Thursday 21 March 2019

Advanced War Games - Donald F Featherstone

Now I have talked about Featherstone before when I posted a mini-review of his original tome, War Games, and I quite liked it. The other week, Andy loaned me the follow up, Advanced War Games and opined that I might find it quite interesting. Ok, I thought, I'll give it a once over. And you know what, he was right.

What 42 shillings would have bought you fifty years ago!
Published in 1969 for the princely sum of 42s(!), Advanced War Games takes war gaming from its introduction and attempts to add greater realism and detail to the average war game. By that, I mean it's ok having basic rules but if you actually want to game military history in all of its minutia (incidentally, Minutia Miniatures would be a good name for a figure production company, though that's probably already been done), then you have to add detail though not, necessarily, too much complexity. It is with that in mind that Featherstone and his contributors have crafted this tome that, to this day, can still bring something to the table, despite being fifty years old.

The first four sections of the book cover the usual suspects, movement, firing, morale and melee. Each expands on new ideas to give greater verisimilitude to the hobby. Variations are suggested, opinions given and overall, these "new" rules deserve a bit of consideration, even today. What is commented upon on several occasions is that knowledge of the period you are gaming is paramount to ensure the rules you are playing with are historically accurate. Remember, this is the gaming of military history to ensure that period accuracy is key. Without knowledge of the period, how do you know what was "real" and what is a games mechanism, and that is something I have touched upon in previous blog posts. Today's market is very different from that of fifty years ago - there are certainly more manufacturers, more periods covered and any number of rule sets, but what seems obvious to me is that the pre-packaged rule set/game and the silo'd mentality of games designers has not been a positive thing. I have heard at shows, and read in magazines and on websites, that the only reason some companies produce rule sets is to sell miniatures. That much is plain when you see the likes of Cruel Seas, Flames of War and Team Yankee. The mentality here is that you have to use the models sold by that company and the rules are sacrosanct. True, Games Workshop have had that outlook for decades, but they are mostly in a field of their own. When someone stopped me at a show and in conversation told me that I was wrong to change Team Yankee's rules because they were perfect at portraying their particular period accurately, well, let's just say I disabused the gentleman appropriately.

Anyhoo, back to Featherstone. The remaining three sections cover Automated War Gaming, solo and multi-player gaming and the composition of armies. Each brings a number of different options to the table and I can't say I disagree with any of the solutions proposed without actually trying them. After all, a bit of experimentation in war gaming never hurt anyone. But possibly the most forward looking of the sections is the Automated war gaming one - this brings into use the computer!

Now just a bit of computer background here. In 1969, Intel was one year old, and wasn't to release its first microprocessor until 1971. UNIX was created that year, and the "Internet" (such as it was - nothing like the modern day Internet but it was the start) connected four American universities. So when Featherstone brings up the use of computing to aid war gaming, it's more a card based system, analogous to anything digital you might be thinking. That is not to say it's a bad idea and to be honest, it is very forward thinking and results in what he describes as a "'computer' which is about the size of a cigarette case" (that also dates this book somewhat). There are even workings out to explain what it all means (and no fancy pictures either...)

What would modern day gamers make of this???
Featherstone knew of what he was talking about and this book demonstrates a willingness to take on and accept ideas from others in the hobby. I am not going to get all sentimental about a "Golden Age" of the hobby; even at my age, the spectacles of reminiscence are most certainly tinted, but the approach here is very different from a lot of commercial gaming today and I think that's something that is a bit of a miss. A worthy read for anyone who games military history.

5 comments:

  1. Now that is interesting. A view from a chap who unlike me did not grow up with this stuff. I can now see us trying out some of the old- new- ideas on the table to see how they fly in practical terms

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  2. Andy - you should - it would be an interesting read for sure to see what the TWATS made of it... I'm an unashamed Featherstone'ite, as a spotty slightly smelly 14 year old 45 years ago I DEVOURED his books and had most of them on almost permanent loan from the library, Wargames, this one, the Campaigns book, and Solo Wargaming (the first one I could afford to actually buy, signed, and still have it) are an absolute must read (in my view).. his approach has coloured my hobby ever since ie. to question/change/modify/"improve"/do yourself/research, was an integral part of the man's ethos... PS It was his birthday earlier this week - if he was still alive he'd have been 102.. RIP, Don..

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    1. Then at some point this year, we shall. What struck me about this book is its place in war gaming history. We are used to thinking now that there is nothing new under the sun, but when this book was published, this was the new thinking under the sun. The contrast with modern day "popular" war gaming is incredibly stark. I'll definitely run a game using some of these mechanisms.

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  3. I also have a copy of Advanced Wargames, but the "wargames computer" described therein is a typical example of making simple things much to complex. In essence it's simply the computation of a weighted sum (or a linear interpolation). One does not need a device using cards for computing something as simple as that :-)

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    1. It depends on what you define as simple. Some people may be less capable at maths than others, and given the nature and aim of this book, the "computer" is just another tool to help the game achieve realism. As one of the other commentators noted above, the approach of Featherstone lends itself to this kind of device and as also noted above, the group will run a game using a fair bit of this book's contents. Whether they fly or not, well, that'll be reported in this blog. Somethings will work, some won't, and some will need a bit of tinkering, but that is in the manner of the author. I look forward to letting you know how we got on. :-)

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