90 Years and Counting

Counting Down to the

Centennial of Wargaming

by Bob Beattie

A Personal Observation on the History of Wargaming

Most people who are in the life of historical miniatures gaming know that Little Wars by H. G. Wells was the first published wargame rules book to give details of how to play games with toy soldiers.

The author complete with boater hat in an H.G. Wells game.

This game was first in print in some short magazine articles that were consolidated and printed in book form in 1913. Thus 2003 is the 90th anniversary of that event. It would seem that the game is older than the publishing date, however. Wells writes of a friend "dead now these six years" who worked with Wells to get together "two forces of toy soldiers, set out a lumpish Encyclopaedic (sic) land upon the carpet and began to play." The encyclopedic land refers to using the books for terrain. Thus Wells first began to play this game six years prior to publishing so the genesis of the game is more like 1907. Terence Wise writes in Introduction to Battle Gaming that it was more like the time of the Boer War that Well's guest Jerome K. Jerome "spotted some of the children's toys on an adjacent table. Jerome lined up the soldiers and opened fire with a toy gun." More of this gun later. In either case, there was, then, it seems, a long playtest period before going to print.

Most books on wargames give a history of the activity but include discussions of what I would call professional games, usually called Kriegspiel and used by the military for training and planning. Others discuss games supposedly played by Napoleon's son or other royalty with specially made figures. There were some earlier writings on what our hobby is based on, what I would call recreational wargaming. One detailed account can be found in Stevenson at Play by Lloyd Osbourne, in Scribners Magazine, 1898. This piece tells of Robert Louis Stevenson's wargames. There are many rule ideas here that are still in use but there is not sufficient information to actually replay games. War Games for Boy Scouts by Sergt. A. J. Holladay, late C.I.V., was published around 1910, anyway prior to the printed Little Wars, but it lacks the details of Wells and the status to keep it on the shelves for future gamers to find. Moreover, there is no indication that it was developed prior to the game in Little Wars. Both of these earlier publications can be found on The Courier's Time Line of the Hobby: "http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html"

Wells' rules had an American printing near the time of the original UK version, and again in the 1930's. Recent reprints were in 1970 and 1977. Don Featherstone offered a photocopy for sale in the 1960's. By the way, this was an important book for Don as he mentions in a recent article in MWAN taking a copy of Little Wars with him on active duty in the north African desert in World War 2.

Little Wars has all the credentials for setting the date to mark the founding of the miniatures gaming hobby. We could add historical in that the soldiers in the game represented historical troops, the actual troops of the day. The photographs in the book, showing the Battle of Hook's Farm, seem to be of troops that look much like Boers on one side and a regular British army on the other. I'd be happy to discuss with readers other dates to mark our founding but I think most will vote for Little Wars.

There is not much history of wargaming between 1913 and the early 1950's. Perhaps the horror of Great War put a damper on the playing of Little Wars. Wells, again showing that skill of foreshadowing future events, writes at the end of the book, "you only have to play Little Wars three or four times to realize just what a blundering thing Great War must be." Further on he writes, "Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but — the available heads we have for it are too small." Is this not an apt description for the battles in France that began just a year later?

So perhaps the Great War wiped out not only many potential players of but also the will to play Little Wars. There was one published attempt to bring back the hobby in those years, Shambattle by H. G. Dowdall and J. H. Gleason, published in 1929. The book makes no reference to Little Wars except to say players should not use cannons that might endanger eyesight should be used. The rules call for a spinner to determine various results but also mention dice as an alternative. Also different from Little Wars is that the game is played on a map with terrain and features drawn in, not three dimensional pieces. This game has left little if any legacy for the present wargamer.

George Gush in A Guide to Wargaming, presents a very good overview of the wargaming hobby between the Wars. He talks of a "wargaming dark age" between 1913 and the 1950's. He neglects Shambattle but mentions a J. R. Granville Bantock whose parents knew Wells and who played Little Wars with dice replacing the cannon. A Great War veteran, he continued gaming with his son at least at the time of Gush's book, 1980. There is an excellent report of the influence of Captain Sachs and his rules from when the joined the British Model Soldier Society (BMSS) in 1935 until his death in 1956. Other gamers building on the legacy of Wells noted are - A.C. Cass, Frank Tippetts, Peter Young and Charles Grant, J. B. R. Nicholson and Charles Revely with others coming later, in the 50's, A. W. Saunders, Tony Bath, and Don Featherstone

Americans referred to are Fletcher Pratt of naval games fame who was active in the 1930's. (perhaps more of his activities from Doug Mudd who has come into possession of a fleet made at that time for those rules), Norman Bel Geddes (http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/belgeddes.series1.html); the engineer/designer (more about him from me in a future issue), and Peter Cornwall who played in California in the thirties and co-founded the BMSS, and in the 50's, of course, Jack Scruby.

So it was that Little Wars kept a few gamers going until the hobby was able to provide connections. Between Jack's Wargame Digest and Don's Wargamer's Newsletter the hobby entered its second stage of development. Gone the individuals and small groups of players doing their thing, with no knowledge of others. Before Jack and then Don many gamers, like me for example, who did not know of them even when they were active, had to depend on finding Little Wars in the local library and getting inspiration. When I found it in the early 1960's, a whole new world opened up to me. Luckily I had a large collection of Wm. Britains figures already so I was ready to have some rules that my fellow gamers and I could play.

Before Little Wars, the wargamers played simple rules. I learned some rules from a friend who had a large collection of 54mm Britains. Figures could shoot and then move. They shot straight out from the base a Britains' box length. If a hit was scored, the player rolled the figure on the floor (carpeted). Face up - alive; face down - dead. Cavalry got flipped; this explains why so many lost their heads ; Foot moved a box length; cavalry two boxes. I guess this was better than throwing balls or shooting slingshots (catapults to British speakers) in what Wells calls the "Legendary Past." The discovery of Little Wars sent us into an arms race as we tried to expand our figure collections. One of my buddies had a wonderful idea. He offered to paint my 54mm Britains figures, in all their variety of uniforms - Bengal Lancers, Arabs, Australian infantry, Swedish Life Guards, and others -into my own personal uniform. My first experience of having figures painted. In those days it was Testor's model enamels. He was quite an artist and the uniforms of dark green, with red and blue trim were the envy of others in our group. Now, I have a potential of hundreds of dollars of Britains in the worthless uniform of the "Beattieian" army!

When Airfix HO-OO figures arrived we converted to those with some changes in cannon shooting. These kept me going until 1967 when I discovered Jack Scruby from a fellow customer in the Hobby Chest in Evanston, Ill. Also from Bob Corey I learned of Column. Line, and Square so I had my second "official" rules and I was off and running in "the life".

When Airfix HO-OO figures arrived, we converted to those with some changes in cannon shooting. These kept me going until 1967 when I discovered Jack Scruby from a fellow customer in the Hobby Chest in Evanston, Ill. Also from Bob Corey I learned of Column. Line, and Square so I had my second "official" rules and I was off and running in the life.

Could this be the story of many people in the 50's and 60's who enjoyed playing with toy soldiers? Make up your own rules and then discover Little Wars in the town library and follow those rules, either alone or with friends who also like to "play with toy soldiers." Was this the life of many people who liked to collect toy soldiers and wished they could play with them. What about those who did not already have like-minded friends to play with? How many of us have put a note in copies of the library's wargame books asking anyone who was also interested in this kind of stuff to call. Before the newsletters and books that became available in the 1960's, we had the potential of finding fellow gamers only through what I would call the Little Wars "underground."

Thus we can see the importance of Little Wars as the seminal work in the hobby. I suspect just about all of us can trace our hobby family tree back to someone who played Little Wars. It's like we all have 6 degrees of separation from Wells.

Celebrating the 90th Anniversary

A couple of years ago I came to the realization that the anniversary of Little Wars was not far off. The great book was published in 1913 and it was almost 2003. What got me thinking about this was the practice putting green at the Lancaster Host.

At Historicon 2001, I was standing in line to get into the dealer area and was next to that beautiful patch of grass. I went out on it, lay down on it. So soft, so smooth. What a great place to play Little Wars, I thought. I talked to people about this during the con and decided come 2003, I would do a Little Wars game, if not on the green, then on a normal table set up. I mentioned this to Dick Bryant and he said I could do it as part of The Courier Room massive multi-games set up in the Paradise Room of The Lancaster Host. I then began to think of how I would do this.

One of my long time gaming friends was Bill Marshall. He always liked old time wargames and had designed, cast, painted and sold his own line of 54mm figs. I thought he would like to help out with this project. We talked much about it and he was going to cast some figures to use.

Another hobbyist I recruited was Dennis Frank (in boater hat). He is a serious student of the history of the hobby; he has written quite a few articles on the subject for Mike Demana's GLHMGS news letter – The Herald. Dennis has been collecting materials about old time games for many years and is very good at running games at conventions; he's the DBA Midnite Madness coordinator and often runs events for young players. These two guys round out a great little team for the Centennial celebration.

One resolution I had made at the 2001 convention was to get myself a copy of the original book. I had the 1970 version and the 1977 edition. The former is a nice hardback printing with a Forward by Isaac Asimov in which he sets Little Wars within the context of 1913, at a time when the society (of middle/upper class England at least) lacked the something given the long span since major wars impacted the people. (I guess he forgot the Boer War). Asimov writes:

"There is an air of glamour and excitement about war – past wars, that is, one need not actually live through. The dangers and the daring and the gallant defeats and clever stratagems and the final triumph — what can replace it? In the absence of reality, there is the driving desire to find a substitute. What are really needed are men that neither bleed nor suffer, guns that do not destroy, strategies that cannot be based on human misery, and, most of all, generals who are not murderers. H.G.Wells devised such a game, so simple yet capable of such elaborate outcomes "

Asimov then notes the events of 1914 and following and notes,

"So the glamour of war vanished and "Little Wars" went out of style."

After lamenting the horrors of war and the problems with abolishing it, he returns to the game.

"Why cannot we innocently play at it once again in the fashion of an older day, and kill our plastic soldiers with wooden pellets, maneuvering them through a countryside of cardboard and harmlessly expend the aggressive passions we must somehow control? To replace war and, perhaps, who knows, even to do a micro-bit to prevent them, here is "Little Wars" again.

I guess nobody who played since reading the 1970 reprint has yet to be in a position do any prevention.

Just 7 years later another edition was published with no pretensions of war prevention but a nice back cover note that acknowledges this is for adults "who wish to test their knowledge of strategy and tactics and sometime, to attempt to change the course of history." There is also an interesting little review from "The Spectator" that I assume dates from the original edition.

"Mr. Wells describes his new game and sets out its rules so attractively that his readers will find it hard indeed not to hurry out to the toys-shop around the corner, raise the necessary levies and fall forthwith upon hands and knees to emulate his achievements in the Battle of Hook's Farm."

So I had the two modern versions of the book, why did I need the original edition? I wanted to have in my hands that actual piece of history. Perhaps a volume used by a gamer at the dim beginning of the era as he raised the necessary levies and fell on his hands an knees to emulate Wells with a battle. I started with EBay but there found only the modern editions, the 1970 version going for $100.

So I did a Google search and found a book seller in UK with a copy for only $300. Extravagant, yes, but less than one might pay for a painted army. Now I had that piece of history, previously belonging to Graham Jones, according to the name on the inside cover. I wonder if he actually played the game?

To prepare for the 2003 game the next step was to gather the necessary figures. I was going to do this in lead, not plastic and also as much as possible with original Brtiains. For our new hobbyists, these are hollow cast, 54mm figures made by a company in England, William Britains. These were first made in the 1890's. These are the figures shown in the pictures of Little Wars. Packed in infantry sets of 7-8 and cavalry of 5-6, they made sets representing every unit in the British Army and almost every unit of other countries. There were larger sets too of things like Changing of the Guard. I had been collecting these since I was in grade school. At that time they were about 25 cents per foot. Many had been repainted to my personal uniform as I note above. I still had a hundred or so in original colors. Bill Marshall had been casting and painting various units in the Canadian army including Fort Henry Guards, under the name Amherst Miniatures. These would round out my figures to create the army we needed. So in the beginning of 2002 we had over a year to prepare.

In early 2002 my plans were dealt a serious blow. My good friend for 20 years, Bill Marshall passed away suddenly, in March. A shock to me and our local group. Just 49, he had much unpainted lead. Nevertheless, he was in poor health in a number of ways and did not take good care of himself. I mention that to dispel the long standing myth in the hobby that you cannot die with unpainted lead. This was a life setback for me and in particular for the Little Wars project. Our local group pitched in to remove his vast collection of figures and other wargaming materials from his basement to store in my garage. We took it upon ourselves to sell the collection on behalf of his widow. A note here to gamers, keep an inventory of what you have and what it's worth. It took us a month to sort out the items and then we had a wargamers garage sale and sold at convention flea markets. We raised $8,000 which represented about 20% of the actual value. Among the collection was a couple hundred of his home made figures. Instead of waiting for 2003 for doing a Little Wars game, I decided to honor my friend with a funeral game, not quite in the manner of Romans but still as a memorial.

So I would do the game I'd hoped to do in 2003; but with less preparation. What does such a game call for? I wanted to recreate The Battle of Hooks Farm as Wells shows in the book. The original is played on the floor with houses and a church made of children's building blocks. Small branches from bushes are stuck in the wooden hills. The game had two armies, each of 3 guns, 48 infantry, and 25 horse. This would be fine for a game with just two players but I wanted to open it up to at least 3 players. I would like to have more but I though 3 to be the limit to fit around the tables. I thought it too difficult to try this on the floor of the Paradise Room in the middle of all the other games. To accommodate more players I decided to run two games. A play test with the local club, The Ann Arbor Area Historical Miniatures Gaming Group — A3HMG2 showed that a game lasts about an hour and a half. In Dick Bryant's tightly run schedule that meant I could do two games in a time slot.

With 3 players on a side, the number of figures would need to be increased to give each one a goodly number to move and shoot at. Thus I allocated each player 30 infantry and 10 mounted. I did not want each player to have 3 guns as that would result in quite a barrage each turn. I thought 2 would be adequate. The original rules call for a shooting cannon; a particular cannon. A marvelous piece of miniature machinery.

"The beginning of the game of Little Wars, as we know it, became possible with the invention of the spring breech loader gun. This priceless gift to boyhood appeared some when towards the end of the last century; "a gun capable of hitting a toy soldier nine times out of ten at a distance of nine yards". It has completely superseded all the spiral spring and other makes of gun hitherto used in playroom warfare. These spring breechloaders are made in various sizes and patterns, but the one used in our games is that known in England as the four-point-seven gun. It fires a wooden cylinder about an inch long, and has a screw adjustment for elevation and depression. It is an altogether elegant weapon." ( Little Wars, 1913, pp 10-11)

This cannon was made by William Britains; listed in the catalog as 4.7 Naval Gun (mounted for field operations). Patent No. 20775. Joe Wallis, expert on Britains figures, in his book, Armies of the World, Britains Ltd. Lead Soldiers, 1925-1941 writes:

"A superlative replica of the field gun that originated in the Second Boer War. A lack of long-range guns had been solved by extemporizing carriages for guns taken from Royal Navy cruisers at Cape Town."

He notes that the first model was produced from 1902-1933 with a tin strip spring with a brass firing lever and painted gun-metal. Since 1934 it was listed in the catalog as 1264. In the more commonly known version appeared then with a coiled spring firing action and a frontal shield painted olive drab. Those pictured in Little Wars are, of course, that earlier version without the shield and with the firing lever.

I had one of the later versions but not the 12 needed for all players in our recreation. Bill again came to the rescue. One of his Fort Henry figure sets was an artillery group — a cannon and two crew. The gun was more a typical artillery piece of the late 19th century, a muzzle loading type. There were a dozen of these available but they did not shoot. A shooing cannon is the core, the essence of the game of Little Wars. I wanted to shoot a cannon. Stuart Asquith writing about his own odyssey similar to mine in MWAN 124 says:

"One problem with HG Wells' rules is that only the guns fire, the infantry and cavalry are melee troops. HG and his sons actually fire their model artillery pieces during the games and so there are no specific firing rules in the text. It was a question of aim, fire, and if you hit, and the men fell over, they were dead. My Britains 4.7 naval guns can actually fire home made lead projectiles but I had several problems including safety - to be hit in the face with a metal 'shell' can spoil your concentration, not to mention you (sic) good looks - scrabbling around on the floor to retrieve fired 'shells' was tedious and undignified and I didn't much relish lead 'shells' smacking into expensive (have the seen the price of Britains figures?) toys that don't fall over anyway as they are solid cast. Thus another compromise reared its head, I had to resort to rolling dice to simulate artillery fire. A blow but inevitable."

I agree with these points but I chose to overcome them. (I guess my compromise was to play on a table instead of the floor) Safety - first, I would not use lead projectiles! Instead I had long cotton tipped wooden swabs such as the doctor would use to take a throat culture. Not quite the short wood cylinders that Wells writes of but still a safe 'shell;' second, while one side was shooting, the other had to step back from the table area. Because we were on a table, there was no scrabbling around to get the swabs. Indeed, most stayed on the table. I did use my hollow cast Britains so they could be knocked over, but many of the troops were solid cast. The rules do not call for a figure to be knocked over for a kill, just be hit.

When men are knocked over by a shot they are dead, and as many men are dead as a shoot knocks over or causes to fall or to lean so they would fall if unsupported. But if a shot strikes a man but does not knock him over, he is dead provided the shot has not already killed a man. But a shot cannot kill more than one man without knocking him over, and if it touches several without oversetting them, only the first touched is dead.

So how to shoot without shooting cannon? I did have a few shooters, other Britains types including the Royal Artillery gun (1201), 25 pound howitzer (2026), Gun of the Royal Artillery (1263) plus a couple of spring shooting guns of unknown make. My plan then, was to have the players place and move around the Fort Henry guns. When it was their turn to shoot, they would select one of the shooting cannon to place in the other guns spot and then proceed to shoot. Each gun, by the way, gets 4 shots. The opponents keep track of the number of shots taken and gather up the spent 'shells' for use in their turn.

Next I turned my attention to terrain. Wells used building blocks to construct the church and farm buildings. I had plenty of these left from those used by my children. We had gotten the first one a great set of hard wood natural color blocks with all sorts of shapes. These seemed exactly like what Wells was using. In Wells' game these blocks are placed on some 1/2 inch boards that looked like ply wood (if they had it then) or solid wood sheeting a few feet square. There are 4 "islands" of these wood pieces. Into these are stuck small branches from bushes to make a tree effect. I cut such foliage from the back yard and sprayed it with a polyurethane varnish to preserve the pieces.

My last concern was the table covering. Wells' games are on a dark, green or brown probably, floor in the nursery or some empty room. Anyone these days have an empty room for floor gaming?! As I have mentioned I wanted to use the tables at the Convention to elevate the game and prevent the figs from being stepped on (ok to shoot them). Moreover it made rule 6 easier to follow:

"A player must not lie across the Country so as to crush or disturb the Country, if his opponent objects."

Why would an opponent NOT object???

A cloth is not very appropriate as the figures will not stand well, especially the Britains cavalry that has spread legs and not base. I decide to just play on the bare table top as I thought this might be done by gamers in the "old days." When I first started serious gaming in the late 60's with Dick Bryant and the New England Wargamers Association, we played on ping pong tables with no covering. Don Featherstone shows the ACW game in his 1962 game being played on a ping pong table with roads and rivers chalked in and clay hills. So the bare table for Little Wars seem suitable. Wells recommended a curtain be drawn across the board (what he called "the Country"). Instead, I would pre-set the troops so no advantages to either side.

The last pieces to add were the game markers. Pretty simple compared to modern games. "Each player must be provided with two pieces of string, one two feet in length and the other 6 inches. Foot troops move a foot, that's easy to remember; cavalry move 2 feet or less. A gun with at least 4 men within 6 inches is "in action." That means it can be moved or fired. It moves 2 feet or less if all cavalry moving it and 1 foot if any movers are infantry. While not mentioned by Wells, I did put a mark on the long string to note the 1 foot mark. A watch with a second hand rounded out the game equipment. The rules allowed a minute for moving every 30 men and each gun. I rounded up and gave each side 4 minutes to move until they had losses that on average would reduce the side's time available to move. This takes into account that there three players moving the troops on each side.

I was ready to go with all the gaming materials. I did want to do something special for Bill at this event. To that end I mounted 12 of his 54mm Fort Henry Guards figures on a wooden pedestal and had a metal label made "HISTORICON - 2002" I put on the bottom of each a note: "A souvenir of participation in funeral games honoring William Marshall of Ann Arbor, Michigan at the 2002 Historicon. The Battle of Hooks Farm, Little Wars, 1913. Fort Henry Guard designed, cast and painted by Bill."

The games went off without a hitch. We had 11 players across the three games. There were lots of spectators who enjoyed the shooting cannons and the hustle of the players to move their troops. I was so pleased that Chris Brooks wrote a short article about this event for MWAN 122. "I count myself among the lucky few who were able to experience a game of 'Little Wars' as played by H. G. Wells. He gives an excellent recount of the battle between the Redians and the Bluvians, almost blow for blow. He concludes, "A great time was had by all. I feel he fulfilled his purpose with this game. The game itself was in honor of a fallen comrade, William Marshall of Ann Arbor. The funeral game was played in the spirit of camaraderie that I hope did honor to Mr. Marshall. Bob gave a souvenir to each participant. ...One can only hope that a friend will do as well when I pass on." Chris captures the feel of the game that I think would have made Bill proud as an old time war gamer. Thanks Chris. There are some pictures of this game on my web site http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/littlewars.html

2003 — The 90 Anniversary

The convention was over for 2002 but there was still the 90 Anniversary to plan for. The "play test" went very well. The game playing had no problems. Players caught on to the rules and got into the spirit of the old time game. The number of troops seemed right but I would like a few more for each player, especially some more mounted. The cannon substitute plan was ok but visually it was strange. I would really like to have everyone with the actual cannon they would shoot. The worst bit was the look and shape of the Lancaster Host tables. Scared wood, strange varnish, uneven connections all distracted from the pure enjoyment of the game. I had some things to work on but a year to do it.

Strange isn't it how fast a year goes by. I spend the fall of 2002 catching up on all the tasks postponed by getting ready for Historicon. I put on games at some local cons. Then it was time to prepare for Cold Wars. Besides running a number DBA games as the NASAMW referee I wanted to do a large scale Trojan War game, using HOTT so I could include the gods so that meant much preparation. Thus I was in a position to begin getting ready for the 90th Anniversary of Little Wars around mid-April. Thanks to a suggestion from Marty Schmidt I was looking at eBay for some old time wargame books. On a whim, I did a search for Britains artillery. Amazing, there were a number of types listed including some of the 4.7 inch naval guns.

I started a 3 month exercise of playing eBay. EBay is such a great game to play. You find something you like and you bet on it. If you lose, you get your money back. What a great idea. You bet more than you really want to spend, with the Reserve plan. Then when you lose by just a dollar, it really is not a dollar but $10 or $15. Besides many artillery pieces for sale, there were all sorts of figures available. All those sets that my high school friend had painted in my personal colors. I could redeem my youthful indiscretion. Not, however, at $4 a box that I had paid (or parents did) in the early 1960's. That was about 25 cents each. More like $10-15 now. But a painted 25mm figure can go for $5-6 so is twice or thrice that much for a 54mm too much? Anyway I bought up a number of sets to replace ones I'd had but had lost over the years. I stayed away from the multi-hundred dollars sets and the really big ones such as the Bahamas Police Band that went for around $1200. What caught my eye was the partial sets and groupings of slightly damaged figures, some Britains and some others. These would go for very reasonable prices of only a few dollars each. I got quite a few of these.

I also got various Britians artillery pieces but then in June a few of the naval guns came up. I got a couple of these so each player could have one. Then I had a message from Arthur Ross who would sell me a half dozen at a very reasonable price. He came and played in the game and took some great pictures, see my web site: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/littlewars03.html

I would allow players to have 8 shots per gun instead of 4 but the table would have only the 6 guns called for by Wells.

Then, the most surprising item showed up: a pre-1934, original Wells book style naval gun, in an original box. I wanted this. That is a dangerous attitude to have with eBay. I put in a high reserve, I kept track of the bidding. The reserve was passed. I went higher. I stayed up to the end of the bidding, putting in a higher than I should in the last few minutes. I won. Now I had the original Little Wars and the cannon that Wells had used. It could have been one that he had used. This would be used for shooting out the ceremonial first shot at the 90th Anniversary game.

I was able to pick up enough cheap cavalry and foot to retire most of my good original Britains. The figures were sometimes in need of repair which is not good for collector versions but these would ever be that, just gaming figures. So I patched them up and retouched some painting. One problem had occurred at the 2002 game as cavalry figures would often fall down with a bump on the table or other untoward move by the players. I decided to use water soluble glue to affix the cavalry to a thin card stock base. This would prevent the dreaded domino effect of one falling against another along a whole line. I felt that I now had a very good Little Wars figure and gun collection that would do the game justice.

Next I made a better playing surface. Besides Little Wars in our old time wargames presentation we were doing Shambattle and Don Featherstone's American Civil War game from War Games. Thus I made a plywood table top, to cover the Host's tables. This was made from 2 foot by 4 foot sections that locked together to form a 10' by 6' surface. I painted it green. Drilled some holes for the foliage need by Little Wars. To cut down on the weight of everything, I remade the wooden islands of Hooks Farm from styrofoam pieces painted green to match the table surface.

I thought the Anniversary celebration need a few festive touches. Once I had arrived at Lancaster, I ordered a "birthday" cake to be shared by all in attendance, whether playing or not.

It seemed to me that the "spirit" of Wells needed to be there. To this end, I purchased a straw boater hat, like Wells wears in the out doors pictures in the book. A bow tie, gray blazer and white trousers rounded out my costume.

This convention was extra special for me as I was inducted into the HMGS Legion of Honor. The group has a breakfast on Friday morning and I was to attend even thought the induction ceremony was Saturday night. I had resolved to "be" H.G. Wells for Friday so I went to the breakfast in full regalia. What a thrill to see all the current lumenaries of the hobby together in one place. The third generation of the hobby, direct descendents of Wells all around the table. I had brought my original volume and my original naval gun and so did a little show and tell. That really got me in the mood to be Wells for the day. I generated strange looks from gamers many of whom I suspect have not really thought much about were here have come from. With excellent help from Dennis Frank we set up the table for the game. I put out the cake with plates and forks. A crowd gathered and I gave a little speech telling the history of the Hobby and what Wells had done.

We had a ceremonial shooting out the first shot by the oldest gamer I could find, 72 year old Ed Miller (in photo, striped shirt). He refused to shoot directly at an original Britains figure, calling it a travesty to shoot at those antiques. He told of his younger days with the wargamers of the Miniature Figure Collectors of American in Philadelphia being assigned the job of collecting the wooden 'shell' from Little Wars being played in the 50's.

We played the game. It was over in an hour. All that planning and work done so quickly. Would that it could have lasted hours but there was more to do. Dennis had arranged for a great Shambattle game using some of the same figures from Little Wars. Then we set up for the Don Featherstone ACW game. The celebration was finished the next day when David Sweet put on one of his father's American Revolution games using some of those same figures from the Sports Illustrated article.

I think we marked the 90 Anniversary of the hobby with due celebration. Too bad the convention organizers had not seen fit to give special mention in the program of the auspicious event. I can only hope they take note of the Centennial in 2013. Between now and them I hope to present various facets of old time wargaming in the pages of The Courier.