Much has been written about adventure game writers that you can use to generate your own graphic adventures. Now, at last, wargamers have their own very own battlefield builder program. It can create one or two player games that feature anything from the Romans to Rommel.

The Wargame Construction Set comes on two disks with a manual which contains eight ready-to-play sample scenarios and a fully worked example to show you how to construct a wargame. The sample scenarios also allow you to play a game without even loading up the game editor. These sample games - and, of course, the ones you build yourself, follow the standard wargame format in which you and the enemy take it in turn to move and fire. The action takes place on a map. The relative gains and losses are converted into victory points at the end of each turn so you have an at-a-glance guide to who's winning the war.

Whether your bet battle is a historical simulation, a fantasy or science fiction stuggle you won't have any difficulty using the game editor to either change one of the existing scenarios or to build one from scratch. If you are starting from scratch then don't rush straight to the keyboard, you've got a bit of paperwork to do first. You need first to decide the strengths of the opposing forces and the format of the game.

You do this by assigning values to the eight factors that define a unit - you can build up an army of 31 units. These factors include firepower, defence, movement, assault, hand-to-hand combat, strength, the number of hits a unit can take, range of weapons, fire and unit type. You can also impose restrictions, for instance, tanks can't enter heavy woods or water.

Next you decide the scale of your battle. This determines whether each unit represents a single man, a platoon or an army! For example, if you define a unit as having high firepower, defence and range but no movement this could be, say, a gun emplacement or, perhaps, a wizard protected by a tower. A similar unit with movement could be a tank, rock-throwing giant or laser-firing starcruiser. The choice is yours.

Now you enter all this information into the computer with the help of simple joystick controlled menus that also allow you to alter colours to load and save scenarios from disk.

Drawing the map is crucial to the development of the game as terrain can have a dramatic effect on a battle. Map drawing is also joystick controlled. There are various construction blocks at the bottom of the screen which when selected can be painted onto the scrolling map by a simple press of the fire button. The program includes ten different bends and straights for roads, ten river sections, top, left, right, bottom and middle sections of woods as well as buildings, mines, bridges, hill tops, slopes and individual trees. Different terrains can be any colour so your trees, for instance, could be Martian red. The results of your labour can be saved onto disk for playing or improving on later.

Naturally, being a construction set, the program has its limitations but I think most people will find that two 31 unit armies fighting over a scrolling 60 by 60 square map enough. Now then, you've got no excuse not to try a wargame because, if you can't find one you like, you can build your own!