Weekend Reading: Little Wars
In 1913, H. G. Wells essentially single-handedly invented the modern pastime of miniature wargaming, providing a (tin soldier) battle-tested set of rules which makes for exciting, well-balanced, and unpredictable games that can be played by two or more people in an afternoon and part of an evening. Interestingly, he avoids much of the baggage that burdens contemporary games such as icosahedral dice and indirect fire calculations, and strictly minimises the rôle of chance, using nothing fancier than a coin toss, and that only in rare circumstances.
I have just posted a new public domain Web edition of Little Wars which includes all of the photographs and marginal drawings from the 1913 first edition of the book. Some readers may find the marginal illustrations, which are mostly purely decorative, distracting, while … Continue reading
