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The comprehensive guide to board wargaming
The comprehensive guide to board wargaming
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 7, 2012
A few weeks ago, I read the sequel to The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming by the Honorable Nicholas Palmer before he was elected to Parliament. This book was written prior to The Best of Board Wargaming and, while the sequel offered a marvelous update to this book’s catalog of published wargames (a “ludography” if you will) that might make it more useful than this book, they are very different books. The Best of Board Wargaming is about styles of games and helping readers find the styles that are going to be most satisfying for themselves and their friends. The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming offers not only coverage of styles but many more practical examples of tactical and strategic principles for playing games. It also features some very interesting and varied boardgame problems, similar to chess problems in the literature associated with that game. In short, this book is better (though the catalog is more outdated than that of its descendent) for those who want to improve their play and Best is better for helping non-gamers or beginners decide which kind of wargame they would like to try (and, alas, it probably seems more dated than this one as a result).
I really appreciate The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming. Even though the principles, tactics, and strategies are fairly general in most places (except for the game problems) and I have been playing this type of game for decades, I found each chapter to be valuable. In fact, I will probably provide his list of principles for playing Diplomacy in my “Ethics in Games and Cinema” class when I force students to play a Diplomacy-style variant and write about their experiences. Palmer says: 1) Always tell the truth unless you have a good reason not to do so; 2) Establish relations with everyone, not just the players who can be useful allies at once; 3) Decide if you would rather be boring and win or imaginative and have fun while losing; 4) Don’t allow your personal preferences to lead you away from potentially valuable alliances; 5) Consider that the ideal partner is on the opposite side of a valuable target and with, presumably, less advantages than you; 6) Always offer a helping hand to players in difficulty in order to help them reach a respectable second or third place because it will enhance your metagaming reputation; and 7) Don’t bear grudges. (pp. 62-63)
Another excellent summary of principles is about force deployment (pp. 92-93) such that: 1) you should place specialized units in each area where their expertise could be used instead of grouping them together; 2) consider the minimum force of any unit type to be useful and be certain that at least that amount is available in each area; 3) don’t use high movement factors to force premature combat, but use them to maneuver to spots where they will have an advantage; 4) mix high and low combat factors in groups that have similar movement allowances so that you’ll have a variety of choices once you reach the front; 5) count hexes to determine where your different units could actually reach by the end of the game.
Even with its outdated catalog (which, fortunately for me, is still of significant historical interest and useful whenever going to convention auctions or to eBay), The Comprehensive Guide to Wargaming is likely to get more use from me than its sequel. I like them both, but this one is perfect for what I was seeking—interesting game problems and tips from a veteran gamer.
I really appreciate The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming. Even though the principles, tactics, and strategies are fairly general in most places (except for the game problems) and I have been playing this type of game for decades, I found each chapter to be valuable. In fact, I will probably provide his list of principles for playing Diplomacy in my “Ethics in Games and Cinema” class when I force students to play a Diplomacy-style variant and write about their experiences. Palmer says: 1) Always tell the truth unless you have a good reason not to do so; 2) Establish relations with everyone, not just the players who can be useful allies at once; 3) Decide if you would rather be boring and win or imaginative and have fun while losing; 4) Don’t allow your personal preferences to lead you away from potentially valuable alliances; 5) Consider that the ideal partner is on the opposite side of a valuable target and with, presumably, less advantages than you; 6) Always offer a helping hand to players in difficulty in order to help them reach a respectable second or third place because it will enhance your metagaming reputation; and 7) Don’t bear grudges. (pp. 62-63)
Another excellent summary of principles is about force deployment (pp. 92-93) such that: 1) you should place specialized units in each area where their expertise could be used instead of grouping them together; 2) consider the minimum force of any unit type to be useful and be certain that at least that amount is available in each area; 3) don’t use high movement factors to force premature combat, but use them to maneuver to spots where they will have an advantage; 4) mix high and low combat factors in groups that have similar movement allowances so that you’ll have a variety of choices once you reach the front; 5) count hexes to determine where your different units could actually reach by the end of the game.
Even with its outdated catalog (which, fortunately for me, is still of significant historical interest and useful whenever going to convention auctions or to eBay), The Comprehensive Guide to Wargaming is likely to get more use from me than its sequel. I like them both, but this one is perfect for what I was seeking—interesting game problems and tips from a veteran gamer.
January 31, 2025
As old as this book is it's still a pretty sound primer in classic wargaming. We get a capsule history of the origins of military wargames and then a history of how those led the way to the first generation of hobbyist wargames. Palmer is strict about the "board" and the "war" part of his analyses so there are all sorts of games that aren't covered here.
Palmer then walks us through the basic mechanisms of wargames in terms of movement, combat, strategy and tactics. These are all still very useful and the writing is lucid and entertaining enough.
The second half of the book is a survey of most of the games available circa 1977. I will note that there are games like Milton Bradley's American Heritage series from the 1960s that seem to have escaped Palmer's notice or were not deemed worthy of "serious" discussion.
The listing of games as well as Palmer's commentary are definitely preserved in amber here at a moment when hex movement was giving way to more and more games that used other mechanisms like area movement or a whole series of games that were not even map based necessarily. (What would Palmer have made of Republic of Rome as a game?).
But for all of that it is a great survey of those games from that moment in 1977.
Most of the game companies mentioned here are defunct or been subsumed into other companies. Some of the games listed here were reissued within a decade or so by other publishers.
The popularity or unpopularity of the list of games as indicated by 1970s polling data in the book is another interesting point of sociology. And of course some of my favorites here are ones which those serious poll answering gamers hated.
The other hidden gem here is the inclusion in the back of the book of an actual game with playing pieces. Strike Force One is a 4 turn game by SPI with a hypothetical Soviet/American conflict in central Germany designed to acquaint beginners with the basic mechanism of movement and combat in a hex based wargame. It's actually an fun little fox and hounds/capture of the flag game of hurling a few company sized units against each other. And now that game itself is part of Cold War reception history. Worth picking up just to play Strike Force One a few times to keep the mind sharp.
Palmer then walks us through the basic mechanisms of wargames in terms of movement, combat, strategy and tactics. These are all still very useful and the writing is lucid and entertaining enough.
The second half of the book is a survey of most of the games available circa 1977. I will note that there are games like Milton Bradley's American Heritage series from the 1960s that seem to have escaped Palmer's notice or were not deemed worthy of "serious" discussion.
The listing of games as well as Palmer's commentary are definitely preserved in amber here at a moment when hex movement was giving way to more and more games that used other mechanisms like area movement or a whole series of games that were not even map based necessarily. (What would Palmer have made of Republic of Rome as a game?).
But for all of that it is a great survey of those games from that moment in 1977.
Most of the game companies mentioned here are defunct or been subsumed into other companies. Some of the games listed here were reissued within a decade or so by other publishers.
The popularity or unpopularity of the list of games as indicated by 1970s polling data in the book is another interesting point of sociology. And of course some of my favorites here are ones which those serious poll answering gamers hated.
The other hidden gem here is the inclusion in the back of the book of an actual game with playing pieces. Strike Force One is a 4 turn game by SPI with a hypothetical Soviet/American conflict in central Germany designed to acquaint beginners with the basic mechanism of movement and combat in a hex based wargame. It's actually an fun little fox and hounds/capture of the flag game of hurling a few company sized units against each other. And now that game itself is part of Cold War reception history. Worth picking up just to play Strike Force One a few times to keep the mind sharp.
July 13, 2024
An enjoyable romp through the early history of board war gaming. Some of the techniques are commonplace in board games in general, but the details are less precise and simplified. The latter half’s index of titles was also fun to thumb through.
July 31, 2011
Written in 1977 by Nicholas Palmer, the book is notable in not having been published by a major games company but by an independent source. The book is also notable for having a copy of SPI's Strike Force One game, a tactical level giveaway, inserted into the back cover. SPI also has advertising space on the back of the dust jacket.
Written so early in the history of commercial board wargaming, the book gives an interesting snapshot of the state of the hobby. The game references PanzerBlitz several times as being "one of the most frequently played games around." As a self-styled comprehensive guide, the book has several goals, and was aimed at both veteran players and newcomers to the hobby alike. The focus of the book was on gameplay, generally talking about operational and strategic level games, though some mention of tactical games is made. A large section of the book is devoted to a survey of "every professionally produced wargame...available when this book goes to press, plus some scheduled releases in 1977..." The games are not just listed, but also ranked according to two polls, one conducted by SPI, the other by Avalon Hill. The SPI poll comes from issue 57 of Strategy & Tactics and included 202 separate titles, while the Avalon Hill poll came from Volume 13, No. 2 of The General and only covered the 25 existing Avalon Hill wargame titles in print. A snapshot of the state of the hobby, and tactical wargaming's place in the hobby, is thus provided by the book. Some titles are missing, as they include only those known to the other (notably, Third Millenium's PBI is not on the list, for example) and while Alien Space is included, other science fiction titles are not.
The book does not cover miniatures at all, focusing solely on commercial board wargaming. The book is clear in its focus, and does mention that
Miniature games...have a long tradition, and exist in countless versions all over the world, as well as providing the inspiration for some board games. The impetus for them has always been the desire of collectors of military models to have them do something, and a miniatures game basically consists of a set of rules for the use of military models in a game. The rules are fairly generalized and leave a number of questions to be decided by the players. While (board wargaming and miniatures wargaming each) has its adherents who dislike each other, most players enjoy both. The advantage of miniature wargaming is that it can be highly attractive visually...for those who like both modelling and games it provides an ideal meeting point. Board wargames have more in common with other board games like chess. Their great virtue is the tremendous range of subjects which can be covered. A miniatures game covering the whole Soviet-German front in the Second World War would involve a mind-boggling array of pieces and impossible complexity. For a board game, there is nothing easier...
The bulk of the early parts of the book include a history of wargaming and a beginner's guide to what board wargames are and how they work. Most of the discussion applies to operational level games and features associated with them (such as Zones of Control, for example). Chapter 7 on Combined Arms, however, deals with tactical level games, focusing on PanzerBlitz and Nordlingen, a tactical game with a pre-20th Century subject.
Written so early in the history of commercial board wargaming, the book gives an interesting snapshot of the state of the hobby. The game references PanzerBlitz several times as being "one of the most frequently played games around." As a self-styled comprehensive guide, the book has several goals, and was aimed at both veteran players and newcomers to the hobby alike. The focus of the book was on gameplay, generally talking about operational and strategic level games, though some mention of tactical games is made. A large section of the book is devoted to a survey of "every professionally produced wargame...available when this book goes to press, plus some scheduled releases in 1977..." The games are not just listed, but also ranked according to two polls, one conducted by SPI, the other by Avalon Hill. The SPI poll comes from issue 57 of Strategy & Tactics and included 202 separate titles, while the Avalon Hill poll came from Volume 13, No. 2 of The General and only covered the 25 existing Avalon Hill wargame titles in print. A snapshot of the state of the hobby, and tactical wargaming's place in the hobby, is thus provided by the book. Some titles are missing, as they include only those known to the other (notably, Third Millenium's PBI is not on the list, for example) and while Alien Space is included, other science fiction titles are not.
The book does not cover miniatures at all, focusing solely on commercial board wargaming. The book is clear in its focus, and does mention that
Miniature games...have a long tradition, and exist in countless versions all over the world, as well as providing the inspiration for some board games. The impetus for them has always been the desire of collectors of military models to have them do something, and a miniatures game basically consists of a set of rules for the use of military models in a game. The rules are fairly generalized and leave a number of questions to be decided by the players. While (board wargaming and miniatures wargaming each) has its adherents who dislike each other, most players enjoy both. The advantage of miniature wargaming is that it can be highly attractive visually...for those who like both modelling and games it provides an ideal meeting point. Board wargames have more in common with other board games like chess. Their great virtue is the tremendous range of subjects which can be covered. A miniatures game covering the whole Soviet-German front in the Second World War would involve a mind-boggling array of pieces and impossible complexity. For a board game, there is nothing easier...
The bulk of the early parts of the book include a history of wargaming and a beginner's guide to what board wargames are and how they work. Most of the discussion applies to operational level games and features associated with them (such as Zones of Control, for example). Chapter 7 on Combined Arms, however, deals with tactical level games, focusing on PanzerBlitz and Nordlingen, a tactical game with a pre-20th Century subject.
March 25, 2014
Though the title is clearly dated by now (and about six months after it was published), Palmer's book is a rare mildly helpful guide on how to actually play wargames. The first few chapters on strategies and tactics for playing different kinds of wargames is mildly helpful, especially for a beginning players. The problem, though, is the games he offers strategies on are, obviously, long out of print, and while many are fairly readily available through e-commerce sites, are they really the games you are going to want to play? Perhaps, like Third Reich and Winter War, but not all. Additionally, many of his strategies are written in a way that require you have already played or are somewhat familiar with what is being discussed (hence the "mildly" qualification earlier). His general tone can be somewhat confusing, as he at times has a "sense of humor" and at times tries to seriously impress the importance of his discussion, though in a way that implies you should already know what he is talking about - so it's a bit confusing at times, as well. Specifically, his "problems to solve" examples from various games potentially offer helpful homework practice for the kinds of strategies he has just told us about, but since he only abbreviates part of the rules and you don't have the game in front of you, and you've never played it before, it's often asking too much for the beginner wargamer to envision the proper solutions to his examples. Still, it's generally more helpful than the sheer absence of "how to play these games" that appears in most other books of its ilk from the general time period. Naturally, the list of games to get and play are likewise painfully outdated, especially since many of them probably don't exist anywhere anymore other than the basements of otherwise fine human beings who are living off my social security earnings. Some of the games you really want to read about are either glossed over or net yet available, so he has nothing to say on them. He has a bizarre almost dismissive attitude toward Terrible Swift Sword and some quads, yet he praises other games most would say are not that great - such is the danger with opinion-driven realms such as "what makes a great wargame?" I have fortunately already read the first few pages of the sequel The Best of Board Wargaming, which confirms the lack of helpful organization for the reviews in Comprehensive. Still and all, the brief ideas on these games may give you a helpful insight into what games to pursue acquiring (if you are like me) and maybe some games (like the Island War quad) aren't really worth triple digits. It's not really "comprehensive," it's not always a "guide," but it's a decently helpful book for what it is and attempts to be.
June 1, 2009
Dated, being over 30 years old now, but some of the games covered are still around, and some of the content - which deals more with general principles than only with specific games - will always be useful. The reference section composed of reviews of a long list of board wargames is excellent for anyone who collects old games and likes to play them, too.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews