Image by: Bander Bramblegrub – Chainmail session at Gary Con II
Guidon Games creates Chainmail – Rules for Medieval Miniatures – 1st Edition, 1971. Chainmail would later come under Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR) ownership when they acquired its rights in 1975.
Yes, as a young kid in love with the idea of Knights, King Arthur, and movies like El Cid and Robin Hood, I had found a book that brought this period to life. Then, all I had to do was find some miniatures and identify a friend or family member that might play with me (but that’s another story for another day).
What I want to bring to life here is that I had found something that wasn’t a typical board game or family card game but something that took “gaming” to a whole new level. Plus, in finding this and visiting libraries, I started to see that there were these things called miniature wargames and that historical miniature wargaming was an actual thing, and I found a book called “Little Wars” by H. G. Wells. And this would turn out to be just the beginning of my discoveries.