Hi everyone, welcome once again to Yarkshire Gamers Reet Big Wargames Podcast.

Today sees a continuation of our round the world trip with a visit to New Zealand and my guest Mark Strachan.

Marks Blog 1866 and all that has been a popular stop off point for many wargamers over the years, it covers many things but specialises in the Franco Prussian War and other similar wars around that time.

https://stracmark.blogspot.com/

We look at Marks personal hobby as well as his time working in the wargames industry and the hobby in general in New Zealand. Hope you enjoy it.

Episode 79 will be a new show format for Yarkshire Gamer as I take you all back in time to 1983 and the first ever edition of Miniature Wargames. I've got some great guests and an item from the magazine (kindly donated by its current owner) which I hope to raise a few quid for the Bradford Burns Unit by auctioning it off.

So until next time,

Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Earlier this year one of the early Wargaming Pioneers Charlie Wesencraft passed away at the age of 97.

I thought it would be a fitting tribute to get some of my former guests together and have them tell Charlies story and there memories of him.

In between the various interview sections I read passages from his first book, written in 1974, Practical Wargaming. See if you can spot any phrases from those readings that still resonate today.

Charlies first book can still be obtained via amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlie-Wesencrafts-Practical-Wargaming-Wesencraft-ebook/dp/B01H2UK96U?ie=UTF8&tag=mh0a9-21&hvadid=&hvpos=&hvexid={aceid}&hvnetw=o&hvrand=&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7dy1f5hemb_e

Here is a link to Robbie Roddis' piece on his blog about Charlie

https://independentwargamesgroup.blogspot.com/2025/04/charlie-wesencraft-author-wargamer-and.html

And here is the piece about Pete Berry from Baccus6mm and his tribute to Charlie which has a link to the Blenheim Project

https://www.baccus6mm.com/news/28-06-2025/CharlesFWesencraft/

Thanks for listening and as always, please like subscribe and comment wherever you get this podcast to help the listenership grow.

My next guest will hopefully be Mark Strachan from New Zealand who runs the 1866 and all that blog, so I best get the Yarkshire Airline Pidgeon fed up for the trip.

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer

Hello everyone and here's something for the weekend !

This is the hangover from Episode 74 when in the Brews in the Binyard Episode where we talked rubbish for that long we didn't get chance to cover the listener questions ! So here they are.

We spend an hour catching up as one or two things have happened between this episode and the last brews and then its into the questions.

As always for the professionally offended, this is a very loose form Podcast which contains the odd (and even) naughty word, I even mention edible knickers a couple of times (no, I don't know where it came from either) so if its not your ting skip on by and wait for the next episode.

Speaking of which I am putting together a Tribute Episode to the recently departed Charlie Wesencraft whose book Practical Wargaming was an introduction to the hobby for many of us. If you would like to include an audio tribute (minute of so long) to Charlie, send it to me at yarkshiregamer@gmail.com

Until next time Sithee

Regards Ken

The Yarkshire Gamer