When is a book not a Book

By no means all of the Military Book market  consists of wargamers . Indeed, experience would tend to tell me that the 'wargaming end'  is only a small part of that market. Other sectors might include Militaria collectors, military modellers and simple student of military history, by no means all of whom spend their leasure time fondling little metal and plastic men .... and tanks.

This caused me to wonder how many wargamers actually collect 'serious' military history books. I know plenty who do  but I also know  of chaps whose main source of 'knowledge' is a rulebook or an army list.  Though  all of the Tantobie Warfare and Tactical Society have respectable libraries of their own. Now in the current climate are  games rules and army lists  'books' in other than  mere physical appearence? Ater all their function is closer to that of an instruction manual!

 Army lists can be the  worst- and I speak as someone who has written a few. At their worst they are like the instructions in a box of flatpack furniture with bits missing on the instruction sheet - despite the fact that you have one of those bits in your hand but no idea how it fits in. You know the army had unit A in it but the author of the list has either denied it exists or had missed it out, yet you have one there in front of you. Worse yet is when these lists are tailored to a specific 'game', as we are now seemingly supposed to refer to rules.Now just to be clear I am only talking about historical wargaming here where the parameters are the  specific historical period (or should be)  rather than some game designers flight of fantasy here, should he so choose said designer can go completly off piste.

 This train of thought was begun as I re-read a  rather useful 2 volume set  from my collection of regimental histories. This one being the Gordon Highlanders. I picked it up at a show about a decade or so ago and it is very detailed about such useful stuff as regimental strengths on a given date- so you are not in the least tied to the so-called 'standard' unit'  if you choose not to be, as many such histories have that kind of detail. This history also covers the services of the regiment including some of the lesser known battles of the Peninsular War  , especially those of the later stages in the Pyranees and southern France. Oman of course also covers them as does Napier and while I have both on my shelves Oman consists of seven or so large volumes and Napeir 6 smaller ones. The print in the latter being a bit on the tiny side these days ! 

One of my smaller bookshelves in what I laughingly call my 'studio'

There is also the point that Rules and Army Lists have very little style about them and none of that all important- at least to me- but indefineable, atmosphere. Why should they? They are instruction manuals. They do not try to conjour, in the minds eye , the sight of the Scots Greys and Gordons on that day in June 1815 or Piper Findlater winning his VC 82 years later and half a world away ,as his regiment stormed Dargai heights (that bit is in volume2). No, that is not their function, they are simply the bare -often very bare- bones of what we do. Instructing perhaps but not really informing and certainly not entertaining.

This does not mean they are without use- of course we need the rules and some may choose army lists rather than actual history.  They can be a very useful starting point , though I can't recall any set of army lists I have including anything as useful as a bibliography. 

I'm told that there is a part of the hobby known as 'list building'. It seems to pertain to those fellas who use  arcane points systems as part of the intruction manual in order  to build their armies- something I have not done since about 1984. Too dry and fiddle-farty for my taste, though I appreciate it has its uses especialy  if you are a competition player. To be fair an injection of eye-candy  into rules and army lists had had something of a beneficial effect but even the prettiest can only at best graduate  from instruction manual to 'picture book'.

Another one in the 'studio' 

The current fashion for publishing multiple army lists for a given set of rules can be somewhat annoying especially when the core rules are 30 quid a pop and army lists a similar price-  I wonder if  you have the cash to buy the armies after that little lot. If you are not careful you have dropped a ton  or two without noticing. I say that speaking as a bloke who has done exactly that with real books but never with mere rules or army lists. After all if you have the books you don't need the army list , you can make your own using actual history. It might be a bit harder in parts but it is a lot more fun.

Another boolshelf- with regimental history and other useful stuff.

So no they are not really books. They are a useful adjuct to them perhaps similar in physical form and sometimes even vaguely attractive but without the depth or life of the real thing.

And you know ... one day I will get around to putting them all in subject order.. one day.