Weekender XLBS: Historical Wargaming & Will It Float?
July 29, 2018 by lloyd
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Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!!
Happy Sunday Beasts
Happy Sunday indeedy!
Re the accessibility of Historical, I think it comes down to one word – ‘Fidelity’. It’s then how obsessed the player/group are about being hi-fi vs what most of us are happy to play – i.e. lo-fi representations like Saga, FoW, Bolt-Action. The fidelity rating applies to different aspects: * Rules – hi-fi rules and systems attempt to recreate a lot of specialised units, weapons, leaders that capture the subtle differences found in the real world; lo-fi have much more generalised rules. In this respect one might consider some non-historical systems like 40k as hi-fi. * Situation – is this… Read more »
@Lloyd – you forgot to mention that for much of the time, the Greeks fought the Greeks! Different city states with their own traits as different factions (Sparta, Athens, Mastodons etc.).
How dare you jusy generalise them all as ‘Greeks’… only kidding, hope I haven’t spoilt your new interest 😉
Yeah totaly! Turns out @avernos has greeks, so we can get some greek on greek action in the future 🙂
who would’ve thought that I’d have an army of something lying about the place 😉
we just have to discuss basing. I’d say base for Kings of War, you heard Rufus from Blood and Plunder saying how much fun he has with it ^^
What part of Greek history??
dunno mate it’s all greek to me. I think I’d like to refight the Greek economy against the EU bankers though
And of course you’ll never get anyone saying “but you can’t fight my Horus Heresy era army with that!”, or “but there’s no way that my Gondor army would ever encounter you’re flavour of Orcs”…
Joyous day of the Sun!
From me to you and everyone!
Happy Sunday, good debate guys but Justin is bang on. Fantasy and Science fiction even GW have so many different options. But my exception was LofR through the films and magazine which sparked the interest.
Happy Sunday everyone, Its been a while since I have seen the team so polarised on a subject and I think we did far better in the forums this time than was on the XLBS hehe. Great to see the opinions of the community reflected by the team when taking on the same subject. I think Ben needs a special button that sends an electric shock to the team on camera. This would make for a great visual as well as allowing him to get their attention during strong opinion moments 🙂 I would suggest if you want to jump… Read more »
You see if Wyches float
I thought only Wyches floated….
it depends, the original gary morley sculpts are metal, but the newer “citadel design team because sculptors can’t be people” are plastic so they float probably
As long as the figure weighs the same as a duck it will float
because they’re made of wood?
Exactly
Happy Sunday! Nice to see you back on the show Lloyd and the kind of madness of you bring with you – Will It Float? was beautiful! Some excellent kitbashing too, really helps make the army look interesting instead of just a wall of minis. Not a fan of the white stripes on Justin’s Knight but for only half a day’s work…
And thanks for getting Alexa to play me music and not listening to me to stop so I had to get up from the comfy sofa to turn it off (Twice) the second time was Sam’s Rick Astley ;-(
Success!
Damnit Sam, stop Rickrolling the Backstagers! ?
?
I think when it comes to accessibility it’s easier to do up to the 17th century. Firstly there is still a lot we don’t and maybe never will know about the periods. Take the bit at the start of Rome where there changing ranks by blowing a whistle. Nobody sure if that is the way they did it,the same way we can’t say with 100% certainty what colours they wore but we can have a good guess and so can the wargamer.Remember on the whole ancient historians tend to exaggerate and many weren’t born when describing various actions. I don’t… Read more »
Re historical wargaming, i’ve been a Warhammer/40k gamer with my lads for many years, but over the last 10yrs, since 40k changed and poor old Warhammer ended, a friend got me into historical gaming, ww2. I now play Flames of war, Bolt Action and Battlegroup and am looking at more modern stuff, like Force on Force and Spectre operations. My club is very historical and almost frown at the inaccuracy of modern gaming rules, they definitely need a more open outlook, as a game is a game, for the enjoyment of anyone, no matter the ruleset! My friends tend to… Read more »
I dont like it when Mummy and Daddy fight…..
Surely Mummy and Daddy are Justin and Warren? So this would be more like…Mummy and Step-Mummy? ?
Happy sunday. When gaming wether it be fantasy,scfi or historical we are all just here to have fun. So just ere on the side of cool, we are all adults talk to each other and agree what is what and how you are going to play before you start. Get your group together and game around the same game/age/ setting etc.
Gaming is FUN????
Good morning, everyone.
Interesting topic in today’s show regarding historical wargaming. I don’t know if I should say too much because, well … I’ve been dipped into the thread in question and already been around and around on this.
I agree and disagree with a lot that’s been said, both in the thread and the episode. But many thanks to @brennon for the many mentions. 😀
Okay, now let’s get serious with the replies. I won’t address the topic in general because, again, I’ve already been in the thread (too much probably) … But I’ll try to address specific topics brought up in the show. Working my way from left to right … @dracs – I feel your pain, sir, when it comes to the Home Guard / Dad’s Army and not being able to play it on many tables. Honestly, that’s an “army” that never really fought ANY battle, strictly speaking you’d NEVER get to use it in a historical game unless it was some… Read more »
You could also use them for a hypothetical Japanese invasion of Australia. There were a lot of farmers in Darwin and the Northern Territory who were forbidden to join the military but who could have fought if it got that desperate.
Well Warlord bought out an entire “campaign” book for BA to allow you to use the Home Guard in a “what if” timeline (with Germany invading the UK after Dunkirk). There’s army lists, scenarios etc, so you can fight with Dad’s army vs German Paratroops and German army units. https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/british-army/products/operation-sea-lion https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/british-army/products/sea-lion-part-2-operation-gigant So perhaps Sam could take a look at these to play a game of BA against Justin and John in the studio (hey might be a good “Lets Play” video as I don’t think they did anything for this campaign? Granted the home guard is a unusual choice for… Read more »
Well Warlord bought out an entire “campaign” book for BA to allow you to use the Home Guard in a “what if” timeline (with Germany invading the UK after Dunkirk). Yes, this is Sea Lion, to which I was referring when I posted: “…some kind of “Sea Lion” alternate history campaign.” We’ve presented material on this before. https://www.beastsofwar.com/battlegroup/operation-sea-lion-invading-england-part-one/ The question Sam seemed to be posing, however, was playing his Home Guards against Japanese. Impossible, historically, or even alternate-historically? Not really, is what elessar2590 and I were suggesting. The “gap” between hard-core historical players and more casual gamers doesn’t have to… Read more »
Next, we have @dignity – Totally agree that getting the research done is a big part of the hobby for historical wargaming. And I absolutely agree that fantasy and sci-fi have their own major hurdles when it comes to accessibility. I’ve done lots of fantasy wargaming in the distant past (TSR’s Battlesystem) and wrote the article series on the topic with @cpauls1 last year. It can be a little frustrating when your tactics are stymied and fail because there’s a spell you didn’t know about of your dragon is painted the wrong color or whatever needling little minutia in a… Read more »
@brennon – again, thanks for the many mentions and I really hope we can find even more ways to make historical wargaming even more accessible to more wargamers who are interested.
And man, you have the patience of a saint when it comes to getting a word in edgewise during those interviews!
Okay, last one, I promise – @lloyd – while I would agree that finding a starting point in historical wargaming can be tough with “thousands of years” of history to choose from, I would propose that most people who are even asking themselves this question already have a starting point in mind. Maybe they just saw Band of Brothers or binge-watched Vikings or some such. 😀 The trick is finding a group that has the same interest, at the same time (because we’re all floating around from one project to the next). I totally feel your angst when it comes… Read more »
Thanks for the input 🙂
I like the research side of things but like u say you just need to get yourself to that point of saying “that will do rightly, it’s close enough”.
In regards to the Bronze vs iron sword, an iron wouldn’t cut through a bronze sword. A modern day composite steel sword, may, but still unlikely, though it would damage the bronze blade. A bronze blade may bend on impact, but this could easily be bent back. The reason why armies switched to iron wasn’t because bronze was inferior, it was availability. The components to make bronze such as tin was hard to come by. Cornwall was a major trading centre in tin even back in the Bronze Age, and many countries from the Med traded in tin from Cornwall.… Read more »
Great show, you had my Alexa interrupting all the time 🙂 As to the perceived accessibility of historical wargames I actually think you are all right. Historical is accessible to those that are already very interested and clued up on the specific era they want but very daunting to those that aren’t, but the same is true for fantasy or Lord of the Rings or 40K etc. The nature of our hobby attracts people that love the minutiae, be it the rules or the history or the made up background or even the hobby aspects. I mean let’s be honest… Read more »
Historical gaming. 40k was the most off putting game I had ever come across. I felt completely alienated on my first visits to a GW store. They all talked about rules and black library references that were beyond me. I was made to feel unwelcome and the pricing was horrid and the requirement to learn the sci-fi history from expensive codex books was an insurmountable barrier. It has taken years of exposure from YouTube, BoW and my gaming group, and the latest stream lined ruleset for me to finally start playing. Accessibility has got to be on the side of… Read more »
Happy? Sunday. Phew. Saturday was pretty edgy too. That’ll teach Ben to put salt in Justin’s tea 😀 Perception is reality for people, so it’s not really possible to argue there is no perception issue if people are saying that there is. In terms of actual inaccessibility, any game ‘with history’ (not just ‘historical’) is going to have a steeper entry than others. Warhammer Fantasy died a death partly due to accessibility, and 40k was going down the same path until 8th Ed came out to specifically address this issue. For some (me included) this depth is a draw rather… Read more »
In my opinion no game,period,system, rules are inaccessible if you really want to get into it. There is now such a plethora of choice in all areas of gaming, that inaccessibility isn’t an excuse for me when people are saying this and that about any given area of gaming. The only limitations I see are your own willingness to go for it in the first place, and maybe finding opponents, but even that can be offset by the amount of solo player variants these days for many periods of history and indeed other genres. Couple this with the variety of… Read more »
We do have a luxury of choice when it comes to gaming nowadays yes – I think it’s just interesting that there is still this perception issue with Historical gaming when in reality there is no real reason to be overwhelmed by it.
Happy Sunday folks
I think the historical issue has been covered in the original thread enough 🙂
Maybe so but I thought it was interesting to hear our thoughts on this as well
@brennon – Sorry, badly worded, meant my views are covered already in the original thread 🙂