TIL that H.G. Wells wrote a rulebook for miniature wargaming called 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).
A… Little Wars game sees rival commanders bombard their
adversaries with matchsticks, fired with little spring-loaded triggers
in the tiny cannons. Careful measurements from where the matches land
decide the number of victims.
This is looked on with disapproval
by some modern war gamers, who prefer theoretical bombardments worked
out with distance tables.
Phil Barker, a celebrated deviser of
modern games, acknowledges Wells’s role in “showing it could be done -
and giving grown men an excuse to play with toy soldiers”.
But he
adds: “Combat was based on shooting solid projectiles at the figures.
Today, this would be discouraged because of the risk of someone getting a
projectile in the eye, but it was the chance of damage to the finish of
lovingly home-painted figures that led to the switch to less lethal
dice.”
