Achtung Schweinehund!

A bit of an admission, in my youth I was a wargamer. That's historical wargaming, not the Orcs and Space Marine type, which is quite different - as Harry Pearson says in his book Achtung Schweinehund!. It's reminiscences and anecdotes from his life as a gamer mixed with the history of wargaming - from Louis XIV to Martin Scorsese, HG Wells to Jerome K Jerome. If you were once, or still are, a wargamer then read this book. It's a bit unstructured and never quite gives enough detail, but it gets to the core. Like in this passage...

In my view, the aspect of wargaming that was most like real war was that it was never quite as thrilling as you hoped and imagined it would be. The little men looked splendid, the terrain was lovely, the strategic planning was great fun, but once the fighting started it all descended into a chaotic slogging match.

<snip>

The aspect of wargaming that still excited me as much as it had done when I clapped eyes on those figures in Malcolm's loft when I was twelve was the sight of the figures on the table before the action commenced. But if you skipped the battle, what was the point of the figures? If you took the wargame out of wargaming, what you were left with was a collection. And I couldn't do with that.

Quite right. Used to spend hours setting up the scenery and troops.