Siege of Bodenburg

Siege of Bodenburg is a wargame developed in 1967 by Henry Bodenstedt and first published as a complete ruleset across five installments in issues six through eleven of Strategy and Tactics magazine that same year. It is regarded as one of the earliest published rule sets for refighting medieval battles with miniature figures rather than with abstract counters or blocks. Play uses forty millimeter Elastolin miniature figures arranged on a six foot by six foot tabletop marked out in a four inch by four inch grid, with combat outcomes resolved through a results table in the style of contemporary board wargames. One player commands the defending garrison, made up of footmen, archers and knights sheltering inside a castle, while the opposing player commands an attacking force of infantry, archers, mounted cavalry, catapults, siege engines and scaling ladders. The attacker's objective is to capture the castle or eliminate the defending knights within fifteen turns, giving the design a clear time-limited siege structure that distinguished it from open-field wargames of the period.