"Lone Warrior review of Hackett's "Fantasy Wargaming" " Topic

New review at the Lone Warrior blog (Official Blog of the Solo Wargamers Association).

As part of the ongoing overview of all the Wargaming Classic Books Paul Le Long takes a look at ‘Fantasy Wargaming: Games With Magic and Monsters'. Which, I was staggered to read, is 22 years old. But it only came out yesterday.

Link : PDF link

Review.

Wish we could edit titles….

Thanks for posting this!

Thanks for linking to this. The section on campaigns sounds particularly interesting so I just went onto Amazon and bought a copy for the princely sum of 1p.

The funny thing that has come up repeatedly in the reviews of "the classic books of wargaming" is that most can be be had for £5.00 GBP – £10.00 GBP second hand off Amazon. Some even cheaper. But alongside the £0.01 GBP plus £2.00 GBP postage copy there will nearly always be a £50.00 GBP – £100.00 GBP + £5.00 GBP postage copy.

Are these people just very optimistic ? Do they ever get a sale ?

For a start its £2.80 GBP standard postage on Amazon, sellers don't choose (unless its fulfilled by Amazon) – okay pedantic bit over.

A lot of the pricing on Amazon is automatic – there are software systems that review and chase prices (usually down – hence many of the 1p books, but also up).

There are also people doing the pricing who have no idea about books – its a warehouse job to them – so they sometimes have a Hail Mary price – throw it high and see what comes down – if people buy great, if not well its just another book sat on a shelf.

These people obviously don't have downward chasing price software activated on these items.

In addition many of these operations don't actually have ANY books on their shelves – they price high and know where to buy low – hence drop shipping – you end up with a book shipped by someone other than the seller you thought you were buying from because the seller never actually saw the book.

So they have no books tying up capital on their shelves they just type (or steal as has often happened with my own) descriptions of books – stick them on with an inflated price. There is no cost of purchase they are standing out of until the sale is made.

I also think many people are suspicious of penny books on Amazon. (sometimes rightly – a real variety of quality can end up being delivered), and go for higher prices – and generally get better quality, packaging, service and reliabiility than some of the 1p sellers.

Some are legacy prices for when books were not easily available and comparable – but since then many have come on the market with the big resellers hoovering them up. The original high price gets left on because the sellers don't review often.

Some of course are just con artists hoping for a sucker.

But most aren't they are just out of touch inept or unlucky.

I've had some good books for 1p plus postage from charity shops. It is clear from the postage labels that they can still make a small profit – which I don't begrudge them one bit – on the standard postage rate. The alternative, as I know from volunteering in a local charirty shop, is that unsold books go off to be pulped, rather than occupy shelf space for months.
Listing a book at 1p ensures it will come at the top of a search by price.

The book arrived today and it is in very good condition. I haven't had chance to do anything more than flick through it but I'd say it is worth what it cost me for the pictures alone.

Thanks again to 20thmaine for pointing out the review.

Pleasure is mine – there's a lot of gold in those wargaming classics.