Renewing old memories

Many years ago, the library in North Ferriby (where I lived with my parents) had a really rather good collection of wargaming books, including most of the Don Featherstone's and Charles Grant's (as well as Battle by Kenneth Macksey, but that's a story for another time). I must have borrowed everything they had several times. Contrast, if you will, with Peterborough Library today, which has, count it, precisely one solitary wargames book. And it's not even very good.

While discussing campaigns with fellow club members, some of the ideas from Don Featherstone's War Game Campaigns came up in conversation, as well as being reminded by some of the Pig Wars games about the scenarios in Skirmish Wargaming. Gav from the club has the former, which he's promised I can borrow sometime, but I succumbed to the lure of the latter on Amazon...

It's definitely of its time. If the past decade has been the era of buckets of dice and command rolls, Featherstone's books are definitely of the 'look it up on a combat results table' era, much like some of the other rules I grew up reading. Basically its a set of core rules, plus variations for each period. Each period comes with a scenario which is introduced by a pretty reasonable two or three page short story that sets up the battle to come.

You know what's really really scary?

I have not picked up that book in thirty years until last week. And I could remember every bloody piece of dialogue from every one of those short pieces.