"Which wargaming book got you hooked?" Topic

I have many favourrite wargame books, and well remember buying and reading (and re-reading and re-rereading) several of them. If you had to say that one (or, say, up to 5) had the biggest influence on you which would it be ?

I guess I'd go for Wargame Campaigns (Featherstone), Ancient Wargaming (Barker) and ACW Wargaming (Wise), Wargaming the AWI Handbook (Featherstone) and Operation Warboard (Lyall).

How about you ? I realise a lot of people would wnt to go for :

Didn't have an influencing wargame book ('cos I'm talking about the golden period of 1960-75ish when 1 or more books came out a year.

Some other possibles :

Charge
Practical Wargaming
Wargaming Pike and shot (Wesencraft)
Wargames throught the ages (Vol 1-4)
Battle notes for wargamers
Napoleonic wargaming (Quarrie)
Napoleonic wargaming for fun (griffiths)
Featherstone's complete wargaming
Battle ! Practical Wargaming
Military Modelling guide to Solo Wargaming
Military Modelling guide to Siege Wargaming
Military Modelling guide to Wargaming
Wargaming in history series (MAP)

and quite a few others I guess (The Wargame, Wargames, Advanced Wargames, Sea Battlegames….)

Charge. That was my first. It took me, but it was gentle.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition Hardback. Loved the photographs.

For me it was Operation Warboard, excellent book still, then Featherstones Solo Wargaming, the toolkit of ideas sparked many thoughts, simply because there was no, do it this way.

After that it was Military Modelling (too young for Battle magazine) then WI etc…

The War Game by Grant. I still have it on the book shelf.

Charge, Featherstone's wargame got me interested

Featherstone, 'Wargames' and 'Advanced Wargames'

None.

I was wargaming before I could read -- just wasn't using dice.

mjc

Realm of Chaos, the Lost and the Damned. GW at his finest.
I still read it once in a while, and I'm not into fantasy anymore.

Charge!

Although I did not read it for a couple of years, I just learned the rules from my friends.

Dungeons and Dragons… though I was led to that when a friend said, "It's like playing The Hobbit!" That was enough. Everything else flowed from that.

BattleTech hooked me. Though I later escaped :), I can trace the madness back to that game.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

Not all of us are hoary-bearded old-timers.

"Tackle Model Soldiers This Way", Featherstone:

link

The one where I discovered wargames!

Operation Warboard – discovered it in the school library in the early 80s.

H G Wells Little Wars when I was 12, then Practical Wargaming a couple of years later followed by Quarrie.

Mike

the airfix ww2 wargaming guide,

little hardback,

regards

jim

You forget to mention the old wargaming magazines. For me it was Wargamers Digest by Gene McCoy. After that it was Napoleonic Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie (still have it).

Wargaming and board gaming. Without a doubt the magazine Strategy and Tactics. At the same time I ran across my first Osprey/Hippocrene titles.

In regards to early rules Tricolor, Empire II (only) and WRG 4th and 5th editions.

D&D, back in 1977.

2nd edition 40K, if it has to be one. For historicals I got hooked by reading Frank Miller's 300, not a wargaming book.

Wargames Campaigns by the Don. September 1974, the library, Watford Boys Grammar School. It was love at first sight.

Donald Featherstone War Games, 1968

Back in 1958 it was HG Wells "Little Wars" – soon thereafter I got Morchauser's book & Featherstone's books. Still have them.

Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk, the first Dungeons & Dragons supplement. I picked that up and read it and was hooked. The store owner said he didn'even have the 3 basic books in stock right then so I shouldn't get it, so I didn't.

I was 11 or possibly just turned 12. I was 13 before I got the D&D rulebooks and could get Greyhawk to read in its proper context.

"Discovering Wargaming" Shire Publications,early 70's -used until it almost disintigrated.Still on the shelf.
You're lucky--In those days,my "average dice" was made by gouging the right number of holes in a 6-sided pencil.

Battle! by Charles Grant.

The Wargame – still have my copy since I was a teen

The FIRST one that got me interested was actually "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by Nicholas Palmer.

My First MINI related book was "War Games" by Featherstone.
(I have a signed copy.)

My FAVORITE is "Advanced Wargames" by Featherstone.

"How To Play War Games In Miniature" by Joseph Morschauser (1962).

"None.

I was wargaming before I could read -- just wasn't using dice."

I'm with you, quidveritas. No dice, no rules---just dirtballs (and BB guns later on)!

The cover of Military Modelling magazine which had a 54mm diorama of the Old Guard on it caused me to buy it and inside I realise wargaming existed, and the Airfix Napoleonic Wargaming book by Bruce Quarrie when I started buying miniatures.

D&D got me into gaming , using mini's etc etc . OGRE was my first wargame . 40K first edition cover got me into miniatures , Never looked back . Back then GW was one of the coolest companies .

I was kind of thinking – not rulebooks (like battletech or AD&D – good as these are/were (I read the 1st AD&D books SOOOOOO many times, perhaps I should hve spent more time on school books !), more sort of "book" books (so not magazines either, although the Fantasy special of Battle for wargamers has a lot to answer for too – read this over annd again until it quite literally fell apart)

I spent a week copying out Little Wars from a library copy (I probablyt shouldn't tell too many people that as it sounds a bit sad doesn't it ? I was only 11 and photocopying was prohibitively expensive !)

My dad bought me Featherstone's "Solo Wargaming", in the hopes I'd quit pestering him with my AH games.

The enclosed pictures of miniatures was … not reason to leave the old man alone.

The first booklet, the one that got me hooked would be 'All About War Games' by Jack Scruby. Next book was 'How to Play War Games in Miniature' by Joe Morschauser…

After that the books are a blur – for sure 'Napoleonic Wargaming' by Bruce Quarrie and 'War Games' by Don Featherstone would be in the top five.

A guy I worked with was looking through the Fire and Fury rulebook and I asked what it was all about. I took the book home that night and looked through it and was pretty interested in seeing how it really worked. Went to my first convention a couple of weeks later and was instantly hooked.

Sea Battle Games by, I think, Paul Hague.

Dungeons and Dragons, Practical Wargaming, the Paul Hogue naval wargaming book – name escapes me….

But I was scratchbuilding ships long before any of these came around.

Chain Mail, D&D and AD&D got me started.

True wargaming was in high school in the 70's when someone came in shop class with a copy of S&T magazine. Hooked my on board wargames. Local hobby shop stocked some games from Lou Zocchi – in the back of the rules were ads for D&D and Chainmail and some other miniatures rulebooks. I passed on the miniatures at that time until a dedicated wargame store opened up and stocked D&D plus fantasy figures.

Model Soldiers by Henry Harris (1962) together with a box of Britains – Seaforth Highlanders, charging. On the back of the box were a rules set. Eureka!

HG Wells, "Little Wars", a very pretty reprint with great photos on every page. This would have been back in the 70s. I often wonder what happened to that book.

The Zocchi catalog, circa 1978.

"Discovering Wargaming" Shire Publications,early 70's -used until it almost disintigrated.Still on the shelf.
You're lucky--In those days,my "average dice" was made by gouging the right number of holes in a 6-sided pencil.

Yeah, someone else who remembers that book. As I recall there was a companion volume like "Discovering Rules for Wargames" or some such. Universal rules for every period! How could you go wrong?

Simple – by trying to find averaging dice in the US in the 1970s. I was thrilled when I discovered a pair of them in a hobby shop in London in 1975! Which then sat in a box for 30 or so years, only once again seeing the lighto of day when I started playing Kampfgruppe Commander.

20thmaine: I was kind of thinking – not rulebooks … more sort of "book" books (so not magazines either …

As the original poster, you are within your rights to demand we only answer how you meant. Very well. I retract my post and offer the following instead:

Not me, I wasn't hooked by what you'd call a wargaming book!

FWIW, of those "book" books on your list, I haven't read any. Of those posted above by others which (I'm guessing) still meet your criteria, the only book I've read to date is Little Wars by H.G. Wells, which I read 25 or more years after being hooked by the hobby.

You haven't read the right books?
Well then, you're not a REAL wargamer !

That aught to liven up the discussion…

donrice – that's very generous of you, thanks.

I loved Little Wars – I had the naval cannon 'cos Britain's still made it, but no-one was going to give me a few hundred 50 year old lead figures to ruin with the collector's market starting to boom !

It's funny looking back at the photo's that I used to drool over – paper-mache hills with firesteps carved into them, polystrene foam tiles cut to contours and painted gloss green ! Sounds terrible to modern ears, but I was inspired by them.

Books are not going to get you into miniatures. Only a good set of rules that is accepted by a majority of you friends.

I got many of the books from the UK in the 1970s that have been mentioned here. To me they were less than inspiring. I got into some sets of rules and painting using the fine Osprey line as a guide came next but not before finding a good set of rules.

HOWEVER, since becoming a wargamer, both good movies and good books can inspire me to try a new era. However that is not what the thread question asked. Initial inspiration, rules not books for miniatures. S&T and war board gaming is another issue.

D&D and AD&D for me. Course it all started with plastic army men.