Pages

Monday 28 September 2009

Donald Featherstone's Lost Tales

Just over a year ago the first book I made a blog entry about was the reprint of Donald Featherstone's WARGAMES. Today John Curry sent me a preview copy of the latest book to be published in his HISTORY OF WARGAMING PROJECT – DONALD FEATHERSTONE'S LOST TALES (ISBN 978 1 4092 9431 3).


This book is a compilation of various articles, monographs, and wargames rules that Don has written over the years. Some saw the light of day on the pages of the old WARGAMERS NEWSLETTER, whilst others have been hitherto unknown. The fact that James F Dunnigan has written the foreword indicates the seminal nature of Don’s contribution to wargaming.

The book includes the following sections and chapters:
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • Section 1: Modern Wargaming – How it all Began
  • Section 2: My War – Sergeant Featherstone 7893763
  • Section 3: Wargaming Rules
    • Rules for Ancient Wargames, 300BC – AD500
    • Medieval Rules by Tony Bath
    • God for Harry, England and St. George! Wargames Rules for the Medieval period
    • Rules for the English Civil War
    • Rules for the 1750 period in Europe by Tony Bath
    • Napoleonic Rules
    • American Civil War Rules
    • Rules for the late 19th Century (Including Colonial Wars against Natives)
    • 1917 German South West Africa including Rules for early Tanks, Armoured Cars etc.
    • A simplified set of World War II Rules
  • Section 4: Battle Rules
    • Realistic Rules for Wargaming the Peninsular War
    • Realistic Rules for the Gallic and Punic Wars
  • The Holy Grail of Wargaming
  • Appendix: A Short History of the 51st Battalion Royal Tank Regiment
This is truly a book not to be missed by anyone with an interest in wargaming, particularly ‘Old School Wargaming’, and I thoroughly recommend it.

I don’t have a price for this book, but it should be available soon from John Curry Events, Lulu, Amazon, and Waterstone’s.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the "heads up" - yet another book I MUST have.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mad Carew,

    Having now read quite a chunk of the book this morning - when I should have been doing other things! - I found it very interesting, especially the sections about Don's time in the army. It obviously affected his views on wargaming and wargames design.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bob,
    I used to take the "Wargamers Newsletter" many moons ago, and amassed quite a collection (though I think I must have thrown them all away, which is a pity 'cos I'd love to re-read some of those old mags.). I look forward to renewing my acquaintance with "WN" in Don's new book, and if I find any old copies of "WN" I'll post something about them on my own blog.

    Steve.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steve,

    I also had a load of old Wargamers Newsletters that somehow got 'lost' during a house move many years ago. I miss not being able to read them now that I am older ... and a bit wiser.

    I understand that John Curry has looked at the possibility of producing a book of selected articles from WN, and has been trying to accumulate as complete a collection as is possible with this end in mind.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. Please note that any comments that are spam or contain phishing messages or that come from Google Accounts that are 'Unknown' will be deleted.