which were often Chinese only in name, and feuding constantly both with each other and with the native states, whose stronghold was now in the south. It was under this barbarian influence that the heavily-armoured cavalry which were to become the striking force of the great T'ang dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries first developed. In a knowledgeable text complemented by numerous illustrations, this book explores the history, weaponry, tactics and organisation of medieval Chinese armies between 200 BC and AD 589.

This illustrated study investigates the Indo-Islamic fighting men of South Asia from the 7th century AD to the Mughal conquest of the 16th century.

From 1206, much of what is now India as well as parts of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal were ruled by a succession of Islamic dynasties that had their origins in the Ghurid forces that conquered parts of northern India in the 12th century. Although it was never complete, the Islamic domination of this huge region also had a profound impact upon Islamic civilization as a whole, not least in military terms, being felt as far west as Africa. Within South Asia, the war-torn medieval centuries laid the foundations for the subsequent even more brilliant Mughal Empire.

Featuring eight plates of superb artwork alongside carefully chosen photographs and illustrations, this study complements the same author's Medieval Indian Armies (1): Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. It describes and illustrates the Indo-Islamic forces operating in South Asia, from the Umayyad Caliphate's frontier in north-western India and Afghanistan in the late 7th century through to the Delhi Sultanate, the Sultanate of Bengal and the Bahmani Sultanate in the 15th and 16th centuries.

David Nicolle explains how, with respect to arms, armour, fortification and transport both on land and at sea, the widely successful Muslim armies learned a great deal from their more numerous Hindu, Jain and Buddhist opponents. This was especially evident in developments such as the use of war-elephants and the adoption of lighter, often textile-based forms of protection such as 'soft armour' made of cotton. On the other side, there would be widespread adoption of more potent weapons such as the composite bow, and considerably more sophisticated systems of cavalry warfare, among the non-Islamic forces of the Indian sub-continent. Fully illustrated, this absorbing account casts light on many centuries of warfare in South Asia.

The Great War opened with a major reversal for the BEF followed by a daring and epic withdrawal. This book describes these dramatic events.

This book describes and illustrates the armies of the embattled Ottoman Turkish Empire involved in 19th-century wars during the Empire's long spiral of decline.

During the so called 'long 19th century', between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the difficulties faced by the Ottoman Turkish Empire were a recurrent factor in international geopolitics. Against a background of Russian–Ottoman rivalry, France and Britain supported the Empire during the Crimean War (1854–56), but not in the Russo–Turkish War (1877–78).

Portraying the uniforms, arms and appearance of Ottoman troops during this period, this book traces the history of the Ottoman Empire throughout this period, when no fewer than ten wars of regional insurgency and foreign expansion against the Empire were fought in territories in south-eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Using rare photos and illustrations from Turkish, Balkan and other sources, author, Gabriele Esposito details the history of the multi-ethnic Ottoman armies periodic attempts to modernize which enabled them to win some victories at a tactical level. But the Empire – 'the sick man of Europe' – lacked a coherent strategy or sufficient resources, and failed attempts to crush regional uprisings and to defend borders, saw the steady loss of territories. Due to misgovernment and economic failure, unrest finally boiled over in 1908–09, reducing the sultan's court to a largely ceremonial role, and installing a military government by the 'Young Turks' led by the general Enver Pasha.

This book is a vivid description of the organization, operations, uniforms and equipment of one of the most active and varied armies of the 'long 19th century' and paints a detailed picture of the Ottoman Empire's struggle to maintain control of its territories.

On Sunday 23 May 1706, near the village of Ramillies in modern Belgium, the Anglo-Dutch army commanded by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, inflicted a devastating defeat on the French army of the Duke de Villeroi. Marlborough's triumph on that day ranks alongside Blenheim as one of the great feats of his extraordinary military career. The French army was shattered physically and morally and, as a result, Marlborough's army overran almost all of the Spanish Netherlands in the next six weeks, and gained an unshakeable advantage over the armed might of Louis XIV's France during the long War of the Spanish Succession.

In this expert guide to the battle and the battlefield, James Falkner offers a gripping and authoritative account of the campaign and the action, and he takes the reader across the battleground itself, relating the course of the fighting to the terrain as it can be viewed today.

The principal source of information on the Roman Republican Army is the sixth book of the Histories of the Greek historian Polybius, written a little before 150BC. This engaging text by Nicholas Sekunda draws heavily on this vital source to outline the equipment and organisation of the Roman Republican Army from 200–104 BC – a time when Rome was growing from a regional to a world power. With plenty of photographs and illustrations, including eight vivid full page colour plates by Angus McBride, this fascinating volume examines such topics as the Roman shield, helmets, the cuirass, greaves, the pilum, legion organisation, the principales and the tactics they employed. Men-at-Arms 283, 291 and 46 are also available in a single volume special edition as 'Caesar's Legions'.

A fully illustrated account of the large-scale reformation of the Roman Army from the reign of Diocletian to the fall of the Western Empire in AD 476.

After the 50-year chaos of the mid-3rd century AD, Emperor Diocletian (r. AD 284–305) and his successor, Constantine I (r. AD 306–37), the first Christian emperor, undertook major administrative reforms to reflect new realities and improve defensive strategy. These changes saw the Roman Army completely reorganized, with its old structure of legions and auxiliary units giving way to central mobile field armies and various classes of garrison troops. In addition, the Army also began recruiting 'allied barbarians' in ever-increasing numbers and even promoted some to the level of senior command.

Roman military expert Raffaele D'Amato draws on the latest archaeological and written evidence to explore this turbulent final period of the Western Empire. Illustrated with photographs and drawings of surviving artefacts and imagery, this latest entry in a series charting the Roman Army's evolution also features eight newly commissioned colour plates depicting the uniforms and weaponry of Rome's reformed military.

Although the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire and faced similar military problems, its solutions were very different. In North Africa, for example, Rome's large army concentrated on securing main roads and urban centres. Byzantium's smaller army built more fortifications and took a defensive stance. The most striking characteristic of later Byzantine military thinking was, however, the theme or provincial army system, which owed nothing to ancient Roman tradition. With eight superb full colour plates by Angus McBride, and many other illustrations, David Nicolle examines the history of Romano-Byzantine armies from 4th-9th centuries.

The Parthians were a warrior people. Though possessing no regular army they were superb horsemen and archers, and in time of war the nobility provided heavily armoured knights mounted on weight-carrying chargers. At Carrhae, it is believed that 20,000 Roman troops out of a force of about 36,000 died at the hands of the Parthians. In the third of four volumes covering Rome's enemies, this fascinating text by Peter Wilcox examines the armies and campaigns of the Parthians and Sassanid Persians. This worthy addition to Osprey's Men-at-Arms series contains a wealth of illustrations, including eight full page colour plates by popular artist Angus McBride.

Tamerlane or Timur-i-Lenk ('Timur the Lame') is one of the most extraordinary conquerors in history. In the late 14th century his armies seized huge territories from the borders of Mongolia to Palestine and Anatolia. His passage was marked by massacres that outdid even those of the Mongols for sheer savagery. Timur's career was unequalled since Alexander the Great in terms of constant battlefield success. Only in his youth, while recovering his family estates south of Samarqand, did he face occasional defeat. This title tells the remarkable story of Timur and details the organisation, tactics, arms and armour of his all-conquering army.

When Philip II ascended the throne in 359 BC, Macedonia was in danger of being engulfed by wild barbarian tribes to the north and wily Greek cities to the south. Philip had to expand the power of the throne or be swallowed up: the creation of a powerful army was imperative. When his son, Alexander, inherited his kingdom at the age of 20, he also inherited an army which was truly unrivalled. The Macedonians were veterans of battle, well equipped and eager for conquest. Add to this Alexander's supreme gifts as military commander and it is little wonder they achieved so much. Men-at-Arms 148 and Campaign 7 are also available in a single volume special edition as 'Alexander the Great'.

The importance of the Australian contribution to the Allied war effort during World War I should never be underestimated. Some 400,000 Australians volunteered for active duty, an astonishing 13 per cent of the entire (white) male population, a number so great that the Australian government was never forced to rely on conscription. Casualties were an astonishing 52 per cent of all those who served, ensuring that the effects of the war would be felt long after the armistice. In particular, their epic endeavour at Gallipoli in 1915 was the nation's founding legend, and the ANZACs went on to distinguish themselves both on the Western Front and in General Allenby's great cavalry campaign against the Turks in the Middle East. Their uniforms and insignia were also significantly different from those of the British Army and provide the basis for a unique set of artwork plates.

In the mid-19th century, Austria comprised a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic empire consisting of the Austrian or 'German' area; the Hungarian area; the Military Border; and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The diverse nature of the empire made it difficult to create a unified and up-to-date military system, especially with remnants of feudalism still strong in some provinces. This book examines the Line infantry, Grenz infantry (Border troops) and Jägers (riflemen) that formed the Austrian infantry. Numerous illustrations and photographs of uniforms, rank insignia and regiments complement the text, as well as eight full colour plates.

The huge, multi-national Austro-Hungarian army was a major factor in mid-19th century European politics. Sharing borders with ramshackle Ottoman Turkey and volatile Italy, the Empire was threatened both internally – by growing nationalist esentments – and externally by the ambitions of France and Prussia. The Imperial and Royal Army was representative of the Empire, its composition and gorgeously complex uniforms echoing the historical traditions of both German-speaking Middle Europe and the East-facing Hungarian borderlands. This detailed analysis of its cavalry arm – Kurassiers, Dragoons, Chevauxlegers, Hussars and Uhlans – follows the author/artist's similar treatment of the Austro-Hungarian infantry in Men-at-Arms 323, and includes detailed tables of regimental distinctions.