Welcome to Red Sash Games

Red Sash Games is a desktop design and publishing group dedicated to producing quality board wargames. Our focus is on European and European-style wars, from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries.

We are a cooperative venture. The collaborators include Ian Weir, Tom Klubi, Roger Clewley, & Michael Junkin. Tom works in academia, Roger with the provincial government. Michael is a software developer, and Ian (yours truly) fancies he is a businessman. Between us we have something like 120 years experience in the hobby. (In fairness to Michael, he did not design this website, I did, and bear sole blame for any difficulties you might experience navigating it.)

Products

Here is our current line of products. All prices in USD. Access to the Order Page can be found in the left sidebar. Quantities listed are for boxed copies. Important: current pre-order prices terminate as of 01 January '08; these prices return for all games for a limited period each time we release a new title. See the section on Reprints, below.

§ Counter paks consist of a set of die cut counters for the listed game, plus a box. They are primarily for those who already have DTP copies of the games and wish to upgrade.

*DTP = Desk-Top Published

In other words, the material is run off a home computer and you are required to assemble the game yourself. Most importantly, the counters are not mounted or die cut. Red Sash Games began as a DTP company, and we are still producing games that way. 'DTP' versions of the games are always available; we print them on demand. In our case, when you buy a DTP game, we do most of the production, sending you printed copies of the text, charts, and maps. You should purchase one or more binders to hold the rules, and you will need to buy or obtain cardboard or blank countersheets for affixing the counters.

The playing pieces are printed onto 8.5 x11 label stock, making it easier for you to mount. We recommend 1-ply newsboard as being relatively easy to cut and about the same thickness as die cut countersheets. Or ask for 24- or 36-point stock. 'Real' counter sheets are either 40- or 48- point, but you may find that thickness hard to cut. You can find an excellent resource on this topic HERE.

However, we now carry a (limited) stock of die cut counters. While available, you can purchase boxed copies of our games complete with die cut counter sheets! As you can see from the list, adding die cut counters boosts the price considerably. At a little under $4 a sheet, the production costs are actually very reasonable, but the games contain a large number of counters - usually 1000 or more!

The components are produced by what is known as digital printing (i.e. much the same as your own printer), which permits small print runs, but this process is still quite expensive. The standard method in the industry is offset printing, but to make this cost effective you need huge print runs, otherwise it is prohibitively expensive (to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars). The solution to this dilemma is, of course, to Tell Your Friends and thus force us to produce larger quantities!

Reprints

When a title is sold out, the DTP versions remain available. Reprints involve the production of new die cut counter sheets, so we need a certain number of orders before we can proceed. You can see the count on the sidebar to the left. In order to request an item that has sold out, just email or write to us as for a regular order. DO NOT PAY IN ADVANCE. We will keep a log of your requests, and if an out of stock product is to be reprinted, we will contact everyone for payment at that time. The time required for a reprint, once authorized, may vary, but expect between 3-8 weeks for the print shop to do their stuff, depending on how busy they are.

Meanwhile, you can always try the online retailers listed in the Links section below.

Links