German bookshops, not like those at home

I went to Hamburg last week and was well intentioned to drop money on some books on the Befreiungskriege in 1813 as a context for the Waterloo campaign, the Prussian army of 1815 and how the remembrance of the Befreiungskriege and Leipzig in particular compare to that of Waterloo and the 100 Days Campaign. This is all the more interesting because Prussia (and some other German states) were the only ones involved in both battles.

Okay, five books on the Befreiungskriege is not all bad,
but the quality is mixed

The German brick & mortar book retail trade is dominated by the Thalia chain, which offers nice spacious stores with a reasonable general audience stock, including sizeable foreign language sections, and some local variance. However, their English language history section is as big as the German one.

The history sections of the independent book sellers I visited were comparable in size and scope, with the exception of the Heinrich Heine bookshop near Hamburg University, which was sadly renovating so it had only a small but interesting history selection on display. 

While the two big tomes are serious books for a broad audience, they differ in scope. Platthaus' a lively record of the actual battle, Krause's looking at the whole era of Prussian reform and ousting of French influence. Gabriele Hoffmann's book on the fate of Hamburg in 1813 and 1814 under the heel of Marshal Davout offers warm portraits of leading and not so leading participants through their private correspondence. Especially the contrast of Davout's harsh official commitment to the Napoleonic cause and his devoted but also business like relationship with his wife has struck me.

The two smaller books offer shorter introductions on the battle of Leipzig and Freiherr vom Stein. Von Stein was not only the reformer of Prussia after the 1806 defeat, but also the administrator of the areas 'liberated' by the allies in 1813. As such he had enormous influence on events behind the front in Germany, and the perspective of his regime will ahve influenced the choice of Dutch rebels against Napoleon in late 1813.

Colonial, Weimar and the mobilised nation

As a secondary objective, I was looking for books on WWI which, although in torpor, is still a topic a fancy taking on at some point in the future. But even a year before the commemoration starts, bookshops are eerily silent. Yes, lots of stuff on WWII, the Holocaust. Also lots of stuff on Prussia (general history) and Frederick the Great in particular. But the 1800-1923 period almost seems not to have happened.


Guido Knopp's history of Germany's overseas empire gives an interesting and well illustrated overview of Germany's 'Places in the Sun' in Africa and the Pacific, while also venturing into those promoting colonial expansion in Germany. The small Reclam series of cheap editions of classic books offers a bargain, which I could not resist an in depth history of the ill-fated Weimar Republic, which combined chronologic with thematic chapters. Lastly, Lutz Raphael's book looks at the social and political consequences of national mobilisation in Europe in both world wars and in between. Refreshing to have such a broad spectrum book from a non-Anglo-Saxon perspective.

I finally picked up a nice essay on the nature of war by French  philosopher Myriam Reveault d'Allonnes and an intreaguing book on the Art of Capitulation. It looks at the structure of society and war aims and how they determine the ending of wars. Could prove an interesting counterpoint to James Whitman's The Verdict of Battle and Russell Weigly's The Age of Battles. I have my problems with the concept of decisive battles, and these books give me some perspective.

Sadly, too little time

And finally a recommendation if you get to Hamburg and you're a military history buff and like in depth stuff on German (WW2) tanks, aircraft and ships. At the Bernhardt second hand book store you should have a field day. There´s much more than just WW2, but you catch my drift. It´s at Johanniswall 3, within 5-10 minutes walk from the Hauptbahnhof. Sadly not enough time and not on my subjects so I left empty handed.

So I was a bit disappointed with what I could pick up on my preferred subjects, but I ended up with a nice stack anyway.

The State of the Local Games Shop

Following on my post earlier this week about the two competing game shops in my hometown, I now realise that this has happened before in Utrecht where four game shops have existed within less than a hundred meters of each other for some years now (The Joker, Subcultures, Never Never Land and Labyrinth Fantasy). But Utrecht, with over 300,000 inhabitants, is a significantly bigger city than Leiden or Delft, with a wider regional audience. And still I wonder how these shops survive.

As Ray noted, we've been lucky to have so many excellent games shops nearby in the Netherlands. Not just the staple of Settlers and Carcassone, but also FFG, Phalanx and other foreign publishers. Delft (where I play) and Leiden (where I live), both with a population of just over 100,000 are not particularly big to host a boardgame store, although most comparable Dutch towns have a shop carrying board games. In the small towns they often also carry Warhammer stuff, while bigger cities have separate GW stores.

Over the last years I've seen established shop owners returning to the basics, which require much less storage space and product knowledge. From one of them I've gathered that turnover was slow, with quite a few games collecting dust on the shelves and thereby reducing profitability. But specialist sections like Warhammer and board games require a significant amount of time to keep track off. You have to know the new releases, rule changes, etc etc. to keep up with the generally knowledgeable customers.

And yet, we see new shops popping up now and again. As the established shops retreat from the fringes, new shop owners step up to fill the gaps such as Malifaux, Kings of War, Dystopian Wars and Hordes. Clearly some people still try to live the dream of making a living from their hobby but as John Curry, who is republishing some of the classic wargaming books, notes, making a living from wargaming is very hard.

Turnover of Dutch toy shops (Statistics Netherlands)

Looking at the turnover data for Dutch toy shops (a much broader category, so I don't know how relevant they are to this issue), it seems that form 2000 to 2008, the volume of turnover had increased by 50%, but prices dropped by a few percent. The price drop seems to have started even earlier, in 2002. Since 2008 both prices and volume have dropped for a combined loss of 18% of turnover. So times are tough for toy shops overall.

All this together indicates to me that the current economic crisis has greatly affected gaming retailers. Together with structural changes like competition from other pastimes (computer games) and online shops challenging shop prices it is clear that the long term viability of brick & mortar game shops is in doubt.

Accidents waiting to happen

I went out to buy myself a new hobby knife on Saturday so I can finally base my Saxons for field duty.

Along the way I also picked up the new Dixit expansion and X-Wing, spreading my custom over the two FLGS that Leiden now has. Both have been on my radar for a while so I decided not to do too much handwringing before buying them.

I have my doubts whether this town is big enough to support two FLGS. There is a bit of product differentiation, but competition still revolves around GW products and mainstream boardgames. I hope they can both survive, but I feel that both the business cycles and structural trends are going against brick & mortar shops.

Both try to buck the conditions by closer cooperation with local gaming groups and online presence. But speaking for myself, I no longer have the time nor the wish to seek out strangers in a shop in the evening.

Good luck to both the Vliegershop and Tafelridder anyway

A weekend's worth of gaming including Guards!Guards!

On Thursday I visited a game shop in Utrecht, which I hadn’t been before: Subcultures. I was really impressed! Apart from some Warhammer stuff, and the basic boardgames, it has a really good collection of miniatures (eg Hasslefree, Warlord, Perry, FOW) and attributes, and good selections of boardgames from FFG and other Ameritrash publishers. There was even some LARP equipment, rules and literature. I will be back there for sure.
I also picked up a leaflet on Army Painter and I think there’s still a lot stuff I can learn about painting miniatures. Even though the intention is to outsource miniatures painting, a bit of handwork might still be necessary at times.
But the best part of weekend was the gaming itself.

On Saturday night we played a great management game about a financial institution trying to balance growth and risks. The mechanisms were really good, the material outstanding and the challenge daunting. Although we managed to expand out portfolio by a great number of mergers, we were late in getting rid of our risky assets, so at some point the regulators stepped in. Great game.


After that we tried Guards!Guards!, one of the two Terry Pratchett games released late last year. This edition is published by Z-Man Games. The game looks good, materials are good quality, the references to the Pratchett books are nice and the plot of the game is believable in the context of the Discworld novels.
The third or fourth time I´d been overrun by the Luggage

Although the object of the game is obviously to draw in the large fanbase for all things Pratchett, the game is not easy. There’s quite a lot of rules and there’s a lot to take in: movement, actions, volunteers, spells, that need to be collected, brought back to Unseen University and then there’s a challenge to be surmounted. And there’s dragons and cultists, and the Luggage, and saboteurs. Pffew! Indeed the game did prove longish and hard work. A trained crew could do it in 2 hours, but we didn’t get it finished in 2 and a half.
Not an unqualified success, but it is the first of the Essen 2011 games I had not played. A first milestone therefor on that project.



In the mail I received Angola, a rerelease of the 1988 version by MMP. It’s a four player game covering the 1970s civil war in that country with inspiring faction names like MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA.

Also, there was Eight Banners and Green Flag, about the Ming/Manchu army of the 17th to 19th centuries. I am still intreagued by Eastern armies, but I have no handle to take them on at this time. So this one will be on the stack but will not get read soon. This is a publication from the Pike & Shot Society, of which I'm a long standing but passive member. I have no problem, however, subsidising them and their excellent magazine Arquebusier.

And finally, Too Fat Lardies has given July 30th for the release of Dux Brittaniarum! There's also suggestions that there may be a SAGA event in the Netherlands at some point, but that's in the "maybe, possibly' category as of yet. So get busy y’all!