Saturday, December 26, 2020

Influential Books

    Herein I am following a theme started by a blog post by Nundanket on his Horse and Musket Gaming blog  about 2 weeks ago, in which he cited two or three books that have been the most influential on his wargaming life. Since then, several of the blogs that I follow have picked up this theme, and I have found each and every post in this regard most interesting. This prompted me to add my own offering to the theme, which follows forthwith! 

   For as long as I can remember, I have loved books, and was a voracious reader. Similarly, I have always loved games and been fascinated by history. Unlike many others, I was never much interested in either modeling or playing with toy soldiers... until an act of serendipity! As I have related previously in my series of posts, "Of Dice and (Tin) Men", which starts here, I was browsing the stacks at our well stocked Public Library, a very frequent pastime of mine as a boy, when I came upon the book that changed my life, at least in the wargaming sense. I was an avid chess player as a boy, and was looking for books about chess strategy, when I chanced upon the tome below:


The Library copy was of course in pristine shape. I was thrilled acquire this copy form the library of a family freind, Dr. Edward Schortmann, years later. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, it has been well loved! 


    This book, published in 1962 and read by me circa 1966, revealed the world of miniature wargaming, of which I had previously been completely unaware. In simple but exciting prose, Mr. Morchauser set forth the background of wargames, their key principles, the types and kinds of miniature figures then available, and how to obtain them, and three closely related sets of rules for what he termed the Shock Period (antiquity up to about 1700), The Horse and Musket Period (1700 - 1914), and the Modern Period (World War 1 and beyond). I was hooked from the first pages, and have never looked back since then! 

    It turns out that Joe was the editor of LOOK magazine, a major US magazine published in large format that used striking pictures to covey much of its stories. Its coverage of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War was particularly influential. He even managed to get an article published in LOOK about Wargaming in 1960There are a number of articles by and about Joe on the Tabletop Talk site (TT was the title of one of Jack Scruby's several wargames publications). Joe attended Bard college in Dutchess County, NY, and settled in Puoghkeepsie,NY; both of which are within an hour or so's drive from both where I grew up and where I have worked the past 36 years. While at Bard College, Joe was exposed to Professor Gerard de Gre, another of the "Old Guard" of  Historical Miniature Wargaming, and that ingirted his interest in the hobby. It turns out that Gerry became the regular wargames opponent of Charlie Sweet, who I was privileged to meet at the end of 1973, courtesy of my (then new) wargames freind, Joe Fish. There is more about Charlie in the "Of Dice and (Tin) Men" series, and an upcoming blog post. 

    Curiously, I have never played a game with Morschauser's rules. Considering their pivotal role in my personal wargames history, this is a deficiency I plan to remedy shortly. Stay tuned to these pages; I have at least a couple of such games in the pipeline!  :-)


    The second book was also a somewhat chance encounter. Not long after discovering How to Play Wargames in Miniature, I was reading the Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times. At the time, the entire Sunday Times weighed about 5 pounds, and unlike most guys, this was my favorite section; I never even looked at the sports pages, LOL! This particular Sunday, there was a review of a book about Napoleon. I realized that I knew next to nothing about the man; in US schools, he receives brief mention as the successor to the French Revolution, his involvement in the Louisiana Purchase, and the background to the War of 1812, and that's about it! It is little wonder that Americans in general are famously ignorant of World history. In any event, my next trip to the Library resulted in my taking out several books about Napoleon, but the key one was The Campaigns of Napoleon, by David Chandler.  


Another find in the Public Library; this is my personal copy, acquired many years thereafter.


    This book of course requires no real commentary when talking to any wargamer with even a passing interest in the Napoleonic Wars. I read the book from cover to cover (1,000+ pages) in less than a week. After that, I checked it out of the Library at least a dozen times over the years, probably more! I was fascinated with the man himself, and the incredible scope of the Napoleonic Wars, and the countless nations and personalities involved. It certainly cemented a lifelong focus on the Napoleonic Wars for my Wargaming activities. My current Napoleonic Collection is nearly 8,000 figures, and  will top out well over that in the end. I must have over 100 books related to Napoleon, the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleonic Uniforms, etc., but if I could keep just one, it would be this one, ands down!


   My first armies were 25 mm painted flats from Aloys Ochel in Kiel, Germany. I found the black and white pictures of the flats in Morchauser's book very appealing, and had little confidence in my artistic abilities. The cost of the figures was very reasonable as well, and the catalog was reasonably easily understood with teaching myself a bit of German. However, over time I wanted more control of which regiments were depicted. That was fueled by the next book.



My copy, acquired circa 1970. The quality of the bindings wasn't great, and there are inaccuracies, but the volume of information and the artistry were and are superb for the price!


    One of the great things about Joe's book was the listing of manufacturers and wargames periodicals. I quickly subscribed to the old NEWA Courier and Don Featherstone's The Wargamer's Newsletter, as well as Jack Scruby's on and off again publications. In one or more of them  there was a review of this book, which I purchased immediately. The variety and color of Napoleonic uniforms depicted was astounding!  I sold all my flats and started building and painting armies in 25mm, chiefly wargames figures by Jack Scruby, augmented with a few Hinton Hunt figures. 


This second volume came out a year or so after the first. 


    With the help of these illustrations (and teaching myself to read some very basic French), I settled on the French and Austrian Armies as my primary forces, augmented by some Bavarians and Russians.  All manner of Confederation of the Rhine troops followed, along with Portuguese, Brunswickers, Danes, Swedes, Prussians and more. My original flat armies were French and British, but I didn't paint any British figures for almost 30 years after that! However, they were eventually added in due course, followed by my Spanish Napoleonics a few years ago. I still plan to paint hundreds more  Napoleonics in the next few years. Lead addiction is a real thing, as many of us can attest. 


My favorite centerfold.  Well, almost!  :-)


    Many other periods and armies have followed, as chronicled here on my blog, but Napoleonics have always been my first love. With the inspiration provided by the paintings of Fred and Liliane Funken, it is easy to see why! Thank you, Joe, David, Fred, Liliane, and countless others for the joy of this somewhat eccentric but glorious hobby of ours~!

35 comments:

  1. We maybe in parallel tracks as we travel through our Wargaming lives, Peter! All of your choices are import books to my education too. The only minor difference is that I taught myself to read French from a different Napoleonic uniform book! I ought to give Morschauser’s rules a try sometime as well. The dust jacket on my Chandler is in similar condition but my Funckens are in better shape.

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    1. That's interesting but perhaps hardly surprising. Hmm, how about a Morschauser style game via Zoom, skype, etc?

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    2. I am mostly off Dec 30 - Jan 3rd. Thursday afternoon (which would be morning for you) would be an especially good time as my wife and daughter will be out of the house for 3-4 hours then, but many other dates and times could work.

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  2. Never read Morschauser but certainly heard of him. Gridded gaming boards with his rules ?

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    1. Not in the book, but he was a major proponent of 1) affixing your figures to movement trays - as far as we know, the earliest proponent of same, and 2) later, gridded games. I plan to implement his rules as gridded for my games.

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  3. Never heard of Morschauser, but I imagine he was perhaps the US version of Donald Featherstone perhaps? It was the latter who got me started as I had been collecting Airfix soldiers and around the age of ten was looking for rules as I had become tired of just rolling marbles at them, and Featherstone was very accessible to a ten year-old.

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    1. I would think that few outside of the US would know of him, but he was a contemporary of Featherstone, Scruby, and Sweet - see the Tabletop Talk link for some of his articles.

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  4. A very interesting Blog post on the books that were/are important to you. Fascinating to see what books have influenced us as wargamers, with some commonality and others rather left field. I'm still mulling my choices over but hope to put them up soon on my Blog.

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    1. Thanks, Steve. Blog followed; I look forward to reading about your choices.

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  5. Great stuff, I'm another Featherstone rather than Morschauser starter, but sounds very similar! Terry Wise and "Introduction to Battle Gaming", was another one I got out of the library repeatedly.

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    1. Featherstone came well after these, but I have several of his books, and actually used and adapted the rules from one of his last books. Likewise, Terry Wise as well. I was fortunate enough to meet Don at the last trip he made to the US (for Historicon) at about age 80, courtesy of introduction by James Getz. Very much still a charming gentlemen with a love of toy soldiers even then!

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  6. Quite a trip down memory lane. How far wargames resources have come.

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    1. Truly we have an embarrassment of riches for our hobby now days, Joe!

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  7. Gerard de Gre had an unknown influence on me through his simple duelling rules included in the Wargaming in Bed chapter of Featherstone's Solo Wargaming (borrowed as a child from the branch library) that I enjoyed still use today for skirmish and melee: https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/duelling-in-the-sandpit-lunge-cut-and-stop-thrust/
    I didn't make the De Gre connection until rereading this chapter as an adult - Bob Cordery in Wargaming Miscellany has a section of posts about him http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/search/label/Gerard%20de%20Gre

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    1. Hi Mark! Thanks for the comment and links. From about 1974 to 1978, my friends and I were fortunate to play a series of games at the home of Charlie Sweet, using their Gerard de Gre derived rules for Ancients, Pike and Shot, Napoleonics, and the American Civil War ("The Gap Game"). Indeed, those games were responsible for expanding my own armies from solely Napoleonics to the Pike and Shot and then Ancient eras.
      https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2013/03/updated-ancient-rules-charlie-sweet.html

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    2. Hey Mark, thanks for the tip on the skirmish rules and link to your blog - looks interesting and very easy to do as a solo game!

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  8. That’s a fascinating ‘origins’ story Gonsalvo. Life is so much sweeter with a dose of serendipity. I’m not surprised those books were an inspiration.

    I bought the Morschauser book a year ago having first read about his gridded games probably about 40 years ago.

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    1. PS thanks for the nod.

      I’ll follow up on the of Dice an Tin Men and the Tabletop Talk links.

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    2. ....which I did, and thoroughly enjoyed.

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    3. Indeed, there has certainly been abundant serendipity in my wargaming life! Glad you enjhoyed the "Dice and Tin Men" series; I should update it as it only goes through the early 1990's at present.

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    4. As for the nod... credit where credit is due!
      :-)

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  9. Interesting selection of influences Peter - like other non Americans, I have never heard of Morschauser, but if he helped you to discover the true light of wargaming, he deserves great credit! I had both Funcken books in paperback and English but unfortunately only have Vol II today...

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    1. I think Joe helped many Americans discover historical miniature wargaming, through his book, general circulation magazine articles, and his contributions to the early wargaming publications.

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  10. Brilliant post Peter and I couldn’t agree more with your considerations.

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  11. Very cool walk down memory lane, Peter. I was always into armor and uniform books since a kid - only got into wargaming late in life.

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    1. I remember a favorite book (among many) in my elementary school library dealt with the armor and weapons of the middle ages. My other favorites were, well, almost anything, but especially biographies and animal stories!

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  12. Very interesting - I will have to have a go at this in the new year

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    1. Thanks David, and I look forward to reading about your short list!

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  13. Very interesting post, it's always good to know where we come from! The Funken books were a big deal for me too and it's surprising how much French you know when you need too!
    Best Iain

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    1. Very true, Iain. It is certainly far easier to read another language, especially when you have some general idea of the subject matter.

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  14. A brilliant addition to this 'series' of posts Peter. The Morschauser book sounds like a ripper. I look forward to seeing your game using his rules. A friend introduced me to Zimmermann's 'Wargamers Handbook' circa 1973. He has some really excellent ideas/mechanics in his set of generic rules for every period (with specific adjustments/additions as you go through the eras)—and also some really annoying bits! :)
    We share Chandler and the Funcken books as early and huge influences. They happened to be secondary ones for me, once I was 'hooked'.
    Once again, a lovely post, thanks,
    Regarda, James

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    1. Thank you, James - glad you enjoyed it. I recall the Zimmerman book, but by that point I already had plenty of rules! :-)

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