A new book by Rick Priestley and John Lambshead is on pre-order through Amazon. This looks like an interesting read, one that I probably will look into. Rick Priestley is responsible for the games that we all love here, Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.
About the Authors
Rick Priestley is the world’s most successful and best known wargame designer. He has created many professional wargames including Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, which together have outsold all other wargames by a huge margin. He is also the author of successful sets of historical wargame rules for several periods, including Black Powder and Hail Caesar. Dr John Lambshead designed the award-winning computer game, Frederick Forsythe’s Fourth Protocol, which was the first icon driven game, was editor of Games & Puzzles and Wargames News, and has written a number of wargaming for Games Workshop. He is now a novelist writing SF&F and is published by Bane Books. He is now working on the officially licensed Dr Who gaming rules.
The one issue I have the pricing of the book, is that it is 5 cents below the free shipping mark. This makes the book a little more expensive than it needs to be. I think my other concern of course would be how much of the book is written by whom. Well, it's not out for a while, November 30th, so there is plenty of time to see where this goes.
Tabletop Wargames: A Designers' and Writers' Handbook Paperback – November 30, 2016 $24.95
by Rick Priestley (Author), John Lambshead (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1783831480/ref=pe_11480_171445740_emwa_email_title_1
Veteran gamer and rules writer John Lambshead has teamed up with the legendary Rick Priestley, creator of Games Workshop’s phenomenally successful Warhammer system, to create this essential guide for any would-be wargame designer or tinkerer. Rick and John give excellent advice on deciding what you want from a wargame and balancing ‘realism’ (be it in a historical or a fantasy/sci-fi context) with playability. They discuss the relative merits of various mechanisms (cards, dice, tables) then discuss how to select and combine these to handle the various essential game elements of turn sequences, combat resolution, morale etc to create a rewarding and playable game that suits your tastes and requirements