My local group always saw historical gaming as something for the ‘older gentlemen’ and an arena where if the force wasnt 100% accurate you would be laughed out the room. We literally had my local club which played mainly 40k, warmahordes and Xwing (and an average age of around 28) and then down the road another club where historicals were played (with an average age of about 50). So there was a massive perception issue stopping many who may have been interested actually taking the plunge.

When Warhammer was killed off i was apprehensive sinking more money into a made up gaming world/genre, just in case this happened again, so i bought some Warlord germans to play bolt action, a quick easy game that wasnt too serious, just what i was used to gaming and how my local group liked to play. A year later there are about 9/10 of us that play, and i think its mainly due to that perception being broken down. None of us are that fussed about historical accuracy, take what you like in a force, paint it how you want, its the kind of gaming we find fun.

Since this has taken off many of us have started playing sharp practice and battlegroup. Going from a club where no historicals where played to having about a third of the club playing i think is massive and its due to that perception that historicals is only for grognards/rivet counters and the older gamer that has been proved to be wrong.

Now many of the players do try and paint their forces to a historical colour scheme and try to take equipment certain regiments/theatres would have had but if they dont, thats fine by us. We do have the odd gamer come over and tell us we are using the wrong type of Panzer or some of the colour schemes are ‘wrong’, but between us it really doesnt matter and so historicals have become accesssible to us all. At the end of the day its about having fun and thats what we aim to do.

Ultimately i think its about the group you play with making historical gaming accessible. If they expect a certain level of accuracy in both modelling, painting and force composition and thats the way they have fun gaming then for me i can see why that level of time investment can be daunting to new people. If you’re like my gaming group its not that important those barriers to entry are much lower and so more accessible.

Now im not saying either way is better than the other, it all depends on what your version of fun is and remembering it might not be the same as the person you are talking to’s.