Hellwig's Conquest from Diluvian Games and Nate Dray

What and why this book?

Hellwig's Conquest: A Tactical Game Based on Chess 

by Dr. Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig. 

A book translated from German by Nate Dray. 

ISBN: 978-0-9822892-5-9

 

If one digs into the origins of current conventions employed in the design and play of wargames, one inevitably runs into the name Dr. Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig. It’s my contention that the modern wargame as we know and recognize it today really originated with the publication of his book Versuch eines aufs Schachspiel gebaueten taktischen Spiels von zwei und mehrern Personen zu spielen in Leipzig in 1780. (At the time, you could probably also pick up a copy around Christmastime in Brunswick.) Either way, I'm pretty sure, in broad terms, that it's the first published set of game rules that make a serious attempt to model actual warfare and force players to confront more realistic real world decisions and difficulties relating to military action, putting players in the general's seat, so to speak. Before Hellwig, wargames were essentially just variants of chess, pachisi or Go.

 

The original book is not written in the German language as we know it today. This book was penned long before the formation of the modern German state and before anything like a standardized German language existed. Old-fashioned terms and ideas abound in this document and the original was printed in a really funky Gutenbergy typeface that was already long out of fashion even in 1780. Concepts of organization and presentation are primitive as well. Tables, lists, charts and reference can be somewhat difficult to parse.

And players are expected to make or have made 900 playing pieces and the game boards themselves. Actually, players are expected to have them made by craftsman along with a specially made table with compartments for storing the pieces and extendable shelves for holding lamps at the four corners of this custom table made exclusively for this game. If you want to avoid the tiresome task of setting up the game for yourself, the rules tell you that a competent domestic servant can be taught to set it up for you given patient instruction.

But most importantly, this book, when first published, was a first for many things. Primarily, it’s a popular press wargame book with an honest attempt at making a realistic warfare simulation. Making a board game that deals with and models things like line of sight, terrain, artillery and supply was completely new, novel and unprecedented at the time of publication as far as I can tell.