Wargames Handbook, Third Edition: How to Play and Design Commercial and Professional Wargames (Paperback)

by James Dunnigan (Author)
Key Phrases: manual wargames, military wargamers, computerized wargames, Wargames Handbook, Third Edition, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The third edition of the classic work on playing and designing wargames.

About the Author
Jim Dunnigan is the founder of Simulations Publications, Inc and went on to design over a hundred games and publish over 500. He continues to advise the US government and foreign governments on wargame design and development.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse; 3 edition (January 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595155464
• ISBN-13: 978-0595155460
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #189,401 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a disappointment!, June 27, 2001

By A Customer

I have an earlier edition of this book, and thought that this one would bring things up to date. However, the author is stuck somewhere during the 1970's through the early 1990's. He apparantly hasn't heard of games like TOAW from TalonSoft, or the Close Combat series from Atomic. He even mentions GEnie (wastes several pages instructing his readers how to play online games there) and refers to PC's as "IBM compatible". The maps he uses in his example game have been reduced in size, and to top it all off, there's no index (no real need for it--there's not much useful information here). This book is just hopelessly out-of-date. I wish that I wouldn't have to give it any stars. I wonder if Dunnigan actually revised this book himself, or that the publisher hired some hack to do the job. TWO THUMBS DOWN!

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Need to judge on the correct criteria to appreciate it., February 10, 2002

By	Christopher Pope "Warhol fan-atic" (Singapore) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I think the other reviews for this book are a bit harsh. I've given this five start just to balance their rating, I would say it is worth about 3 1/2 stars really.
I will agree that the so called "update" of the book just isn't so, especially in the computer area, where it age certainly shows. However, from a history point of view, the book is great. If you keep in mind the author is one of the significant contributers to the paper wargame era on the 1980s, then you can enjoy this book for what it is.
By the way, it's nice to read the paper version, but the whole book is freely available on the internet at the author's website.
With so few books on wargaming available in print, this book is worth reading if you want to see how it was in the "good old days" of wargaming, when there was a large number of gamers. If you want up to date information on wargaming, you won't find it here.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wargame History Handbook, January 31, 2006

By	asdfghjkl - See all my reviews

I've read this book twice and think it is an excellent historical overview of the development of wargames. I've looked for other perspectives, but haven't found a better book. I particularly like the instructions for creating your own wargame and the sample wargame ("The Drive on Metz"). I highly recommend this book.