Earlier this year one of the early Wargaming Pioneers Charlie Wesencraft passed away at the age of 97.
You can listen to the episode via any major Podcast Host, just search for Yarkshire Gamer, or you can tune in on this link
https://kenrtai.podbean.com/e/episode-77-charlie-wesencraft-a-tribute/
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
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
And of course here's the last episode on the Utubes
Enjoyed that even though Robbie Rodiss could talk the hind legs off a donkey!
ReplyDeleteI met Charlie and played a game against him sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s at the Tyneside Wargames club. Pete Foggin invited him to a huge SYW game and Charlie brought his 25mm C18th figures to add into the mix (the rest were supplied by me and Pete).
He was quite alarmed when we just kept adding more units from his figures and several times said "surely that's enough?"
We had graduated from WRG's 1684-1845 to our own set that I think I'd written - I recall they were fairly simple.
Anyway, I ended up on the left Austrian cavalry wing facing Charlie with Prussians. From memory, the centre was all infantry and the other wing light troops due to the terrain. I don't remember what happened elsewhere due to the size of the game.
Charlie had his dragoons in his front line and cuirassier behind, with each line being having a couple of brigades and commanders in it.
My brigades were mixed cuirassier and dragoon in a column with cuirassier in front and the brigadiers between the lines of units.
My cuirassier swept away his dragoons and caused disruption / disorder to his units behind and it looked like I could exploit this and sweep them away. I'd ordered a unit to swing right and it caught an artillery battery limbered up and routed them.
The rules had a "risk to generals" rule that was something like 9 or 10 on a D10 - I think it increased if you added their bonus to morale and possibly melee. In any case the chance was low.
Charlie proceeded to roll about four or five 10's and killed off the majority of my brigade commanders!
It meant that I couldn't do anything with most of my troops as there was a delay before a replacement took over, so Charlie's troops were saved and recovered their order before I could exploit it....
He was a proper gentleman, complimenting me on the deployment of my brigades. I'm sure he didn't understand the rules but never criticised or said anything.
He was a bit of a terrible name dropper - "my friend Terry - Terry Wise" but a proper gent.
Neil
Talking the hind legs of a donkey is perfect for a Podcast 😁👍
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