Hi A&A.org/forum,
a bit ago I was listening to a lot of H. G. Wells sci-fi audiobooks (he’s one of my favourite authors) and eventually came upon something he wrote in 1913. Its title’s a little long, being “Little Wars: A Game for Boys From Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and For That More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys’ Games and Books.”
Here’s an engraving from the thing:

I was floored to learn that my one of my favourite authors would take over the parlour and play fake war for an afternoon with his writer pals. The book actually describes how his war gaming developed, outlines the rules they invented, gives a play-by-play of several “campaigns” he fought, and closes with an appendix describing the history of “Kriegspiel.”
You can hear the whole thing for free on Librivox right here:
http://librivox.org/little-wars-by-hg-wells/
And of course Wikipedia has an entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars
Anyone hear of this before? Anyone play it? Any other fans of that novelist and thinker? Are there any other complex war games anyone knows of from that era? I’m all kinds of curious.
Yrs.,
R.