Air War Games by Donald Featherstone: A Review

If you are a tabletop gamer and haven't heard of Donald F. Featherstone, take a minuter now to look him up. Born in 1918, Donald is considered one of the Fathers of tabletop gaming, and is responsible for establishing many of the concepts and standardizations in table top gaming rules.

Over his career, he published around 10 different books about miniatures games. Many of these titles have withstood the test of time and been reprinted, like Skirmish War Games... Others such as Air War Games have not.

Donald F Featherstone (Right)

The biggest problem with Air War Games comes down to this: It was published in 1965. It's more than 50 years out of date at this point and many of the problems that Donald seems to be tackling just don't exist in miniatures air gaming.

For example, where he recommends you set up your game around the room, using furniture of different heights to simulate the differing altitude of planes, or elaborate set-ups (such as several glass sheets hanging above each other with hexes painted on them), the modern gamer has better options. These days most people simply use a dial to represent altitude, or like JADE a combination of dial and a telescoping rod with a magnetic top (From Corsec Engineering's Omni-Stand line). And in terms of gaming surfaces there are plenty of companies (like Hotz Mats) that make perfect back drops for any setting.

So while remaining a really interesting piece of gaming history, and certainly something I enjoy having on my shelf, don't expect to be using Air War Games to host your next board game night any time soon. That being said it worth a read to get a sense of just how obscure tabletop gaming was, and to hear about some of the ridiculous lengths players went to to get their table tops set up. Be thankful that we don't live in such barbaric times.

Written by: Andrew Gregory