Martinstatt 1744 (POD, Standard Color)

A completely imaginary campaign, set in an imaginary world, fought by two imaginary countries over the territory of a third...

Sounds crazy? But not for wargamers, who have been undertaking such hobby projects for decades. Some players prefer the outright fantasy of pseudo-medieval worlds such as those described by J R R Tolkien, or made famous by games such as Warhammer or Dungeons and Dragons. But others, coming from the historical side of the hobby, have been well served by what is known as 'Ruritanian' literature such as the Prisoner of Zenda, where the action plays out in a world that looks suspiciously like our own, but with a few kinks.

It is in this genre that Henry Hyde has become well-known in the wargaming world, picking up the threads of such greats in the early hobby such as Charles Grant and Brigadier Peter Young, who fought countless battles and campaigns set in their own fictitious settings as, indeed, did wargaming pioneer H G Wells. Nowadays, wargamers have coined the term "imagi-nations" for such forays into not-quite-history, and hundreds of gamers around the world now collect armies that bear a suspicious resemblance to those of Prussia, Austria, France, Britain or the patchwork of Germanic micro-states during the eighteenth century and play games ranging from small skirmishes to huge, pitched battles and manoeuvre their armies across maps that are entirely made up by the players.

It is in this context that Martinstaat 1744 is firmly rooted. Back in the early 1990s, Henry and his chum Guy Hancock, both history graduates, leading the imaginary armies of Prunkland and Faltenland, pitched their wits against one another in a classic horse-and-musket era campaign, invading the territory of neutral Martinstaat in an attempt to outflank each other's northern border and grab natural resources and taxes to swell their own state coffers. This was part of what became known as The Wars of the Faltenian Succession.

This scenario, in itself, is not unique in wargaming—but what set this campaign apart was Henry's meticulous record-keeping in the pre-digital era, with page after page of beautiful, neat, handwritten notes and maps showing move-by-move precisely where the opposing forces were located. It was after posting a few pages of these notes online that a clamour grew amongst fans for him to turn these intricate records into a book—and here it is, including the full campaign rules used for that season.