Bob Jones has been involved in wargaming since 1960 and miniatures gaming since 1965 and has written many popular rulesets: Le Jeu de la Guerre (1972); Rebel Yell! (1990); Piquet (1994); Zouave (2010); Zouave II (2011); Die Fighting (2011); Die Fighting II (2014-multimedia), and he’s presently working on a set of rules for the Horse and Musket era called Poquer. Despite being 79 years old, Bob’s energy clearly isn’t diminishing, and he still runs regular 5k races and mixes a mean Martini!
He spent time with Jack Scruby and Don Feathersone in both the UK and US, and met famous military historians David Chandler and Christopher Duffy on numerous occasions. Well known to several of our American patrons, Bob also hosted dinners with many in the hobby at Historicon in the 90s.
Bob gained his reputation by writing rulesets that, at the time, went very much against the grain of wargaming at the time, introducing what we now recognise as the Clausewitzian ‘friction’ championed by TooFatLardies. Amongst his tales of opera and the best gin to use in Martinis, Bob explains his rules writing process, from initial inspiration through to the effects of playing the games, being brutally honest about those ideas that really worked, and those that didn’t!
So sit back and enjoy my rambling chat with this legend of the US hobby, whose influence has crossed the Atlantic and whose ideas are now recognised as mainstream and reflected in so many modern rulesets.
Henry
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