Inaccessibility of Historical Wargaming

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 1]

Lol. I don’t think it will end up a war of words @Gaz as I think this has been a very open and informative chat.

I think getting into any hobby can seem daunting or inaccessible at times. I must admit I’ve found trying to get into photography.

I think the problem I have found is the people you talk to think you are at the same level of knowledge as them. Unfortunately this is not the case, so like I said before it’s been trial and error and watching lots of YouTube videos and at the same time taking an introductory course.

Back on topic I would like to see more genuine videos made from the likes of BoW and say Miniwargaming on historical gaming. There are others, but I would class both of these magazine  outlets at the fore of our hobbies digital scene.

I know @oriskany and @piers along with Toofatlardies have tried to inject the openness of historical wargames but I feel we could do more. What do you think?

 

[olliepMember 6011xp 2]

@chaingun
Unfortunately MWG seem to be getting more and more 40k and AoS-focused at the cost of other content, to the point that I’m not going to renew my subscription this year. It was their 30k coverage that got me onboard there and that’s been all but dropped in favour of the 2 mainstreams. I would love for them to have some Bolt Action or FoW/TY on there but I can’t see it happening as they’re too busy milking the GW cash cow.

Back on topic, as others have mentioned, it’s the people that make the difference. Whilst I try and stick to historical themes, I won’t turn down a game because 2 people have turned up at a club night with German armies for example (as has happened in the past), I’ll just call it a training exercise, crack on and have fun. On the flip-side, we’ve had a true rivet-counter turn up one night who proceeded to tell me in a quite blunt manner that my fuel canisters were painted the wrong colour on my Panzer IVs…. For me it’s attitudes like that that introduce barriers to historical gaming. The outspoken “your army is not 100% accurate” attitude is off-putting to newcomers as they may feel they have to meet these requirements before they can play. There’s a big difference between making an effort to fit the era colour scheme, and ensuring that Sgt Smith is wearing the correct belt buckle for a tuesday in May (extreme example I know but you get the gist! 🙂 )

I’ll admit I’m guilty to some extent when it comes to Horus Heresy (effectively historical 40k) and not wanting to see post-heresy/40k armour Mks in infantry units when appropriate kits are so readily available. I won’t pull people up on it, but it does niggle me to see 🙂

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

Nothing is more fun than pointing out the wrong exhaust filters on a Panzer IV for the period the game is set in… Endlessly… Over and over again… until they cry… or throw something at you. Usually the latter with my group.

Don’t even mention those poor chaps who bring grey panzers to a Dunkel Gelb scenario…

So the ‘rivet counter’ is found in both Historicals and 40K @olliep I am glad of that… 🙂 I wear it like a badge of pride.

All my belt buckles are correct. 😉

 

@torros even I wont go near Napoleonics… That’s the Darkside…

[olliepMember 6011xp 0]

@piers – don’t mix 40k and Heresy in the same pot, you’ll upset a lot of people! As you say regarding Napoleonics, 40k is the darkside 😉

[noyjatatParticipant 16155xp 0]

@piers your last comment made me chuckle although in my experience I reckon the guy that has fitted the wrong older mod filters is probably more historically correct that those fitting the ones they were supposed to have 😉

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

I don’t mind if someone “corrects” me on my paintjob (as long as it turns out to be correct info), you learn a new thing every day (and it’s a start of a conversation that is usually started by someone new to you). Rivet counting is ok, rivet obsessive compulsive disorder (like refusing to play a game because the opponents army isn’t factually correct in their eyes isn’t.

I DO however think the major barrier into historical gaming is due to the fact we are in the “golden age of wargaming”. For example when I started wargaming, if you played WW2 there were only two scales (6mm and 20mm), and probably a couple of rulesets.

Now you can buy ww2 minis in 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 28mm. There’s a vast amount of rules (many with their own specific basing system). So these days if you buy in, then there’s a good chance that about half the players in the club have ww2 but it’s either in the wrong scale or based differently.

For Fantasy and Sci-fi things are a bit different. It’s mostly 28mm (and GW dominated), so if you buy a load of Space Marines then there is a very good chance that most ppl who play Sci-fi games have the same scale and use the same rules.

For a while FoW dominated things in WW2, but that seems to have cooled off in favour of BA (again here we see a shift in scale). So it’s the fact for historical gaming things never seem to settle on a scale and ruleset for a long period of time.

EDIT: Just read Torros’s post and realised I basically repeated what he said 😛

 

 

 

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

“@chaingun: “I know @oriskany and @piers along with Toofatlardies have tried to inject the openness of historical wargames”

We do what we can.  You’re right though, it’s never enough.

And I agree, this isn’t even close to a war or words.  The flame wars we used to have on the old Unclejimmy thread, now those were some word-wars!  🙁

And I agree with @olliep as well – there’s definitely a “middle range” I try to shoot for when it comes to historical accuracy.  First off, my minis are almost all 15mm, so I get a little extra leeway because of the smaller scale.  Second, while I make sure never to take gray panzers into a dunkel gelb scenario as @piers says (gasp!  The shame!) … I do not bother too much with divisional markings, and keep tactical markings to a “generic minimum.”  Those numbers on the sides of the turrets do mean something, you know … and to the true rivet counter, can make a miniature (especially a German one) inaccurate.

The same goes for my 20mm Crown Germans and British for American Revolution.   Not quite the “dark side” of Napoleonics but the same hazards apply, each of these regiments had different details in their uniforms and flags and there’s just no way I’m, painting up hundreds of figures to have them used in only one battle, unable to use them in the next battle because they’d be “inaccurate.”

Americans in rags, British in red coats, Germans in porn-mustaches and dildo-lookin’ hats, check, check, and hella-check.  Let’s chuck some dice.

Now where I get to @piers-levels of “rivet-counting” is in the force makeups of the given scenario.  My scenarios will have the right numbers of the right units, under the right commanders with the right equipment, with the right victory conditions reflecting the right orders at the time … even if those units are painted “85%-90% visual-generic,” or are counters on a hex grid, or even quarters and pennies for all I care.

I care about the visuals much less than the game mechanics, units and formations, military tactics, and historical facts.

So there are different ways to rivet-count, is what I’m saying.

 

 

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 0]

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.

 

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 1]

At what level of abstraction does something cease to be ‘historical’?

Tanks from GF9 is a VERY abstract game. Whilst it uses WW2 tank models, it is hardly a realistic (on pretty much any level) simulation of WW2 tank combat. It is however a fun and accessible game 🙂

What A Tanker seems to be a bit more on the ‘realism’ side of things whilst retaining the accessibility.

So are they both Historical Wargames?

[elessar2590 18207xp 0]

@tankkommander good question.

To me what makes a game Historical is purely that it uses History as it’s “Fluff”.

If I pick up a game and the only background I need to know is the History of the Period then I consider it Historical.

Realism is a totally separate subject to me and something that spans all genres. I’ve always been bugged that in 40K you don’t get both and Armour then an Invulnerable Save (you might now I’ve played 2 or 3 games of 8th).

[noyjatatParticipant 16155xp 0]

XLBS see the OTT team take on this as a subject today guys and there is some differences of opinion, well worth a watch if you have time.

I think they got a little lost once a bone had been bit but hope it brings some more people to this discussion.

Also I am using this post as a way to push a spam thread from the head of a forum topic so apologies for the short comment. Hehe by the time I had written this the guys had exterminated the posts.

[coxjul 13301xp 0]

My take/summary (also just posted on XLBS

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 attempting to replay history accurately, adapt history with some what-ifs, or simply be some “let’s see what we’ve got to play with” situation.
* Setting – this can applies mainly to terrain. Is is attempting to be a hi-fi re-enactment of a well recorded historic setting, or a loose ‘what-if’ setting for a bit of fun.
* Models – how wysiwyg are you being? If you’re going hi-fi on the last three aspects then the models need to be identifiable as specialised, unique units/characters. Proxying is the lo-fi option but provided everyone’s happy, which brings us to the final point…
* Human players – the most important aspect. Gamers have different obsessions, interests and therefore buttons that they like to have pressed. For some the fun lies in hi-fi recreation, so the research and execution of historically accurate hobby and gaming is what it’s about for them. For others the gaming comes first, a collection of flexible models to enable that comes second and sod the historic accuracy.

I don’t think we should assume historical is automatically inaccessible. Sure there are some obsessive hi-fi types playing in their hi-fi communities… and that’s fantastic stuff. Most of us want some lo-fi fun. Consider the glorious variety visible on the tables at somewhere like Salute.

I could however repeat all the above about some 40k, or the emerging Star Wars Legion game groups and players; some of whom are equally obsessed with being true to the fictional cannon and lore.

Enjoy your version of our hobby, respect (and sometimes secretly admire) other people’s!

[tankkommanderParticipant 6421xp 1]

At least with 40k and Legion we have a Galaxy so vast that no amount of written ‘lore’ could possibly cover everything. Plenty of scope for creating your own Space Marines or a special camo pattern of Storm Troopers.

 

[elessar2590 18207xp 0]

@tankkommander very true and that is one of the limits to playing most Historical periods.

As a General Rule of thumb insurgencies/rebellions are great for “custom” paint jobs.

American Revolution, American Civil War, Ancient Barbarians, Pirates, Spanish Napoleonics, WWII Partisans and basically any Army post 300A.D. to 1700A.D.  since uniform data is very dodgy at best.

Sure you have to stay within the reasonable eg. No Splinter Camo on your American Revolutionary Militia but you aren’t as restricted as you would be by painting British Redcoats. Contrary to popular belief that past was very bright and colourful.

 

I do think it’s a bit of “Apples and Oranges” though. For me personally I’d never sink that much time/effort/cash (Australian so yeah GW is not cheap here) into an army to use for a fixed campaign against fixed enemies when I can just make my own Regiment and play whenever. When it comes to Historicals I’m perfectly happy to do that since most of the games I’m playing are specific Scenarios or Campaigns rather than pick up points matches.

[limburger 21704xp 0]

non historicals tend to have it easy. Once you pickt the setting/theme everything else is pretty much done for you.

40k ? at a strategic/operational level ? nope … well there are a few computer games, but they don’t have that same attention to detail that the equivalent historicals appear to have.

No need to worry about scale (one size fits all/none) or strategic level.
With historicals you get every scale and operational/strategic variant per battle …
That makes doing ‘research’ a tad difficult and overwhelming especially if you aren’t a ‘rivet counter’ to begin with.

Who cares what exact units were fighting at Son during Market garden ?
I know there were American infantry, British tanks and Germans somewhere … but do I have to know their names and place of birth just to run a skirmish ?

And after that I need to pick a system that best represents the tactical situation and other things.
That is … I first need to find the and then decide between 1 giant and a dozen of garage industry style booklets which one is ‘the best’.

It may be interesting to the more dedicated historians out there, but to people who just want to play with toy soldiers in a game that sort of looks like the actual thing that is far too much detail to worry about.

I think that in essence is where the actual ‘problem’ with historicals is.
Too much choice and not enough guidance for those new to the hobby.

(/me runs … )

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