Customer Reviews

Achtung Schweinehund!: A Boy's Own Story of Imaginary Combat

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I bought this book expecting a book about wargame rules but I was not disappointed by the entertainment value. It is a hilarious autobiography of a wargamer combined with a potted history of wargaming. The author is obviously highly knowledgeable of many kinds of literature as well as the more obscure history of toy soldier collecting individuals from as early as the sixteenth century. However, it is the tales of his childhood that make me laugh. Asking for 'trifles' when he meant rifles, abandoning a GI Joe in a barrel of water to be eaten by man-eating tadpoles were among the stories. His observations about war comics were also funny. The eccentric collectors and wargamers he met provide many laughs. One that stays in my mind is the wargamer who stored his metal armies in his attic until a regiment fell through, narrowly missing his sleeping wife. As a life long collector of toy soldiers I appreciate his enjoyment and absorption in his hobby.

Mr Pearson's book is a witty and entertaining look at a decidedly niche hobby - collecting, painting and gaming tabletop battles with miniature soldiers. Along the way he touches on related topics, such as re-enactors, boardgaming and role-playing games, but at the heart this is exploration of a hobby and its often quirky practitioners, as well as a personal confession of sorts from a man who both enjoys the activity, but is also acutely aware of how it appears to those on the outside. It's this ability to see things from both sides, as the avid and meticulous army builder looking for just the right figures for a 25mm Napoleonic unit to be painted in the precise regimental colors, and the observer who recognizes many wargamers as obsessive collectors, mired in military minutiae and often a bit on the anti-social side, that makes the book interesting.

Pearson is a Brit, and at least in my impression, wargaming in the UK is mainly with miniatures, small model soldiers and vehicles, usually cast on metal or plastic and coming in a variety of scales, with 10 - 28mm figures being the most popular sizes. These are organized into units appropriate for the period and used to fight battles on the tabletop using dice, yardsticks to measure range and movement, and detailed (often very detailed) rules. Done right, with well-crafted miniature terrain and exquisitely painted figures, these battles can be quite the spectacle. But the battles themselves are just the fruition of long process of finding and purchasing the right figures and the many hours spent painting and fitting them out. For many, the meat of the hobby, is in the preparation of their armies rather than actually using them in a game, and this is well borne out in the book.

Along with anecdotes both personal and about his gaming friends and aquaintances (most of whom are more idiosyncratic and amusing than Pearson himself), the author gives a nice history of the role of toy soldiers have played in the past and the astonishing list of individuals who have collected soldiers and used them for games. Perhaps it's not surprising to find kings and statesmen here, but figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson and the Brontes (the Brontes?!) are unexpected.

In the US, wargaming takes on more of a boardgame nature, with maps and cardboard chits for units, and again often very detailed rules. Pearson touches a little on board wargames, such as popular titles like Risk, Stratego and Escape from Colditz, but the military simulation games of companies like Avalon Hill and Simulations Publications Inc from the '60s and '70s that defined wargaming for many. This is no failing on the book's part, since presumably such games were not that important in the author's experience, but it certainly renders the book less useful as a history of wargaming.

But that's not what this book is about. The subtitle tells all: this is a personal account of one boy's (and the boy lives on in the main who writes the book) experience. And by that measure, this is a fine book indeed.

The worst thing about this book is that it ends!

Harry Pearson's autobiographical musings about growing up in Northern England during the 60s and 70s are hysterical and insightful. Although some of the references will be lost on American audiences, anyone who grew up in England between 1965-1980 will instantly recognize the comics, books, TV shows, toy soldiers and wargames that Pearson refers to.

The book was an absolute delight to read, particularly for those of us who lived through the 60s and 70s alongside the author. If you ever read Commando comics or Leo Kessler novels or played with Airfix toy soldiers or model airplanes, this book is a warm and wonderful trip down memory lane.

I enjoyed this book, Harry Pearson and I are roughly the same age and experience toys and growing up at the same time. Though my toys where slightly different as I grew up in the US.

The book is filled with tidbits on the history of wargaming, and game design mixed in with Harry's personal experience with playing wargames, and being with wargamers.

Mr Pearson's experience of fellow wargamers is a little less pleasant. He seems to enjoy the concept of wargaming more than the actual games. Thus he has become a figure collector, not a player.

But still a good read, and the parts of his boyhood play adventures and becoming a wargamer are lots of fun. Some of his descriptions of toys and their backgrounds had me in tears.

The book gets less interesting, when he decides he dislikes the people (other than a very select few) he has to play with, and descends into a bit of a rant about people who play games (like himself). But he makes his peace and finds his niche in the hobby.

Harry Pearson's "Achtung Schweinhund!" is the first book in at least a decade that I have been unable to put down (INSERT DROLL COMMENT ABOUT TREACLE-COVERED FINGERS HERE). I received this little jewel in yesterday's mail and figured I'd glance at it after dinner. I finished it in my office at 04:00 this morning; which is just as well, as, had I attempted to read a little of it in bed, my dear wife would have strangled me about 02:00 for keeping her awake with my laughter, after which she would have been discovered cackling over my dead body as she read the book.

"Achtung Schweinhund!" is the best anthropological study of the wargamer and associated members of this subculture--outgroup?--that I've run across (that it is the only such is completely beside the point). It is a book that should be given to any prospective spouse of a wargamer...though this might lead to the species' extinction as any normal woman will, having read it, take to her heels. Wargamers (as opposed to role-playing-game [RPG] players) are a family spread over a spectrum of closely related interests--a slightly dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. Unlike RPG players who often are unaware of any history that predates their experience, wargamers and their ilk are steeped in the knowledge of the ages. Who else could tell one almost immediately the colors of facings on the uniform of the Bavarian 14th Regiment of Foot, when purple edgings first appeared on the military cloaks of Roman officers, or how much fodder by weight a cavalry horse requires per day while on campaign? To say that they live in the past is only partly correct; parts of them are also found in the present and future.

A personal admission: Though I, myself, have not wargamed in some years (finding a group or even one opponent in this area is not unlike finding a Saturn V parked at the airport), I did catch myself staring at the cover illustration as I attempted to decide which model of British tank was forcing the German armored car over the cliff--the car is a Leichter Panzerspahwagen SdKfz 222, by the way. Hmm, maybe it's a genetic condition.

Harry Pearson has written an absolute charmer, which had me fondly reminiscing about my youth and frequently laughing out loud as I read it. Although I'm an American and this book is clearly written from a British man's perspective of his youth, there were numerous stories that I could relate to. Harry's addiction to miniature wargaming figures (toy soldiers) hilariously shines through, and his grand theme of "it's not just the toys and the games themselves, it's the friends you make along the way that really matter" successfully hits home in my opinion. What a fun read. I highly recommended this book, especially if you're a lover of toy soldiers, wargames miniatures, a modelling hobbyist, or military buff.

What a treat! I have not had that much fun reading a book and re-living my own experiences as a young and old wargamer in a long time. This book is for anyone who loves wargaming, miniature, board or collecting. It is fun and imaginative- kudos.