A Knife's Edge at Stalingrad with Prit Buttar

Today on Little Wars FM, Greg interviews Dr. Prit Buttar to learn about the critical period of late November through December 1942. Dr. Buttar is a prolific historian with many published books, but today's conversation focuses on his 2018 book "On a Knife's Edge," which details the fall of Stalingrad and the failed relief effort to save Paulus's 6th Army. Should Paulus have initiated a breakout? Was a breakout even logistically possible? Is Manstein's legend overhyped in the context of Operation Winter Storm? And what about Zhukov's role...in his own memoirs did he steal the spotlight from other Red Army commanders? Why did Operation Winter Storm make such excellent progress on its first day before grinding to a halt in the ensuing week? Could Hitler have authorized the release of more divisions? Those questions are just the beginning of a fascinating, two-hour talk. You can read Dr. Buttar's book, "On a Knife's Edge" and get a copy directly from the publisher, Osprey. Also, you can learn more about his work on his personal website. We want to thank Prit Buttar for being so generous with his time and chatting with Little Wars TV for our Winter Storm campaign series on YouTube!

Little Wars FM returns with two new guests--Adam and Dave of the Thomas Hill Wargame Club. If the name sounds familiar, it may be because you've seen their award-winning games at Historicon. Or, it may be because you watched their award-winning Quick Strike AAR, "Rommel v. Tolkien!" These guys took home our overall Best AAR prize in the recently-concluded 2025 challenge. In this conversation, they pull back the curtain on how they researched and constructed this incredible custom 28mm tabletop, how they learned to edit their first wargame video, and whether they'll ever do a second. How long did it take to learn and edit a Quick Strike, anyway? You'll find out! We also talk about the origin of their gaming group, how it's grown, and their best advice for sustaining a club for nearly 40 years. That's right--these guys have been gaming together for the better part of 40 years! What's the secret to that kind of longevity? Finally, speaking of secrets...what wildly ambitious 28mm project are they working on right now? They claim we'll all get to see it at Historicon 2027, so stay tuned. If you want to follow the club on their Instagram page, you'll find them right here!

If you listened to our podcast conversation with legendary game designer Rick Priestley, you heard him suggest the reason Warmaster failed to take off may have been because the retail staff weren't interested in promoting it. Today Greg accepts Rick's challenge and tracks down someone with experience working for Games Workshop. "North" (as he's known on YouTube) has a channel discussing all things Games Workshop with the benefit of years working for them at the retail level in the UK. In a recent video on his own channel, North reflected on the consequences of GW abandoning Specialist Games and getting away from its roots as a design studio. You know...a workshop that made new games. It's a fun watch and directly related to our discussion about Warmaster--one of the many games killed when GW put Specialist Games out to pasture. In today's podcast, we talk to Northern Exile about Warmaster, about what it's like to work for the largest wargame company in the world, and how that company continues to evolve. We even discover a dirty little secret at the end. North is a historical wargamer! Thanks again to North for participating and speaking so openly and freely. If you enjoy that kind of talk, check out his channel, Northern Exile.  

Games Workshop released Warmaster in 2000 as its first epic scale, mass battle game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. But did you know Warmaster was supposed to be released two years earlier? Or that the inspiration for Warmaster's iconic command and control system came from a trip Rick Priestley took to Gettysburg battlefield? Today on Little Wars FM podcast, Greg connects with the author and creator of Warmaster, Mr. Rick Priestley himself, to learn about the origins of the game and pry for insider information about what happened to it. Why did Games Workshop delay the game, deny it a big starter box release, and then fail to fully embrace the concept? What about the short-lived Battle of the Five Armies boxed set that used the Warmaster rules years later? In upcoming podcasts and interviews we'll talk to members of the Warmaster community today, over a decade after Games Workshop abandoned the game. A thriving fanbase of players still enjoys Warmaster and a free, updated version of the rules is available for download. We'll be exploring all of this and much more. Our thanks to Rick for generously taking so much of his time to join us for this chat!

Today on Little Wars FM we're joined by Gary Blevins of Board Game Nation. Last year Gary produced a viral YouTube sensation with his multi-part video series recapping the 2023 Axis & Allies World Championship. Not only did he film and edit a series, he played in the championship and advanced to the finals. Did he win? We won't spoil the ending, but we will spoil the topic of today's podcast!  Gary discusses the challenges of presenting board game recaps in a compelling, edited format. The format of his series inspired our own first foray into board games on Little Wars TV--our popular Shogun episode. So join us for a fantastic discussion about board games, YouTube, and how to keep viewers hooked! Our thanks again to Gary for joining us. Check out his channel, subscribe, and go get addicted to his Axis & Allies World Championship Series.

For our club-versus-club Thermopylae wargame against Mark's Game Room, we used Men of Bronze as the rules for our land battle. Today, the author joins Little Wars FM for an in-depth discussion. Eric Farrington is the author of multiple game systems and he talks to Greg about his past and future projects. Eric also reflects on working with Osprey Games as a publisher and how their development process works. You can follow Eric's wargaming hobby updates on his blog, Blood & Spectacles, where he is extremely active. As a reminder, you can also visit us at Little Wars TV for access to our modified quick reference sheet for Men of Bronze, where we adapted the original rules for mass battle combat. You can find that PDF on our "Free Stuff" page under the Thermopylae episode notes. Our thanks to Eric Farrington for coming on the podcast to talk about his wargame design process!

Greg talks to author and game designer Mark Backhouse about a 2013 article written in WSS Magazine called "Hail Agrippa." That article is freely available here, from WSS. A decade ago, Mark turned to Warlord Games' "Hail Caesar" rules when seeking out a mass battle, ancient naval system. With a few modifications, he turned the popular land-battle system into a trireme-smashing, quinquereme good time! In this interview, Mark talks about how he modified an existing game and what philosophy he brings to projects like this. He also discusses his own rule development and what he's working on next! Mark is very active posting wargaming content to social media and is also a prolific author in Wargames, Soldiers, & Strategy. You can find more "Hail Agrippa" coverage in the latest summer issue of the magazine, where Mark & Greg co-authored a 6-part ancient naval campaign for the Philippi Campaign.  We hope you enjoy Episode #51 of Little Wars FM! And if you missed our Actium wargame on YouTube, be sure to visit Little Wars TV and watch the tabletop game. Did Antony and Cleopatra rewrite history? You'll find out!

Little Wars FM officially turns 50! Our Patreon fans voted on the topic for our 50th podcast, and here it is. Miles and Ed chat with the International Kriegsspiel Society about all things Kriegsspiel. They'll go into the origins of the game, which was first released in 1824 by a Prussian staff officer, and track the evolution of the rules since the 1800s. Today, members of the society run Kriegsspiel events online. This enables players from around the world to join, as well as providing modern tools for fog of war and limited communication. If you want to see a short recap of an event that Miles and Ed both played, there's a YouTube AAR available. The IKS YouTube channel also has much longer videos, like this complete playthrough of Perryville (it's well over 2 hours long). We've talked about the possibility of filming a Kriegsspiel for the channel one day. Is that something you'd find interesting? There are no miniatures or gorgeous 3D terrain...it's just maps and blocks! But the fog of war element makes these events exciting every time. Have you played in a Kriegsspiel-style game in person or online? And are you interested in joining one of the IKS events sometime? If so, we'll leave a link to those fine folks right here! We hope you enjoy episode #50 of Little Wars FM!

Plenty of miniature games for air combat exist--Check Your Six and Wings of Glory are played in our club--but they do have their limitations. Something both of those rule sets share in common (along with most others) is that they are dogfighting games. As a player, you control a plane. Maybe two or three at most. You're in the cockpit trying to out-turn, out-dive, and out-maneuver your opponents in the sky.  Today, we're joined by Mark and Carl of Mark's Game Room to talk about a new air combat miniature game with a very different spin. Their new game, Fire in the Sky, doesn't have a few planes zipping around--it features dozens of fighters flying as entire squadrons. This is a much higher level scope than your typical miniature game. Greg sits down with Mark and Carl to discuss air combat on the tabletop and some of the innate challenges of gaming dynamic dogfights in miniature. We hope you enjoy the discussion about all things air combat! There's even a bit of chatter about the new Masters of the Air series on Apple Plus. What do each of these guys think of the series? Stick around and find out.

Today on Little Wars FM, we interview a legendary American game designer, Frank Chadwick. Frank's wargaming roots go back decades and include major titles like Volley & Bayonet and Command Decision. He remains very active developing new games, including an operational World War 2 game he's finishing now. Greg talks to Frank about that new project, his design philosophy, and how he writes wargames. Specifically, there is a focus on Volley & Bayonet, which we used for tabletop battle resolution in our 1813 campaign.   Visit Little Wars TV on YouTube to watch our 3-part Napoleonic campaign and see Volley & Bayonet in action! Frank Chadwick and Greg Novak originally released this classic big battle system in 1994. Our club plays Volley & Bayonet for multiple horse and musket conflicts, including Napoleonics and the American Civil War. You can learn more about the game and find free downloads on the official blog: https://volleyandbayonet.wordpress.com/introduction/