Thursday, July 26, 2012

Pirates and Ninjas and Osprey Books


I recently discovered these Osprey Publishing books when I was looking for reference information on Viking military structures for the Black City game; after I picked up a couple of the smaller books, I learned that Osprey has collected some of them into hardcovers, so I've been looking for those on ebay here and there.  Scourge of the Seas collects their books on pirates, privateers, buccaneers, and pirate ships; Warriors of Medieval Japan collects the sub books samurai, ninja, ashigura, and warrior monks (sohei) into one volume.

Anyone else a big fan of Osprey books for historical military reference?  Which ones have you read?

One element that's worked really well in the Black City campaign so far is the idea of lots of hostile groups of men forming a big part of the threat as the players explore the alien ruins.  It's given me lots of ideas on how similar approaches could work in the context of a pirate D&D campaign, or showdowns between rival samurai groups in an Asian-themed game.  To my mind, I don't know that I've ever seen a large published dungeon for an Asian-themed D&D campaign - the wheels are turning.  The Isle of Dread would be an excellent backbone for a pirate-themed campaign; the island is part of an archipelago, and the DM could expand the campaign to cover the whole island chain.

Anyway, it continues to be a light posting week, while I cook my brain in a data warehousing class and try to catch up with my regular job in the evenings.  Let me know if you have any Osprey recommendations - I'll probably be tracking down some of the books on the Roman military, next.

7 comments:

  1. There are a lot of good ones. The only one i didn't find all that helpful was the Aechamenid Persian book. I really liked the Aztec/Mixtec book and the Ancient Egypt book (Warrior pharaohs, or something like that). There was also a pretty good one on the Parthians (maybe lumped with some neighboring areas/periods), although it turns out there is some hot debate about them.

    The books on siege warfare are nice looking but probably only useful to modellers -- you can get the same or better info in other places.

    I have not looked at the later periods, I'm more into ancients.

    Anything with Angus McBride illustrations is worth a look, although I understand some of the scholarship in the Osprey books is sketchy.

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    1. I was eyeing the Aztec one as well, if I ever do a Spanish Main setting that one (and "Spanish Galleon") would be right up there - plus something on Spanish New World forts. Osprey is deep into everything.

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  2. A friend of mine is running a game set right around the Sack of Magdeburg using the Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play rules. He's been using some stuff from their Thirty Years' War books and seems to like them fairly well.

    You can read about relevant information on his gaming blog.

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    1. Nice link! I like the 17th century setting, I'll definitely keep some tabs on the campaign.

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  3. I'm abig Osprey fan. I have maybe 40-50 of their books--most of the Medieval Japan ones, ancient world, and ones related to the Old West (Native America tribes, scouts, etc.) plus a a smattering of Middle Ages ones.

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  4. I've been doing WW2 military modeling for more than 30 years and I have a huge colletion. Great books.

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  5. I am a fan, and have read all of the Ospreys that the local library system has, and own several as well. I tend to go with ones that are useful for painting/modeling purposes, so I have one about the Pz.Kpfw. IV, and several on various napoleonic units.

    Some are certainly better than others, and many have been superseded by newer research, but they are still interesting little capsule histories.

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