Origin Stories and Gary Gygax’s preface to H. G. Wells’ Little Wars

Following up my previous post on the influence on Donald Featherstone of H.G. Wells’ Little Wars rules of 1913 and how the worlds of fantasy gaming and historical wargaming developed and occasionally overlapped through the 1960s and 1970s, I wanted to read again and think about Gary Gygax’s 2004 foreword to a reprint of Little Wars.

Gary Gygax’s origin story as a miniatures gamer seems similar to many of ours of the Airfix generation that I have read online or Harry Pearson’s Achtung Schweinhund. However not many of us would go on like Gygax to co-author and develop Dungeons and Dragons!

His Wikipedia summary biography mentions:

In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval  warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules  (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, he and Dave Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax’s Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child.

Gygax, Arneson, Kaye – all have Wikipedia biographies and their role in the cretinous of this game is widely covered in many of the footnotes to their Wikipedia entries. US Games designer George Phillies was also somehow involved. https://users.wpi.edu/~phillies/

If you don’t own a copy of the 2004 Little Wars reprint, the Foreword text by Gary Gygax can be found at:

https://d-infinity.net/posts/sponsored/gary-gygaxs-foreword-hg-wells-little-wars

Here is the Foreword written by Gary Gygax, creator of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, for the Skirmisher Publishing LLC edition of H.G. Wells’ Little Wars 2004.

Gygax writes: “Being offered the honor of writing this introductory piece was something impossible for me to refuse. Not only am I a fan of the science fiction works of H.G. Wells, but I am also a military miniatures buff familiar with his wargaming rules, the material contained in this book, Little Wars.”

I remember seeing this curious and striking photo cover design of the 1970 reprint featuring a vintage Britain’s style cavalryman, similar to ones that Wells would have used in Little Wars.

Gygax wrote about the Isaac Asimov foreword to this 1970 Little Wars reprint. I only saw the 1970 reprint once in a local branch library (it always seemed to be borrowed and out) but I was very taken with its charming marginal line drawings by J.R. Sinclair. I don’t remember noting the Asimov foreword (mentioned in the front cover) and hadn’t read his work at the time, but it must have made sense to have such an endorsement by one famous science fiction author to another.

With no easily available Little Wars originals or reprints in the 70s and 80s, I picked up the background rules to Little Wars when it was covered in the 1982/83 Wargames Manual article in Brian Carrick’s Big Wars article. The only further reference to Little Wars that I could find in Featherstone’s War Games which I could find in the branch library as a youngster. It was also the background to F.E. Perry’s Second Book Of War Games which I bought, but didn’t find the Little Wars based First Book Of War Games.

Gygax: “Furthermore, and as icing on the cake, is that Isaac Asimov, an author I much admired, wrote the forward to the 1970 reprint of this book. Isaac and I were going to be collaborators on a series of books based on a science fiction feature film, but the movie never got into production. By writing this prefatory essay, I am following in Isaac’s footsteps, so to speak, and paying him homage in posthumous fashion.”

Wells’ thoughts on Big Wars and Little Wars on the ethics of wargaming, something that I remember was around in the Cold War 1980s, resurfaced in the first response by many gamers to the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Gygax: “When defending the hobby of playing military miniatures games, I have often quoted or paraphrased Wells’ statements — as I do now — regarding the fact that miniature soldiers leave no widows and orphans, and that if more people were busy fighting little wars, they might not be involved in fighting big ones.”

Gygax: “There is no question that Wells wrote a ground-breaking work when he penned Little Wars, which started the hobby of military miniatures war-gaming. Had World War I not come hard on the heels of its first publication in 1913, military miniatures game play might have gained a far larger audience than it did back then.”

“As it was, the big war made interest in the book about little ones virtually disappear. For years, Little Wars was known only to a select few, mainly military miniatures gamers in the United Kingdom. Their pursuit and development of the hobby was considerable, but details of that activity remained relatively obscure elsewhere.”

Gygax goes on to describe how he emerged from the childhood soldier “shoot em up” games that we probably all did – matchstick guns, marbles, etc. – then made the discovery of rules.

Gygax: “My own experience with creating rules for wargaming began inauspiciously. I had no idea of the existence of Little Wars or the military miniatures gaming hobby back in the early 1950s, when my friend Don Kaye and I thought we could devise rules for playing with toy soldiers — my extensive collection of World War II figurines and tank models, and the many 54 mm Britians figurines from varying periods I had collected since that war had ended.” 

“Unlike the wise Wells — who used toothpick missiles when he fired his miniature artillery pieces — we employed ladyfinger firecrackers, fuses lit, and those explosives proved to be detrimental to the toy soldiers. Casualties were high!”

Insert your own memories of decimating Airfix figures and planes with air guns, firecrackers and flames. Nothing so sacrilegious happened in my house!

Gygax writes about his childhood dissatisfaction about the randomness of coins rather than dice to resolve combat or Melee:

Gygax: “Worse still, our combat system — a coin flip — turned out to be even less satisfactory. It was boring. As typical of teenage boys, we gave up on the idea rather than trying other methods of resolving small arms fire and hand-to-hand combat. The toy soldiers were stored away, and we went on to other games.”

“What a revelation it was when another friend loaned me his copy of Little Wars in the late 1960s. By that time, I was a board wargame devotee and I had played a few tabletop games with military miniatures. To read the rules the author had established for resolving combat made me want to slap my forehead because we had not thought of them. What a joy it was to see the pictures of grown men in suits, with collars and ties, crawling about on the floor amidst toy soldiers as my friends and I had done as boys.”

“No wonder, then, that the book Wells wrote managed to create a whole new hobby in the face of the Great War and its aftermath. Nothing would do but playing the original wargame as set forth in the book. This was accomplished with fellow game hobbyist — and thereafter a two-time co-author with me of military miniatures rules books — Jeff Perren. Jeff and I fought several battles, and his accuracy with toothpick artillery rounds proved devastating. Even in defeat I loved the game.”

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

Published in 1971, the Wikipedia entry mentions: “The first edition of Chainmail included a fantasy supplement to the rules. These comprised a system for warriors, wizards, and various monsters of nonhuman races drawn from the works of Tolkien and other sources“. Chainmail is still available online.

Gygax: “Consequently, Little Wars influenced my development of both the Chainmail miniatures rules and the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. For example, it established the concept of a burst radius for cannon rounds, an idea that was translated into both the Chainmail catapult missile diameters and the areas of effect for Fireballs in D&D.”

“Wells’ shooting/melee rules were simple but not particularly realistic, however, so wargamers soon developed more detailed means for resolving such combat, and I used the later developments in the hobby in those regards.”

Pictures from my War Of The Worlds blogpost 2019 https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/h-g-wells-little-wars-of-the-worlds/

H.G. Wells’ influential role on Gary Gygax is acknowledged, not just in Little Wars, but as a pioneering science fiction author of The Time Machine, The War Of the Worlds, The Shape Of Things To Come etc., along with Jules Verne.

Gygax: “Beyond Little Wars, Wells’ treatment of subterranean humans in the Time Machine certainly reinforced my concepts of underground adventure areas other than dungeons (as did Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and a number of later works of imaginative fiction).”

“While military miniatures rules have come a long way since Little Wars was first published in 1913, the simple game presented in this book remains an unquestionably enjoyable one. Furthermore, when you read the work you will see that its basic concepts remain in many of today’s games. This book will give you the knowledge that there is strong fellowship between Wells and his wargaming companions and the military miniatures gamers of today. I predict that 100 years from now, readers will experience the same warm feeling across the centuries.” 

“There is nothing more I can say — other than to enjoy your ride in this gaming time machine!”

Gary Gygax, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, March 2004

*

Gygax died in 2008 aged 70; both Dave Arneson and Don Kaye have also passed away. Gone but definitely not forgotten …

Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN, 30 April 2023

Happy International or InterGalactic Star Wars Day – May the 4th be with you!

How did your games and world change in 1977 / 1978?

Cross posted from my Man Of TIN Blog Two

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/05/04/may-the-fourth-be-with-you-international-or-intergalactic-star-wars-day-2022/

Intergalactic Women’s Day, Space Princeses and the end of FEMbruary 2022

Airfix Space Warriors and TimMee Galaxy Laser Quest Figures … but how to paint them? Bare legs or leggings in Outer Space?

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/03/08/fembruary-female-figure-number-four-1970s-space-princess-on-the-painting-table/

Crossposted from Man Of TIN Blog Two to mark International Women’s Day and the end of FEMbruary.

Airfix 1981 54mm Space Warriors Samurai Robots?

Airfix’s very odd 54mm Space Warriors set from 1981 has this Samurai inspired robot figure. First blue based one painted by me as a youngster in 1981, the rest finally painted last weekend!

Complete with ‘Message from Space’ (the Japanese Star Wars) and Kurosawa Samurai movie inspiration (just like George Lucas then!)

Crossposted / Read more at my sister blog ‘Man of TIN Blog Two’:

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/airfix-1981-space-warriors-samurai-robots/

What will 2022 bring?

Anyone else made any foolish unachievable resolutions for this year’s gaming?

Battling Bronte Sisters (Bad Squiddo 28mm Little Wolves Amazons) meet 25mm Prince August Homecast cavemen boggarts. As close as I will get to Silver Bayonet?

*

It’s that time of the year when New Year’s Resolutions are optimistically made … but maybe not in this house.

My New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions for 2021 were kept deliberately vague …

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/new-gaming-year-irresolutions-2021/

but even then my vaguest plans for New Gaming Year NGY 2021 often went awry, mostly due to COVID.

The local village Spring Flower and Craft show 2021 never happened so no #FEMBruary figures from Bad Squiddo painted as planned but I did paint some later in the year – The Battling Bronte sisters.

Thanks to Covid levels, I never made it to the Woking 2021 54mm Little Wars Revisited Games Day when it finally happened. Covid dependent of course, but hopefully I might make it in 2022 with my Boy Scouts and snowball fighters who need more gaming time https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/847/woking-games-saturday-march-correct.

My local history research project talk on WW2 in my local area (as a fundraiser) was postponed by COVID from autumn 2021 to late May 2022.

I think the NGY Irresolutions 2020 will still stand after a year or two interrupted but who knows what might happen in 2022?

New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions 2022

In no particular order

1. Cataloguing Peter Laing 15mm figures as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the now out-of-production Peter Laing figures, possibly the first 15mm figures when they launched in October 1972.

https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com

As well as cataloguing what I have over the next ten months, fellow members of the Peter Laing collectors circle on MeWe have been helping me identify figures and supplying photos of figures I don’t have. Then there’s painting and basing more of my unpainted Laing figure stash and getting in some more 15mm skirmish games?

Peter Laing 15mm Chasseurs d’Alpins (WW1 Range) complete with walking sticks!

2. England or Cornwall invaded – Variations on Operation Sealion / Leon Marino

Still playing around with skirmish ideas as part of my Look Duck and Varnish Blog ongoing Operation Sealion Home Guard games, but also found out more about the WW1 ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ or Volunteer Training Corps, good for future VTC Wide Games and Victorian / Edwardian / WW1 era ‘what if’ games.

Arma-Dads Army! 1590s Home Guard Elizabethan Muster of conversions and ECW figures against the Spanish Fury, Chintoys Conquistadors and pound store Pirates …

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/arma-dads-army-elizabethan-home-guard-1580s-1590s-operacion-leon-marino/

3. More Close Little Wars forest skirmishes and Close Little Space Wars Games in 54mm … I didn’t get a backyard garden galaxy game in this year.

My lovely Bold Frontiers cardboard trees didn’t get enough of an outing in 2021…

Two Britain’s Ltd. broken Scots charging – a favourite pose – with part repaired rifles, two more figures from the Waifs and Strays group of figures 2021 – “Waifs and Strays” sounds like it should be a Victorian Regimental nickname.

4. I look forward to some more enjoyable tinkering with 54mm repairs of broken lead figures to add to various units. Over the years I have been stashing away battered and broken figures from various donations – cowboys, Indians, redcoats, Scots and Khaki figures – along with the odd intriguing figure bought online.

Arrived last year and put away for Christmas – some very heavy, solid lead and fairly paint distressed Terraton 54mm-ish German semiflats to repair and rebase. Indians, redcoats, trees and farm animals …

5. What else might happen?

Weather permitting maybe will even get some more home casting done outdoors?

Pound Store Plastic figures, Early War Miniatures 1940 Range (for Svenmarck invaded!) and vintage Airfix OOHO figures to restore or rebase for some skirmish games.

More time for Bronte ImagiNations?

My Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Snowball Games need attention!

My skateboarders could do with painting!

Not going to run out of fun things to do …

What are your New Gaming Year plans?

I hope that your gaming plans for 2022 go agreeably awry as well.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, NYE 31 December 2021 / 1st January 2022

Steampunked Pound Store Plastic Warriors or WW2 tankers?

More strange plastic tat penny figures lovingly painted and based in gloss toy soldier style.

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Soldiers blog:

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/steampunk-pound-store-plastic-warriors-or-ww2-tankers/

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 23 August 2020

International Star Wars Day May the Fourth (Be With You)

Because there is only one space princess…

Even the recent gutsy female leads have an element or echo of Leia in the form of Rey lead character (Daisy Ridley) of the last three Star Wars films VII to IX and Jyn Erso in Rogue One (Felicity Jones), probably my favourite recent Star Wars standalone film.

Airfix Star Warriors space princess vs the real one …


Lots of space related postings over the last four very odd years including the gift of some 54mm plastic American Tim Mee Galaxy space figures from Alan Gruber which are now finally on my painting table.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/29/54mm-repurposed-space-figures

And the whole Flash Gordon thing in 54mm & 32mm Pound Store figure conversions …

Where my non-Airfix pocket money went in the 1970s. Month’s pocket money each … I still have them today!

Previously on International Star Wars Day

2019 https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/farewell-chewbacca-may-the-4th-be-with-you/

2018 https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/march-reading-minor-galactic-epic-fail/

2017 https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/happy-international-star-wars-day-may-the-4th-be-with-you/

2016 https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/25/in-a-garden-far-far-away/

Close Little Star Wars rules Back Yarden game 2016 Airfix / Star Wars figure mash up

Here’s looking to the next Star Wars related day … Geek Pride Day May 25th. (Incidentally this is always my Man of TIN Blogaversary, my 4th coming up!)

If you know the date connection between Geek Pride Day and Star Wars, you win your Geek Points.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/happy-geek-pride-day-and-its-my-3rd-blogaversary-25th-may-2019/

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, May the Fourth 2020

54mm Repurposed Space Figures

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Defenders of the Launch  Pad

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Attack of the Abutilons! Very odd poundstore thin tall plastic clone figure makes a good space invader (40 to 54mm)

I was lucky enough earlier this week to catch up in person with Alan The Tradgardmastre of the noble Duchy of Tradgardland on his Ducal travels. We met for a cup of coffee in a beer and coffee tavern  which is also a bookshop full of fashionable and political reading material. This sounds suitably Eighteenth Century for the Duke and the Duchy! Sadly it was too hot to wear a tricorne.

The Duke is a jolly nice chap, as you would expect from his blog (we were discussing A Very British Civil War at the time). We chatted variously about gaming, Toy Soldiers, interwar History, Scout Wide Games,  the events overlap of gaming and  re-enactors, the joy of simple rules and finished off talking about blogging and its many positive aspects such as the unusual openness about men’s mental health.

Unfortunately due to heavy traffic (too many stage coaches, ox waggons and sedan chairs on the road) I didn’t get a chance to make it home en route to pick up any ‘minis’ to show Alan such tiny delights as my new Phoenix 43  Scout trek cart or these space rangers to see if he recognised them. At least without ‘minis’ on the table, we were spared the curious, pitying  or withering looks of onlooking drinkers and customers.

Once Upon A Time in a Garden-axy Far Far Away …

In return for home-casting some metal Scout figures, Alan the Tradgardmastre of the Duchy of Tradgardland blog sent me via the Duchy Post Office last month some American Tim Mee plastic space figures and some odd homecast and lead figures.

Looking at the post war GI or paratroop  figures, I thought the unusual rifle and round helmet might make for some good space figures.

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In a garden-axy far far away … Strange slaty granite planet with alien plant forms and breathable atmosphere.

Just the ticket for a 1970s Airfix boy derailed by Star Wars and American 1970s Star Wars spin off sci-fi series …

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A bit of a stylish Flash Gordon / Dan Dare 1930s / 1950s Sci Fi thing going on here.

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Tim Mee Galaxy Laser Quest Space Officer and three metal troopers.

The heads on the kneeling metal figures look like they have possibly been swapped or repaired.

A grey painted tuppenny 2p base gives the kneeling or plastic figures some stability; grey I thought is more spaceship like, metallic and neutral than the traditional sap green or bright emerald green of many old toy soldiers. I wanted to keep that shiny gloss 1950s Dan Dare space figure / toy soldier look though.

Equally an army of these could be expendable minions for one of those James Bond style  private armies  guarding the inevitable secret base. I can see a link to the blue uniformed Polish Airfix Para clones featured from Etsy in my Christmas 2018 posts. https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/man-of-tin-advent-calendar-day-3-vintage-1980s-polish-toy-soldier-airfix-clones-on-etsy/

I can see an influence of the late Thor Sheil’s Homecast army men ‘Toy Soldier Art’: Berlin Greys and Air Police.

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http://www.thortrains.net/toysoldierart/colors3.htm

Anyway these three one-off 54mm figures  from Alan might give me the colour scheme for my ongoing 54mm space figure project, one that has worked in smaller Pound Store Plastic 32mm scale:

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Two of my 32mm space conversions of a Pound Store Plastic figure.

You can have too much of Khaki Grunge.  I like the chance to use some unusual bright colours from my collection of gloss acrylics – orange, sky blue, purple, gold, silver, red. I’m sure the Flash Gordon 1980 movie with the Queen soundtrack might have something to do with my space uniform bolder colour schemes.

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/poundland-space-marines-platoon-on-parade/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/little-green-men-pound-store-plastic-space-warriors/

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More of my blue colour uniform scheme space figure 32mm Pound Store Plastic Figures. Haven’t we seen that pose before and bigger?

You can see the 32mm Pound Store Plastic basis of the 40-50mm Pound Store pirate clone figure above:

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Kev Robertson over in Australia, a long term sci-fi fan, has used his his past engineering skills to great effect on his latest blog post. As well as his own new series of 35mm space figures with a retro feel, he has been busy with scratch built sci-fi vehicles, walkers and mechs. Pure Pound Store Plastic Warrior blog scrap
build material this! Always an interesting blog to browse,  Kev has blogged on various projects from sci-fi figures to railways.

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Kev Robertson’s space creations … 35mm Eureka space figures

https://dwarfenrealm.blogspot.com/2019/06/spaceguard-new-35mm-scratch-models.html

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At the moment I can’t comment on many people’s blog posts (obviously a settings thing) so I thought I would mention  Kev’s whole blog site.

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN on 29 June 2019

Le Toy Van classic space rocket and pound store space figures

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Little green men have stylishly landed … Le Toy Van Space rocket 

A classic space rocket to match my Pound Store Plastic figure space conversions. More pictures at – Crossposted from Pound Store Plastic Warriors https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/le-toy-van-space-rocket

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 16 April 2019