Game books for collectors & collecting

The Best Of Board Wargaming by Nicholas Palmer
Published by Hippocrene Books, Inc.

About the Author

“Nicholas Palmer was born in 1950 and has been playing board wargames since he was fifteen. Britain’s leading authority on this fast-expanding hobby, he is the author of The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming and wargames editor of Games & Puzzles. He lives in Basel, Switzerland with his parents and is head of Medical Department System Analysis in Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals. He looks forward to 2015, when retirement will give him the chance to play Campaign for North Africa; in the meantime, he finds it hard to understand how anyone can be bored in a world with wargames.” From the dust jacket.

Related Works

Palmer’s Comprehensive Guide to Board War Gaming (profiled in Simulacrum 6) was released in 1977. The first half of Palmer’s Guide contained introductory articles on wargame mechanics and play. The second half was intended to provide capsule information on all commercial wargames published through the late seventies. The Best of Board Wargaming, Palmer’s second tome on war gaming, adopts a somewhat similar format.

Chapter by Chapter Overview

Part I - Surveying the Field

The first six chapters profile various facets of the wargaming hobby.

1. Patton Rides Again: Operational Games (8pp.) Palmer presents a brief examination of how operational games have changed from the days of the AH classics. This allows him to touch on the issue of how much tactical detail should be present in an operational game. Four specific examples are then discussed: airdrops, organizational integrity, untried units and supply. The chapter concludes with a look at pre-World War II operational games.

2. Across the Galaxy: Science Fiction Games (9pp.) The author takes a look at several sci-fi games as well). First are games inspired by books: Dune, War of the Ring, Starship Troopers and John Carter. Freedom in the Galaxy is also mentioned here even though Palmer notes it was based on “no actual book” (though he does not note the obvious inspiration of George Lucas’ Star Wars.)

Palmer then moves to what he calls “abstract campaigns”, games which seem to draw from a similar background: “a few dozen star systems, several species competing for domination, space fleets of warships and transports, and some kind of production system.” This discussion deals primarily with Metagaming’s Godsfire.

3. The First Thousand Hours are the Hardest: 3. Monster Games (11pp.) This chapter opens with an overview of the monster game phenomenon and points out some of the common characteristics of the genre. Palmer suggests that monster games can be divided into three distinct categories and discusses examples of each. The first category involves “very large, relatively simple” games with War in Europe as the primary example. Next are the “very complex, ordinary sized” games such as Third Reich and Campaign for North Africa. Finally, Palmer looks at “very large and very complex” games such as War in the Pacific, War Between the States, La Bataille de la Moskowa and the Europa series.

4. Roll a Six to Pillage Byzantium: Beer-and-Pretzels Games (7pp.)

Here Palmer deals with some of the simpler wargames, all the while openly displaying his strong preference for complex games. Games covered in this section include Decline and Fall, Conquistador and Diplomacy. Also falling within the author’s broad beer-and-pretzels definition (which almost seems synonymous with small games) are the AH Classics, SPI Quads, GDW Series 120 and magazine games.

5. Rule 101.423, Bomb Near Misses: Realistic Games (9pp.) This chapter presents some comments on game design philosophy which use John Hill’s Squad Leader as a starting point. The first portion of the chapter deals with Hill’s “design for effect” principle, followed by Palmer decrying “fudging” by wargame designers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the simulation of command.

6. Regret to Inform You that You are Dead: Computerized Games (5pp.) Palmer turns to the relatively new field of computer wargaming. Rather than focusing on any particular programs, the author examines the promise and problems of computer wargaming. He posits that successful computer wargames should try to offer the following features: multi-player interaction, computer-controlled uncertainty, sufficient complexity, and simulation.

Part II - Reviews

The second half of The Best of Board Wargaming is a collection of capsule reviews.

1. How to use the reviews (5pp.) Palmer explains the purpose and goals bios for the contributors and explains the various criteria and categories used in the reviews.

2. The Games (127pp.) In his Comprehensive Guide, Palmer ambitiously attempted to present capsule descriptions of every commercially published wargame. The review section in The Best of Board Wargaming is a bit less ambitious in that it only covers half as many games. The good news is that this allows about a page of commentary on each game. Summary information is given regarding period, theater, scale, number of players and duration. Each game is also assigned numerical ratings in five categories: excitement level, rules clarity, complexity, realism, and solitaire playability. Several contributors assisted with this section of the book: Geoff Barnard, Graham Buckell, Mark Gleeson, Jack Greene, Fred Helfferich, Major DIA Mack, Tom Oleson, Marcus Watney and Ron Wheelhouse. The approximate number of reviews by company: 61 SPI; 29 AH; 25 GDW/Conflict; 5 OSG; 4 Battleline; 3 Metagaming; 2 3W and 1 each Flying Buffalo, Historical Perspectives, People’s Wargames, Simulations Canada, Simulations Design Corporation, Sopac and Swedish Game Productions.

3. Instant Guide to Wargames (5pp.) Here the previously reviewed games are grouped into several reference lists. The games are segregated by time period and special mention is given to those with exceptionally high ratings. Other lists included in this section cover Palmer’s personal favorites, multi-player games, and games with a maximum play time of five hours.

4. Useful Addresses (6pp.) Contact information for manufacturers, clubs, and magazines, but no longer very useful.

Value and Availability

As noted in Simulacrum 6, The Best of Board Wargaming is much easier to find than Palmer’s earlier Comprehensive Guide. This is not surprising as Best was released in paperback and book club editions. Depending on the particular edition desired, you should be able to find a nice copy for under $15. If you need to find a copy right away, take a peek at one of the online book search services such as www.bibliofind.com. There were several reasonably priced copies listed there last time I checked.

The Bottom Line

As is the case with Palmer’s Comprehensive Guide, the present day attraction of The Best of Board Wargaming lies chiefly in the wargame reviews. They certainly make enjoyable, nostalgic reading. I have found them to be somewhat useful for reference purposes as well.

Opinions will vary as to the usefulness of the opening chapters. Palmer makes little pretense toward objectivity in presenting his overview of the wargaming hobby. However, his comments certainly serve to highlight how much has changed and how much has remained the same in the field of wargaming over the past 20 years.