Little Wars – a game by H.G. Wells | Hacker News Reader

Little Wars – a game by H.G. Wells

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63 pointshackathonguy29 comments

Published in 1913; one wonders how many of the boys who played wargames perished in the civilisational catastrophe which was the Great War.

WW2 more likely given the time scale Keith Douglass Sums it up well I think

The noble horse with courage in his eye,

clean in the bone, looks up at a shellburst:

away fly the images of the shires

but he puts the pipe back in his mouth.

Peter was unfortunately killed by an 88;

it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance.

I saw him crawling on the sand, he said

It's most unfair, they've shot my foot off.

How can I live among this gentle

obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep?

Unicorns, almost,

for they are fading into two legends

in which their stupidity and chivalry

are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an immortal.

These plains were their cricket pitch

and in the mountains the tremendous drop fences

brought down some of the runners. Here then

under the stones and earth they dispose themselves,

I think with their famous unconcern.

It is not gunfire I hear, but a hunting horn.

There's a simplified how-to with photos of what it would look like:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-play-Little-Wars-by-H...

I remember reading this a long time ago. I want to think it was influenced by the Prussian General Staff Kriegsspiel training exercises

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)

The title page:

Little Wars

(A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books)

With an Appendix on Kriegspiel

For some great context around this, I highly recommend "Playing at the world" by Jon Peterson (https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615...). It's a fairly detailed history of paper and pencil games with quite a bit of focus on Little Wars, Kreigspiel, and D&D. If you're a gamer, I highly recommend it.

A boardgamegeek [1] user named Pete Belli has been creating and playing scenarios that use Little Wars rules. He has posted reports (with photos) showing how the plays went. [2].

[1]. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/

[2]. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/154344/1913-2013-cent...

Is this a precursor to Warhammer?

Yeah, but there was a lot in the middle that more directly inspired the creators and all sorts of stuff around at the time.

Warhammer was much more tied to RPGs with it's first editio and there was all sortsd of overlaps from GW and D&D/Chainmail

Here is an interview with one of the creators that discusses the origins:

https://juegosydados.com/2016/08/26/interview-with-rick-prie...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game)

Can anyone offer any recommendations on any accessible war games - other than Risk. I've looked around previously and it seems that most are incredibly complex and/or require a tremendous amount of time to play.

Memoir '44 and other games under the same system (there's an Ancient Rome themed one, for instance) are fairly accessible and (depending on scenario) play quite a bit faster than most Risk games. They're (mainly) 2-player, though. They're also at the battlefield level, rather than worldwide strategy or anything like that.

Diplomacy's either a much better or much worse alternative to Risk. Depends who you ask. Not directly comparable but scratches the same itch, possibly better (see: depends who you ask).

The Board Game Geek site probably has some lists for semi-casual or otherwise less-hardcore wargames. That'd be the place to look. Then see whether Shut Up & Sit Down has done a video review of any that look interesting to you, before buying (they have for Memoir '44, IIRC).

I second M44.

How accessible? "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum" by Too Fat Lardies and "ColdWar Commander" are fun, quickish, and just a step above beer & pretzel rules. The TFL guys in general are big fans of the original Kriegspiel style. There's also a whole series called "Two Hour Wargames".

I don't mind some complexity, but I would like to learn the game well enough in 30-60 minutes. I have definitely lost patience with new board games where some friends and I spend our entire evening just learning to play rather than playing.

I hear you. We have a group that really likes Twilight Imperium but my God, the amount of rules consultation...

I think the ColdWar Commander / Blitzkrieg Commander games can be picked up in that time. Movement, command, and combat rules are quick and intuitive, and it generally lends itself to a "resolve-problem-by-common-sense" approach. It's great for casual gaming.

Might I recommend Bill Banks' Ancients? It's quite good, if you can hunt down a copy. Or don't mind assembling one, since it was posted online for free by the publisher at one point, and nothing dies on the internet:

http://backtominnesota.com/Ancients%20Old/Old%20Ancients.htm

(Or my all-in-one file, here: http://suspended-chord.info/static/downloads/paperparachute-...)

THW is particularly good. A coupe of years, I've helped a friend set up All Things Zombie games in the gaming room of an anime convention. We set up little towns of prop buildings (that he got used and super-cheap), and people walked up, curious but assuming this is some Super Complicated Thing that will take all day. We go, "Hey, wanna play? Pick a figure and fill in this little sheet. If you gotta go at some point, feel free. Just remember, you're in charge of moving the zombies near you. We'll explain how."

And so, we'd have a gaggle of people merrily running around the town, trying to scoop up supplies and whatnot, as things got more and more chaotic. Always a blast.

My girlfriend and I play a lot of GMT wargames and it’s not unusual for us both to study the rules for a week, she takes extensive notes, run through the playbook’s tutorial, and still play wrong the first time. They’re worth it tho. Cuba Libre, Labyrinth, Falling Sky, Commands & Colors: Ancients, and Twilight Struggle are some of the best games we’ve ever played.

The tutorial in the Twilight Struggle app is a good, fast-ish, introduction to the game.

Neuroshima Hex! Is one of the greatest games of all time, but it’s more of an abstract than a what people think of as a wargame. You build competing programs (Armies) that execute during battles.

GMT games are awesome. And awe-inspiring. I'm on a Victory Point Games kick myself at the moment. A little less intense than GMT. But I'm no stranger.

For miniature wargaming (moving figurines around a table, as opposed to a board game), check out DBA: https://www.amazon.com/Laflin-Barkers-Start-Ancient-Wargamin...

The rules are pretty elegant and fun, and are quick to teach and play. A game usually runs 30 minutes to an hour. Miniature wargaming is always going to be a bigger investment in money and effort than a board game, but DBA is pretty easy to get into: you only need a couple dozen figurines for an army, and a playing surface of about two or three feet square.

The central conceit of the rules is that the important thing is modeling a unit's role on the battlefield, and the rest can be abstracted away. So for example a unit of pikemen is a unit of pikemen, whether they're a Macedonian phalanx or a Swiss landsknecht. This lets the same set of rules support battles from the bronze age to the renaissance.

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