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.

Interest or Hobby?

Part of the joys of work is that you interact with people of different ages and this can lead to some interesting conversations. I got talking to a gentleman who is a few years younger than myself who has an interest in videogames. Aha, I thought, this could be enlightening. It was, but not necessarily in a good way. You see, whilst he has fifteen years of console and PC gaming to his name, he has very little awareness of the history of his chosen hobby and, more importantly, no interest at all in expanding his knowledge. His is a transitory hobby, whatever new thing is in front of him is either great or shit. There are no levels in between these two extremes, just a binary yay or nay. So me being me, I raised this question: "Is this a hobby or an interest that you have?"

Now we each have our own approach to our hobbies. Indeed, how we approach a hobby defines that hobby's appeal to us (so the history and design of console hardware is of particular interest to me as an off-shoot to actually gaming itself). In the case of this younger gentleman, his was almost proud announcement that he knew nothing of gaming before he started playing back in the early 2000's and had no interest in what had happened before then, even to the point of not playing games that were released on his first console before he started gaming. I wasn't particularly surprised but it was quite saddening to hear.

The gentleman's first console was the Sony Playstation 2. A fine piece of hardware that hosted some of the best games of its generation, but my colleague expressed a narrow minded view that other console hardware released around that time (the sublime Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo's under-appreciated GameCube and the ground breaking original Microsoft X-Box) didn't matter because the PS2 won the sales war and as the other three lost, they didn't matter. As he wanted the best (in popularity at least), all other alternatives were discarded. Once the PS2 was replaced by the PS3, the older hardware was discarded and the games collection sold on. They were now old and of no further use. The latest was now, in his mind, the greatest.

A classic of its time.

Horses for courses I suppose, but then I have always been a collector (or hoarder as my better half would have it). Since the last house move, I have sold on most of my collection due to space issues but I did keep a few titles that have never been replicated since their original release. For example, Sky Odyssey for the PS2. The aim of the game is to pilot your aircraft successfully from A to B, encountering various obstacles and challenges along the way. There is no shooting, no whizz bang explosions, just pure flying. This title was in some way a slightly more realistic spiritual successor to the "Pilotwings" series that had releases on the Nintendo SNES (1990), the Nintendo 64 (1996) consoles. That such titles are few and far between demonstrates their sheer niche appeal and since then, only the lightweight Pilotwings Resort, released for the Nintendo 3DS (2011) has offered anything similar in the flying genre. I know Pilotwings Resort is lightweight by the fact that I have played both of its predecessors. Sky Odyssey, by the way, is still a great experience today and well worth a try if you can pick up a copy and have the hardware to play it on.

But what really made me think was how shallow my young colleagues approach to his hobby was. I struggled to bring together the two ideas of loving a hobby but having no knowledge or interest in anything outside of your own sphere of experience. In fact, he wouldn't countenance any move to expand that knowledge - it's old and therefore it's shit. That attitude, it must be said, is not just limited to videogames. Wargaming also has a similar issue.

Now, to be fair, I am not going to be tarring everybody with this brush, but lack of knowledge seems to be a badge of pride, and not just for the younger generation. Without a depth of knowledge in your hobby, how do you put what is current market offering into perspective? How can you judge any perceived improvements when you have no background on the subject you are purported to enjoy? That was evident when, at a show a couple of years back, one guy wanted fighting camels for his forces. When told they weren't used for that during the period he was fighting, he replied "It doesn't matter, you can still put them on the table." Historical wargaming indeed!

Back to my colleague. As gaming to him doesn't exist prior to 2002, he has never, and proudly claims will never, play classics like Command and Conquer, any LucasArts point and click adventure, Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Resident Evil, Half Life and countless other titles because they don't matter. Yet without those titles, we wouldn't have the games we have today. True, time has not been kind to most of these, but some have aged well and to miss out on those today, if you are a gamer, is a crying shame.

From a wargaming perspective, I'll use Team Yankee. I like them for what they are (and the chance to tinker with them at will adds some of the depth that a hobby needs), but subjectively, how different is the core mechanism from Operation Warboard? Or Featherstone's rules? Not much, but because TY has shiny hard-backed rule sets with lots of pictures, they are perceived by quite a few gamers as better - and that is a conversation I had at the Durham show this year where I ran a demo game. It also revealed that most of the people who asked questions about my amendments (which were based on my reading of texts both modern and contemporaneous) had taken what was offered in the rule sets as sufficient knowledge of the period - further reading was something that seemed like an anathema to them. Woe betide anyone (i.e. me) to use actual knowledge to dis-abuse them of their ignorance. Hey ho.

Take your pick...

Personally, I don't follow the "newer is better" mindset - after all, I am typing this on an 18-year old Alphasmart 3000. Yes, there are new niche text entry products (looking at you, Astrohaus) but I'm not willing to spend a few hundred quid on something when a more convenient (and cheaper) option exists. The same can be said for wargames rules - our recent attempts at playing Charge (I picked up a re-print at Salute this year for my own perusal after the first kicking I received) and other older rule sets have been interesting. They don't have lots of pictures or specialised kit, but they do the job and (this is important) they follow the historical period they model. Certainly compared to some more modern rules (Black Powder, Pikeman's Lament and others), the older set's adherence to history is refreshing, possibly demonstrating how far the modern wargaming market has lost its way from historical knowledge and focuses on rolling lots and lots of dice.

It does make me wonder if we are moving to a point where the history and context of any particular hobby no longer matters to the individuals partaking in that hobby. Whilst people may demonstrate a breadth of knowledge, there is so little depth that the individual misses out on the richness that makes a hobby enjoyable. Without that depth, could the hobby be classed as such at all? Is it not just then a passing interest? Also, without context, how do you judge whether the latest rule set/game/whatever is an improvement on what came before or just a money making enterprise by the creator and will it enrich your enjoyment of your hobby? As far as hobbies go, surely this is a bad thing? 

A Trio of Tomes

After the recent posts on Operation Warboard and how it plays, Andy very kindly loaned me three other books that he thought I might like to read. Knowing that this would lead to at least one blog post, I gladly accepted them and, without any comment on quality just yet, managed to rattle through them all over the course of a couple of days.

The three books then, are War Games by Donald F Featherstone, Wargaming World War Two by Stuart Asquith and Armoured Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie.

Aged by use, but still in decent enough condition.

I remember when £6.95 was expensive for a book...

So, first up, War Games. This is the oldest of the three and in both presentation and style, you can tell straight away that it is very much a period piece. That is not to say that it isn't useful, but given that it was first published in 1962 (this edition in 1973, with additional printings in '65, '67, '68, '70 and '72), some modern readers might be put off by the tone. I'll sum it up for you: It's your hobby, you enjoy it, make stuff up as you go along. And yes, that includes the figures!

I had some preconceptions of the contents of this book before I started reading it but what really caught me off guard was the guide to making your own moulds and, as follows, your own figures. At no point does he suggest making a copy of figures you have bought (that would be extremely dodgy), but he does suggest that if you alter existing figures to a type that aren't easily available (which seems to be very much a thing in those early days), you can then use that to cast your own. To a point, that makes sense, but not something that you would think would be suitable today. However, although the market for figures is now huge compared to the options available back in the 1960's, it did make me think about where a particular section of the figurine market is heading - namely the limited run skirmish type games, where at shows, you'll find figures breaking through the £5-6 per figure barrier with ease. Given the relative cheapness of 3D printers (or just go old school and use traditional moulds), how long will some companies survive charging such prices for models before an albeit limited section of the customer base decide "sod this for a game of soldiers" and go back to DIY methods. I am not saying that traditional manufacturing companies will go too, quantity, quality and scale of production will always mean that there will be the likes of Old Glory, Perry etc. But it did get me wondering if many, nay any, of the smaller boutique manufacturers have long term viability on a price basis alone. Then again, if the market decides that it can't be arsed and will pay the prices asked anyway, they have no cause for complaint.

Anyhoo, back to the book. It's has that grandfatherly tone that writers loved in the period, a cross between intellectual and condescending as hell, a balance Featherstone manages to keep just on the right side of easy to read. Once you get past the sections on figures, terrain and how to run a campaign, there are the meatier sections for rules - three sections covering Ancient, Horse and Musket and "Modern" (WW2) scenarios. They read quite well and I think that the TWATS could certainly get through two of the periods on a Saturday afternoon game. True, these are not the most complicated of rules but as this book is an introduction to war gaming in general, I have no issues with that. The appendices cover suppliers of model soldiers, a very small skirmish set of rules, further resources for war gamers, a list of books and literature for war gamers and a final section on the Lionel Tarr Periscope. Seems we can't get away from that particular gentleman's name in this period of the hobby...

Overall then, a worthwhile book and one that, despite it's dated approach, gives another variant of the back to basics gaming that I think the hobby needs to include in this day and age.

Something that can also be said of Wargaming World War Two, focused as it is on one period only. The layout is interesting, in that it begins with a chronological walk through of the war by theatre, at a suitably high level for space considerations but enough to give you pointers for campaigns, battles and events that you might wish to war game. Following that is a meaty section on the combatants, with specific details on force composition and organisation. We then get a technical information section on the equipment used by each participant. That takes you to page 114 before we get to the rules and scenarios. These are, once again, quite straight forward and could be worth a bash for an afternoon game. From page 138, we have a list of suppliers of figures and models, which brought back childhood memories of model shop visits as this book was published around that time when I first took historical wargaming seriously (1989). There is also a decent list of books given for additional reading which was nice to see.

Page 143 begins the naval side of wargaming, a much smaller section than the land based part but still with enough detail to get you started. Ending at page 165, there are some decent rules, a couple of scenarios and a smattering of suppliers listed for your model needs as well as another list of useful books.

Pages 167 to 190 finish the book with the air war, with the same organisation of the previous two sections, and again, whilst a little basic, give enough to get you started. And that is what this book is, in no way pretending to be the be-all and end-all for the period, just a way to get you started. In that sense, it is spiritually very close to the earlier Featherstone text and, indeed, Operation Warboard. After giving what they have suggested a go, it is then up to you to make of the hobby what you will. One thing of note is that the 16 years between the Featherstone and Asquith publications saw a vast expansion of model suppliers, most of which seem to have originated during the "golden" period of the mid to late 1970's.

Finally, we have Armoured Wargaimng and this turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. You see, what it advertises is armoured wargaimng. What you get is a (basic) history of the tank, its uses and a smattering of light technical details. That takes you up to page 113. The rules, they are 12 pages of text, followed by another 9 pages of stats. That's it, almost like the rules were an afterthought. Now I am not saying they won't be played, but looking at the values given in the stats, for example, you cannot kill a modern day 1980's MBT at all with a frontal shot. Never, not gonna happen. Hmmm... Still, they would be worth a go just to see if the mechanisms work but I will also add that the rules are for armoured warfare only - no infantry, no additional support per se.

Of the three, Featherstone and Asquith are most likely to get an airing in future games, whilst Quarrie will probably be given a miss, there being a distinct lack of content and finesse.

Thank you, Andy for the loan of these books, they have all been an interesting read, despite the aforementioned disappointments. It's always good to read up on how the hobby was perceived in the past and it does give an interesting comparison to the state of it today. Oh, and that you needed libraries. All three details texts that were out of print and recommended that you order through your local library. As quaint as that seems now in this day of Amazon, Abe and others, libraries did, and still do have a purpose, despite the disdain they seem to be held with by our elected elders and betters (cough!).