"Golden Age of Wargaming"….perhaps not?

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

Was wondering about this phrase this morning while drink my morning coffee, I’ve seen it used a few times over the recent years.

But is it?

I some sense it is, I can’t remember the “coverage” of figures we have for any historical period (or sci-fi and fantasy), there are indeed almost miniatures for everything. But in another way it’s not, because if you don’t play in 28mm then things are a lot tougher to find/obtain. 28mm has indeed become the “default” scale in Wargaming (many moons ago it was 15mm), there’s nice BIG figures for failing eyesight to paint and even a wide range of plastics to keep the cost down. But this has come at a cost in the diversity of scales Wargamers use.

The dominance of companies like GW and Warlord (hey not a bad thing, they are just doing what any company does) has meant 28mm has become default (used to be 20mm for WWII as there were so many inexpensive 1/72nd scale kits available). It’s become default in such a way that any new company also defaults to 28mm when they start with new products (or perhaps it’s too much a business risk to try different scales, as wargamers might already have armies in 28mm and want figures that will match what they already have). It’s rare to see these days any company releasing something that’s not 28mm (in fact the only stalwarts of different scales I can think off are Baccus & Adler (6mm), Pendraken (10mm), Fighting 15s (15mm) and SHQ and AB (20mm), that’s just 6 companies out of an almost uncountable number that’s doing minis in 28mm. So in some ways thing have gotten worse in availability of scale over the years. At UK gaming shows in the 80’s we had a good mix of all scales at the trader stands, but now it’s rare to see ANYTHING that’s not 28mm (other than the traders I’ve mentioned above).

The shift to 28mm has also caused a shift in “how” we wargame, gone are large armies and rank and file gaming. Instead the market is dominated with skirmish and warband types of games (is it wargamers just don’t want to collect large armies like they used to and just want LOTS of smaller warbands over multiple eras). In a way it’s been a good thing (lower price for entry into a ruleset and less time painting), but also a bad one (rise of the tourney and “balanced” armies, and the almost obliteration of “refighting” a battle or just playing a large game over multiple evenings). So in another “how” we play our games has become a lot more restrictive.

And last point is the rules themselves. Early on many rules were written by indivduals or even Wargames Clubs themselves. These were black and white productions with a card cover (and usually a card “reference sheet” tucked inside), production values weren’t high but they were serviceable and cheaper to obtain. They usually had instructions for using the rules with different scales of figures and/or basing sizes. They were independent productions and favoured no one scale.

But these days the rules are put out by the manufacturer themselves, and to an extent are also designed to push their own set of figures with it. Thus we see manufacturers that do 28mm figure produce rules for 28mm figures ONLY (and there’s no longer the instructions base sizing for different scale of figures). These are very glossy productions with lots of eye candy to sell you the figures. But it seems that as I look through some of the modern rulesets I have that there’s more space devoted to this eye candy (to sell you the figures) than the rules themselves (ok I exaggerate here a bit). But one thing I have noticed is the level of abstraction that’s appeared in rules in the last couple of years. Gone is the desire to “model” a conflict (which can lead to non balanced armies/units) and now we have “cinematic” as our reasoning for the removal of fact and realism in our rules (even with our historical rules, we see “fantasy” elements creeping in). All in all rules have becomes a lot simpler (these days if a ruleset has a table or a need to add more than two d6 together we see it has “overly complicated”), but I don’t feel this has been one hundred percent a good thing.

Sorry for the ramble/rant here, but I keep seeing a joyous recant of “Golden Age of Wargaming” from time to time (and this has me grimacing at to what we’ve lost in gaming over to years to keep pace with current trends).

 

[torros 23816xp 1]

@phaidknott while I agree with a lot that you say there are still many companies producing  6,10,15 and 20mm . I think sometimes you have to have an interest in the scale to know where to look for 6&10mm and I’ll add 3 mm and various scales for naval and airgames and hex and counter games  as well  I do think 15mm still has a very large presence out there

[smithscoParticipant 1212xp 1]

@phaidknott you put into words what I’ve been feeling for a while.

I got a bad case of looking at all the shiny stuff and the new rules etc. lost all passion for this hobby.

Im going back to my roots. Been making home brew rules and loving it. I’ve been focusing on the periods for history that excite me. Also busted out old LoTR SBG stuff and wizards of the coast Star Wars and have been having a blast.

One sad thing for me has been watching the slow death of 1/72 plastics. They sparked my interest in wargaming in the first place. Zvezda, Italeri, Caesar basically stopped making new sets and their older stuff can be hard to find. HaT is still at it. I know other companies produce but quality isn’t what I would like.

[torros 23816xp 2]

I forgot to add there are still many rulesets being produced that are both figure and scale agnostic. Again like ranges other than 28mm you maybe have to know where to look to find them

[Anonymous 0xp 2]

@smithsco Arcane Scenery and Models seem to stock quite a few Italeri and Zvezda 1/72 kits.  I know I have bought some Italeri kits from them in the past.  Emodels also stock some Caesar or at least they did the last time I looked.

[smithscoParticipant 1212xp 0]

@robert thanks for the tip! I’ve never visited either site. Scalehobbyist has been my go to but more and more I see items out of stock or no longer listed.

[torros 23816xp 0]

Sadly I don’t think Zvesda are producing the range of figures they once did. Although s little quirky Strelets do a nice range of figures

[volleyfireandyParticipant 2489xp 0]

There’s still loads of 1/72 releases. First to Fight, IBG, PSC, Dragon et al are churning out vehicles, and there always seems to be new releases on plastic soldier review. For 1/72 metal figures, AB have released at least 3-4 ranges in the last year, plus loads of 18mm Napoleonics, and Forged in Battle had a very successful kickstarter for 15mm Dark Age models.

Here’s a good website to keep up on 1/72 plastic figure releaeses. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/

[torros 23816xp 0]

I do like the dark alliance 1/72 fantasy figures

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

I think the key point here is “if you know where to look”. It’s there “if” you know where to look (again not much news coverage these days on ANY non dedicated website for anything not 28mm).

Taking someone new to the hobby down to your local show, they’d probably be surprise to hear that there ARE scales other than 28mm (such is the availability). Yet this dominance has had such an effect on the hobby away from rank and file and mass battles of yore.

But the thing that really has shifted over the years are the rules themselves, they seem to have lost their “independence” of scale.

It used to be the “refight” was a big historical gaming thing with most wargames magazines featuring a map, orbat (order of battle, or army lists) for the battle. These seem to have gone the way of the dodo, with the focus more on items supporting large pages of photos of beautifully painted miniatures (again the eye candy). It used to be the day (in the UK) we would buy Wargames Illustrated for the “eye candy” and Duncan’s amazing photography to inspire us with the painting, but Miniature Wargames for the “meat and potatoes” (as this was the one with few photos, but lots of text), that would give us the battles to be refought using whatever rules you preferred. These were great as they didn’t need to be rules specific, all you needed was the units involved and the strength of the units on the day (the reader converted them to the rules they were using. It’s almost like the “meat and potatoes” has disappeared from the hobby?

Is it that Wargamers have become “lazy”? Not wanting to do any research, or metal calculations at the table? Perhaps it’s us that caused the “market demand” that seems to have well make the hobby rather soulless…

By this I mean there very little difference in “feel” of a game when it’s based at a Skirmish level. You could be playing anything from Biblical to the Middle Ages, or WW1 to Moderns, it all boils down to a man with a ranged weapon and/or “pointy stick”. You get no “feel” for the period as you would in a larger scale (for example the advantages of the Allied logistic networks vs Axis shortages during WW2 skirmish games, yet some of the old 6mm rulesets DID have rules for such).

But that’s just me, I DO tend to ramble on 😀

 

 

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

My German 20mm Army has figures from…

AB Figures

Almogavers

Elhiem

CP Models

Underfire Miniatures

Battlefield Miniatures

Blitz

Wartime

…and that’s just one army. So more than six…

We have tocbe careful in applying a personal view as in somehow indicative of an entire hobby, mine would be especially skewed. I see plenty of large armies, in 28mm too, and while I agree that a focus has shifted to 28mm skirmish games, I think that’s as much manufacturer led as by consumer preference.

It also depends on your group. I know no one who plays WW2 in anything but 20mm. That’s cos I play it in 20mm and therefore the majority of people I game with and associate with online, tend to gravitate the same way.

I just think that as bigger companies go with 28mm, with the resources to promote it, the other scales get less visibility. But that doesn’t always equate to them not being popular. For example, in 20mm/1/72nd I have never known a period with such a variety of models and figures available. It’s truly amazing… and the models are plastics. So the money must come from somewhere… and here we have an advantage no other wargaming scale has – Scalemodellers. Their has been a boon in small scale modelling with 1/72 rising in popularity.

 

So for me… Its the opposite. All I see is 20mm, huge 28mm armies and big games too, plus our games do have the feel of the period.

 

But you are right… popularity and money to advertise help 28mm and you do have to go looking for other things…

But to me, that’s part of the fun. 🙂

 

 

 

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

I started looking into 20mm a while back as it seemed like a great “starter” entry – models are big enough to hold detail, but small enough to paint relatively quickly. It proved difficult to mix-n-match at that scale though, as different manufacturers had different ideas to what 20mm is – for some their 20mm range were closer to 25mm, some were more like “heroic scale 18mm” and so on. Maybe it’s different now, but when I was looking into 20mm sci-fi it was really hard to create a unified army. 28mm and 32mm (heroic) are very much order of the day these days.

I feel that the whole scene is starting to feel a little “tired” despite (or maybe because of) the sheer volume of content being churned out. But that’s almost how it feels – churn.

Quite a few manufacturers are now going down the “toy industry” route of just shoving out any old thing and sticking a franchise label on it (I got out of the toy inventing industry for the same reason – it wasn’t for a lack of ideas, but a lack of imagination from the sales team and the money men; they would prefer to throw £50k at a licence, knowing it’s almost certain to sell even if it’s just a re-hash of something that’s gone before it, than invest in new ideas, characters and IP).

And with Kickstarter now being used a product launch/pre-order system, rather than a platform to raise funding for indie developers (as it originally started) it feels a bit like we’re reaching market saturation point – in principle there’s so much stuff, there should be something for everyone but in practice, it’s starting to feel a little “same old same old”.

[smithscoParticipant 1212xp 0]

@volleyfireandy I love PSR. 10 years ago I checked it everyday because there was almost always news or a new set to look at. Updates are sadly far less frequent because new sets don’t come anywhere near as often. This is the updated data they provide on production. New set releases peaked in 2009. Declined significantly since then. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ShowFeature.aspx?id=27

 

@piers we do need to be careful in generalizations. Your German army is a great example of the diversity 1/72 and 20mm offer in some periods. However some periods are not covered to the degree WWII is. Seeing things like Caesar cancel medieval and Bronze Age sets in areas with few high quality sets in scale is discouraging for me.

[torros 23816xp 0]

I think the best info website these days is

 

https://www.thewargameswebsite.com/

I would argue that all rulesets can be used in any scale even if not promoted as such

 

[oriskany 60771xp 2]

I have repeatedly and publicly (Sitrep Podcasts, etc.) maintained that we are most certainly not in a Golden Age of Gaming.  With very few exceptions, like Battlegroup, Valor & Victory, Force-on-Force, very few others, the overall trend toward short rules sets, accessibility, and “ease of play” has over-corrected to the point where too many games are downright simplistic.

Some, like my friend @cpauls1 , agree with me while maintaining we may be in a Golden Age of Miniatures.  Well, that’s 30% of the wargaming space at max (measured by titles and releases, not by market share … not in a market where a single land raider costs as much as entire rules set).  In any case, I can’t speak to that since I’m not really a miniatures guy.

But strictly in terms of rules, design, and tactical death, yeah … in many places (again, not all), we’re in a downslide to dystopian mediocrity.  The thing is, 5-page rule booklets are often more toublesome than well-designed 100-page rule books because all the brevity leads to ambiguity in the system.  Better to have a thick book that takes the time to explain the system in detail, with plenty of examples.  Also, the book needs to be properly organized to make reference easy.  That “organizational framework” also adds word-count and pages, which are often the first thing cut in shorter rules sets aimed at 10 pages or less.

And honestly, I don’t feel this issue applies just to historicals.  In sci-fi, game systems like Battletech and Renegade Legions and Traveler 2300 and FASA’s Starship Tactical Combat Simulator have been bulldozed by games like … well, I won’t say.

Panzer Leader, GDW Assault, the original 1989 Team Yankee, GMT Microarmor, Advanced Squadleader, buried by games like, well … I won’t say.

Even Fantasy, where TSR’s Battlesytem 2nd Edition has been replaced by games where engaged units “bounce back an inch” at the end of a turn and can pivot in place … Man, how many ancient and medieval commanders wish armies could actually do those kinds of things?

Please don’t get me wrong, there are exceptions.  And of course, there is the literal universe of games covered in places like Strategy & Tactics, Modern War, and World at War.  Panzer Grenadier system has over 110 expansions on Boardgame Geek.  The whole Tide of Iron series wasn’t bad, either, at least for a hybrid “3-D playing piece” / board model.

But these are peripheral, I’m afraid, compared to the majority of games that dominate the space.

Golden Age of Gaming?  Indeed, I remember 1970-1985 well.

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