I'd been eagerly awaiting this book for quite a while and when I finally got it I was immediately
impressed. So impressed I almost published a review:
Buy this book!
But it is not my way to publish reviews without actually inspecting the product in question. So I grabbed the weighty volume and started reading it, cover to cover. After finally finishing it here is my review:
Buy this book!
While you are waiting for the delivery from your favorite bookstore, you may want to whet your appetite with the rest of this review.
First Impressions
Henry Hyde's long awaited tome Wargaming Compendium is an impressive package. It is an attractive hardcover, full color book clocking in at roughly 500 pages and 3 pounds. Yes, three pounds. While not quite the wrist-breaking monster some other volumes are, it is a considerably hefty publication.
The book is lavishly illustrated with color photographs of the hobby and hobbyists plus a few diagrams. The quality of the photographs is very high throughout the entire book, though this is not an artbook. There are no two page photo spreads, the main thrust of this book is in the text and the illustrations are in a supporting role. While you could leave on the coffee table for quick browsing, full enjoyment requires a comfortable chair, your favorite hot beverage, some non-staining snacks and most importantly time without disturbances or distractions.
In Use
The book is divided into sections and there's even a handy color-coding on the side of the pages
to ease locating the desired section. Even so, I think you will most enjoy the book simply
reading it cover to cover. Unlike many books these days, this one is written for a complete beginner.
Everything is explained from the ground up in great detail.
One might suspect that this is not an interesting approach for us grognards with perhaps decades of experience playing with little men. This is not true in the slightest. The book maintains an interesting narrative through every section. Even though some details may be familiar to the experienced player, the author's personal touch still makes it very intriguing to follow.
After a general introduction a very good history of the hobby and especially early publications follows. I found this section extremely interesting and it plays well to the author's strengths as a long-standing hobbyist and collector. As many of these publications are now available as reprints, I will acquire at least a few for my collection.
As the whole book is organized to ease new players into the hobby, the next sections deal with the necessities of gaming: selecting your era, collecting figures, painting them and getting the terrain to fight over. Different figure options are explored and costs analyzed without fixating on single manufacturers. The author seems to have a soft spot for the old style soft plastic figures which I'm personally not too fond of, but tastes vary. The painting section advise won't win any Golden Demons, but it will get a newcomer started and I personally find the emphasis on getting stuff painted and on the table much better than the all too prevalent dichotomy of "if you can't paint display quality, you should not paint at all."
With your figures and terrain in hand, different scales of gaming are considered. And I mean scales
of gaming, not figures. Starting with duels, a simple gladitorial rules set is presented. Moving
onto skirmishes, a wild west shootout ruleset follows. These are simple but quite usable rules not
dissimilar to ones you might find published in a wargaming magazine if wargaming magazines still
published rules (some still do, but it seems to be a dying trend). With these rules and a handful of
figures the basics of gaming can be explored without huge investments of time or money.
Moving onto bigger battles, the author's horse and musket rules are presented. These take about hundred pages from the book, but much of that is actually general description of the troop types and tactics of the era instead of dry rules. As I'm only passingly familiar with this era, I found the background section most interesting. The rules themselves appear quite workable too and include a complete playthrough for a smallish battle, so you can see the rules in action. I wish more rulebooks did this, if not in print than at least as supporting material on their website.
Following the ruleset there is some space given to other types of gaming, including not only naval, aerial, fantasy and sci-fi but also solo and multi-player gaming and even a nod to role-playing. This section is perhaps a bit short but still manages to present a useful and interesting overview.
The book closes with an overview and listing of resources like figure manufacturers and periodicals. I frankly thought that would be an uninteresting space filler printing web site addresses for companies I already knew about, but it is actually pretty interesting especially the general resources section contains things you might not have thought about. There's even a very good down to earth section about photographing your figures.
Verdict
The book is an extremely interesting read. My main beef would be the sheer weight of the volume
which makes it somewhat uncomfortable to read while lying down.
There is a definite self-confessed horse and musket bias in the book. Even though this is not really my main interest, I didn't mind. You could argue that this or that era or play style should have received more attention, but at the end of the day everything can't fit into any single book anyway. Perhaps a follow-up volume will deal with WWII gaming or whatever in more detail.
The book is an excellent introduction to the hobby and a veritable treasure trove of information and stories even for experienced hobbyists. The only people I can think of who would find the book lacking are those with very narrow view of the hobby. If you are dead-set locked into a single game system, manufacturer or era and couldn't care less for anything else, you will probably find the book full of "useless" information.
As for anyone else, maybe that was the postman with the package already?
Sucks!
