Complete Wargaming

May 12, 2014 12:42

Complete Wargaming Donald Featherstone's Complete Wargaming is a book on wargaming in the vein of old classics that were the introduction to the hobby before high profile commercial games entered the market.

The book itself is not that old, though. It was originally published in the late 80's. I could have bought it when it was new had I come across it back then. The book I bought now is the revised edition from the History of Wargaming project.

First Impressions

The book is a softback with 265 pages. It is mostly text, there is no interior color and illustrations are relatively few. There are a number of black and white photos, but unfortunately their quality leaves a lot to be desired. There are some line art diagrams, mostly scenario maps, which are clear and functional quality.

It's not a coffee table book.

In Use

The books is really a collection of articles that are not directly connected to each other. The book starts with a number of general gaming chapters and then moves on to chapters on specific periods, organized in chronological order.

The articles are a mixed lot. They vary from general musings on gaming to period background and specific scenarios. Some rules are presented, one could even be called a complete light game. They are mostly interesting, though the period primers don't really have any new information and the one on colonial warfare could have benefited from slightly more modern research...

One of the more interesting things about this book is what is not mentioned. There is basically no mention of any commercially published ruleset. Mr. Featherstone is clearly an advocate of homebrew rules. There's also very little mention of the actual models and when they are mentioned, it's invariably in the vein of where to get them cheap and how to get them on the table fast with minimum cost and effort. For a book about games with toy soldiers there is very little actually about toy soldiers in it. The presented light game (assault on Eben Emael) could be played entirely abstractly with just a deck of cards, some paper and dice.

However, board wargames are not really mentioned either.

This is also a book strictly about historical wargaming. There is no mention of fantasy or science fiction gaming.

Verdict

I do think the book is a fun read and it does shed light on the history of the hobby. I plan to buy the other reprints and delve into the earlier works.

However, I must say its use to an established modern wargamer, especially of the mono-game, tournament-oriented kind, is rather limited. Likewise, there is really nothing to a painter or a modeller here.

Would someone running across this book be lured into the hobby? Perhaps, but I think a Flames of War starter set or similar has much better chance of doing that.

maxxon


Sucks! (0) Sucks by 0 votes Rocks by 1 votes (1) Rocks!

Home | News | Photo | Armies | Articles | Inventory | Rules | Diary | Blog | Reviews | Projects | Videos | Comics | Links | My Account | Feedback | Login | Help

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Copyright 2003-2021 Mikko Kurki-Suonio