Richard Tennant and Donald Featherstone’s Incomplete Wargaming

Like many others growing up playing with toy soldiers in the 1960s or 70s, Donald Featherstone’s wargaming books borrowed from the public branch library were a great source of ideas and inspiration to me as a youngster.

Sadly I never got to meet Donald Featherstone before he died in 2013 but I do have a couple of books signed by him amongst my collection. Touched briefly by genius!

Richard Tennant and the start of his mini biography on Miniature Minions blog post

I am pleased to have a signed Featherstone volume of Complete Wargaming, this one dedicated to Dick Tennant, obviously released as the result of downsizing a lifetime collection.

The inscription to Dick Tennant celebrating 30 years friendship (published 1988)

This is one of two signed Featherstone books I have acquired over the last few years.

Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming came from a second hand seller for only £15 even though it was pencilled in next to the price ‘signed’.

I had no idea who Dick Tennant was.

Aha! Thanks to David Crenshaw at the Miniature Minions website in the USA, who has acquired some of the Tennant Napoleonics collection of figures, I now know who Richard Tennant is.

R.J. Tennant is one of the surviving original Donald Featherstone wargames conference circle from Southampton from the early 1960s.

https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-richard-tennant-collection.html

On the back of a David and Charles catalogue flyer for the book, someone has noted some proofreading errors and some photo reversal mistakes. Written by Richard Tennant?

Alongside the Featherstone signature are some pencilled notes that I take to be Richard Tennant’s corrections. The pencil handwriting appears different from Featherstone’s signature and dedication. It exactly matches the handwriting in Miniature Minions’ blogpost about Tennant’s figures and research notebook.

Reading the MiniatureMinions blog post, there is much mention of the Peninsular War and even a mention of this windmill made by George Erik.

From: https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-richard-tennant-collection.html

See the fly leaf pencil note about the “model illustrated on page 197 custom made by G.Erik photographed with own figures” – written by Richard Tennant

The Peninsular War appears to be a particular interest of both Tennant and Featherstone; I recall reading some of Donald Featherstone’s later articles about the battlefields in modelling or gaming magazines in the 1980s.

See flyleaf note re Page 142 about an incorrect caption for Napoleonic Cavalry

One of Richard’s figures used in the book? See the pencil flyleaf note re. “Photographs p. 139”

Featherstone’s Complete Wargaming has been reissued in a revised and corrected paperback version by John Curry of the History of Wargaming Project, working to correct some of these original printing and photographic errors.

http://www.wargaming.co/recreation/details/dfcomplete.htm

John Curry’s Foreword about the original Complete Wargaming and the revised version.

My other Featherstone signature is in At Them With The Bayonet!, Featherstone’s book on the Anglo Sikh Wars. Unusually it is signed by Featherstone in lurid pink felt-tip (maybe you sign with whatever you have to hand?) inscribed to A.S. Donald, whoever that is. Again, this signed copy was not expensive, not being one of his better known Wargames books and one on an obscure Victorian conflict.

That distinctive Featherstone signature – in pink felt tip.

As well as Richard Tennant, I have come across another of Featherstone’s early circle, one who is still blogging:

Rod’s Wargaming is by another still blogging member of this early wargames conference / community, Rod MacArthur has on his website some great pictures of 1960s Airfix conversions that sometimes involved Featherstone’s mould making help:

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com

A little bit of Featherstone wargaming history, all still going strong and in use – I’m sure both Don and Dick would be pleased!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 22 December 2020

Donald Featherstone’s Birthday!

If the father of modern wargaming were still alive, Donald Featherstone would be 101 today – Happy  Birthday!

Last year I marked his centenary with several blogposts including:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/donald-featherstones-centenary/

I was delighted to discover this year, after reading recent articles in Miniature Wargames, that Don Featherstone’s collection of figures still exists – some colonials are in regular gaming use in the UK and the rest with his manuscripts and books can be seen in the collection of Daniel Borris in Canada. They can be visited by appointment. Daniel has filmed and photographed much of the collection to put them online on his website: https://www.borrisfeatherstone.com

Toying with some eraser merchant ships I revisited Featherstone’s Naval War Games and noticed another interesting connection:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/featherstone-and-co-naval-war-games/

Celebrating some of the “old guard” of the hobby, one of the figure makers that Don admired and contributors to Don’s Naval War Games book – Jack Alexander –  is 90 years old and still actively modelling ships.

I always admired the Jacklex figures seen in Donald Featherstone’s books but had no idea where to buy them from in the 1980s, or if they were still made. His beautiful  Jacklex figures are still available from Spencer Smith Miniatures and so a few maybe added this year to complement my vintage Airfix figures, just as Jack intended in their size and design. http://www.spencersmithminiatures.co.uk/html/jacklex.html

There is also a delightful blog about Jacklex, well worth reading and following.
http://jacklex.blogspot.com

Another excellent Featherstone related and still active blog is by Rod MacArthur, one of Don’s original 1960s young opponents in Southampton, His blog Rod’s Wargaming features some great Airfix conversions, some like the Zulus cast or aided by Don himself.

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/about/

Happy Birthday Donald F. Featherstone! His simple book War Games (1962) is still one of my two Desert Island gaming books. I like the simplicity of his rules including his Close Wars appendix. https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/

Still inspiring many gamers today!

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on 20th March 2019.

Rod MacArthur’s early Airfix conversions

I have enjoyed looking at the 1960s and 1970s Airfix conversions on this excellent website by Rod MacArthur, a retired professional British Army  engineer officer.

Rod  has been involved since the early days of British wargames in Southampton in the 1960s and  played against Don Featherstone in that amazing attic room, also played against Tony Bath, etc etc.

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/about/

Rod has posted photos of  some of his imaginative 1960s Airfix conversions of British troops from the Airfix Guards Colour Party and Airfix Red Indians converted and recast as Zulus (in a latex mould made for him by no less than Donald Featherstone!)

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/horse-musket/zulu-war/

His website also shows some nicely converted or repainted Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood figures into some great Agincourt / medieval figures. https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com/ancients/medieval/

Rod MacArthur’s is definitely a website / blog well worth watching.

I found his site interesting as I was thinking about some of the Airfix paint conversions that I blogged about last year in my Retro  “Stuck in the Airfix 1960s” Blogpost –

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/airfix-british-redcoat-infantry-1960/

I am thinking of adding  some more figures to my favourites, my simple Zulu War British Redcoat paint conversions from first version British Infantry Battle Group. I have yet to finish my Airfix Indians repainted as Zulus, “Farsunds of Em …” (well, a few dozen).

 

Airfix Redcoats

Airfix Blue Guards

Army Red, Army Blue, hostile natives, never fails.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 28 August 2017.