The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming

by Nicholas Palmer

The comprehensive guide to board wargaming This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882544306
• ISBN13: 9780882544304
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Handy guide to older wargames

Some wargames never die, or age. They may be reprinted. They may turn up used on a yard sale or internet sale. There is still a strong market for these games. This book is an excellent guide for such older games. The caveat is that this book came out in the late seventies (my copy is dated 1979). The seventies and eighties were the heyday of board wargames. But many of these games have continued to be a thinking person's favorite, such as the game Diplomacy. Palmer does a great job of assuming the reader has never seen a wargame before, and explains the different game concepts that the different games may have. He gives a brief history of wargaming. He also shows examples with photo illustrations. He explains zone of control, combined arms, supply issues and the need for reserves. He covers terrain effects and how it can help ones strategy. He writes about air and naval power at how it may be part of the games. And he talks about the differences in the various games. He also has a sample play of several games such as the still published Diplomacy and no longer published but still sought after Nordlingen. A later chapter he has a review of the more popular wargames that were published up to that time. This is a good resource if you see a game that you may have been interested in and you wonder if it would be worth picking up. I would recommend this book to a starting wargamer, someone who is interested in going beyond the simple Axis and Allies and wants to explore the untapped goldmine of very good strategy and tactical boardgames that were produced in the heyday of the old Avalon Hill Game Company, Simulation Publications, Inc, and Game Designers' Workshop.