Inaccessibility of Historical Wargaming

[limburger 21704xp 0]

Debate first and an actual battle later, of course 😉

And the series would have the “invasion of the North Pole” as a final episode.
What forces will Santa bring to the table this year ?
Do the evil guys win this time ?
Stay tuned …

/off-topic (right?)

 

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

[piersParticipant 25489xp 1]

Is it wrong I want Chaos Sealions now?

 

Rocket pack penguins are too 40k for me…

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

Here’s the scary thing, @piers – if you did do Chaos Sealions, they would look so good and so convincing I would almost believe they were historically accurate. 😀

“Pictured here we have a Stabsgefreiter and his team of sonderseelöwen angriffkommando (SdSK), specifically detached from SdSK Abtlg 901.  These are not to be confused with their Kriegsmarine counterparts, sea lions trained to clear enemy minefields and were thus trained and served thus under the aegis of the German Navy.  Although their enhanced sea lion flippers were specially modified and armored (i.e., the dreaded panzerflippen), and they did well as slapping the hell out of British Home Guard bicycle scouts, their overall effect on the outcome of the campaign is debated.  A specialized airborne variant for the Luftwaffe (fallschirmseelöwen) was proposed but the war ended before the idea could be expanded upon.”

[torros 23816xp 2]

how can this be wrong

 

[damon 7525xp 0]

Needs moar spiky bits!!

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

Nazi Sea Lions supported by Panzer Penguins…

Off to find a figure sculptor now…

[georgesealy 2670xp 0]

Ok, fascinating conversation – normally I’d struggle to read through 3 pages of comments to catch up, but I did… A couple of thoughts that I don’t think I saw mentioned:

1. Many people who want to try out historical gaming may not come to it from a “love of history” (that comes later). It’s far more likely that they’re inspired by watching Fury or Outlander, reading the Sharpe novels or other similar media. This is why I think Warlord calling their starter set “Band of Brothers” is genius.
2. For me I find people I like gaming with and game with them, rather than deciding to play (say) Chain of Command and then being “forced” to play with people who play that game. Lately that’s been Age of Sigmar and Blucher – neither of which I would have really expected when I got back into gaming a couple of years ago.

As for accessibililty, “breaking into” any group of players can be awkward and daunting, regardless of genre (thinking of getting back into 40k is terrifying to me) – ultimately for me it comes back to the players themselves, not the genre or rules.

[bobcockayne 20723xp 1]

Hmn interesting comments and interesting topic.

‘When I was a lad. we had to make do with tanks made of clay a clths pegs for figures’.

Not actually correct , it was with Airfix tanks and soft plastic figures and a copy of Charles Grants ‘Battle’ borrowed from library (actually not a bad set today)

It was a couple of years later that my Army Cadet Drill instructor started the Alumwell Wargames club (The club still running WMMS) in about 1973.

It wss only them I found that there were other sets of rules and early 1/300th models eith tank models I only earlier dreamed of. (Wargame Research Group rules)

WW2 was considered an abberation, and Scifi/Fantasy was unheard of.

Ancients and Napoleonic were the adult games using Hinchcliffe and Minifigs, it was Heresy to use Airfix plastic.

I think @warzan has said on various blogs, we are in amazing times with new games and genres coming out daily. One of the Beasts, now OTT are doing an amazing job of opening people up to new ideas, look at me, 12 months ago I would never have considered 4OK, now I have a Raven Guard Army , Grey Knights etc.

With Historical gaming the problem in many ways is the history!

What I mean is when approaching many of us will be influenced by a book, documentary or even a film.

When playing a a historical game we will want the rules to reflect that book/Film, and our favourite set may reflect that veiw and being human individuals van get carried away in how far they take it.

To add to the mix are gamers from other genres without much historical knowledge who think a WW2/ Napoleonic etc game as it looks like fun.

What I have very long winded way is that at moment some want to play the game that is fun with a nod to history and some want to play a game that reflects the history as closely and wont accept anything else! Most I hope are a bit in the middle!

Therefore the set of rule you will pick may reflect one of those rationals.

To add to the mix is the aspect of the war you want to play, for WW2 land you have tankies and infs( I invented that) some want tank warfare with inf being a bit of. annoying distraction and vise versa for the infs,

Some rule sets are better the former such as Panzer and some better at the inf game such as I ain’t been shot mum, some fall inbetween.

I have heard of a gamer who sold all his 15mm FOW to go 28mm for BA, and never considered using the former models for the later!

 

Me I’ve got 1/200th 15mm and 28 WW2, depending on the scale of battle I want to play. So for ease I intend to play my 1st ‘What a tanker’ game will bebin 1/200th , they need digging out!

 

 

[bobcockayne 20723xp 0]

The upside to this topic is the fact that these days there is a huge selection of rules/figures etc from various sources.
It would be perhaps worse if only BA or FOW where the only rules sets (not that anything wrong with them), that can appeal to different gamers for different reasons.

Thats what OTT is about , bringing those choices to gamers attention who may not otherwise be aware of them!

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

I can attest to what @bobcockayne is saying.  Never would have heard of Battlegroup if not for BoW.  😀

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 0]

It is quite intimidating to get started in Historical wargames. Especially if your local club has a lot of rivet counters.

There is a trade off between playability and hsitorical accuracy. Personally I really like building and painting WW2 tanks/vehicles but don’t have time or inclination to worry about absolute historical accuracy.

A game like Tanks (GF9) hits the spot. It is light enough to play in about an hour, and doesn’t claim to be trying to replicate accurately the real life tank combat of Ww2. Think of it as World of Tanks on the tabletop.

The ultra Grognard is never going to accept the slightly wrong colour of your Napoleonic Hussar tunic, or the not quite historically correct camo pattern on that late war Panzer, and will have an attack of the vapours if the rules do not run to at least 500 pages of small text with lots of tables 🙂

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 0]

My reason of not getting into historical wargaming can be summed up with having to stick with historical accuracy. To some one like me it feels more trouble than it might be worth. To me sci-fi, science fantasy and fantasy give more options to build armies within rules of system and paint way I want them. I guess biggest issue to this comes from not wanting to have to deal with those kind of people that take any historical inaccuracy no matter how small as personal offense. I don’t have time and energy to deal with people like that. Granted that I did try to get into FoW after watching Girls und Panzer but I never got beyond starter box.

[commodorerob 11076xp 0]

Whilst I admit I have heard stories of the ofd person who picks things apart because they are not 100% historically accurate, this I believe is not the majority of historical wargamers. The guys I play with are more interested in the game then being absolutely accurate, yes we try and do our best approximation but at the end of the day it’s about having a good days gaminf with friends.

[torros 23816xp 0]

I would agree with Rob on this. Most historical games are ‘what ifs’ and random scenario  games  just like scifi and fantasy . A lot of history  before the 18th century a lot of is pure guesswork and some terms like Great Fyrd and Lesser Fyrd was just made up by a wargames and history lecturer and somehow the names stuck Even for the English Civil War we don’t know what colours 95% of the regiments wore

Rivet counter in historical is the  same as a power gamer and cheese armies in SciFi and fantasy games and in both cases they are to be avoided

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