Pointless Views: Defining Wargames
September 13, 2019 by warzan
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Posting this before I watch the whole video, so may be late to the party:
I think the usages that horus500 recommended — one word defining the size/scope of the forces and another indicating the way they are organized — is a very useful tool for discussing wargames. As I understand his meaning, ‘formation’ would be a game where units have to maintain a certain distance from one another or a leader, but aren’t rank and file (such as 40k), while in a ‘skirmish’ game the individuals don’t have those limits (games like Frostgrave or Mythos).
A warband is different from a company. Warband is a loose group of warriors who? have come together to fight, whereas a company is part of a standing army, it has rigid rules and rank hierarchy. A member of a company is generally a professional soldier employed permanently for that role within that company. A member of a warband is not a permanent soldier, they have other roles outside of the warband, for instance they may be a farmer. There will be members of the war band who are the equivalent to a professional soldier but most won’t be. A war band will have been formed for a particular battle or campaign and once that job has been done they’ll disperse, whereas as a company will always be a permanent military unit.
Yes, that’s the historical definition but I think we’re looking beyond that to define wargames. Much like with the use of ‘skirmish’.
Pointless Views is a very apt title, because I do think it is rather pointless exercise trying to tighten the definition of games in a world of instant information. 30 years ago when a sentence in a catalogue was all the info a person may have had in deciding to buy a game or ruleset, then yes, better definitions would have helped, but these days when you can read the rules or watch Let’s Plays, do we even need better definitions?
My opinion is rather clouded from my experiences in music, and genre gatekeepers… pre-Napster, tighter definitions of genres did help especially when magazines and word of mouth were your main sources of information, but these days jump on Bandcamp or a bands website and you can hear for yourself. The days of people telling you it isn’t Death Metal but Grindcore or arguments over whether a band is Speed Metal or Thrash Metal is fairly pointless.
My commentary on this shouldn’t take away anything from some of the excellent and insightful points Gerry, Warren and Lloyd made.
Exactly this ?
With you on that @robert. I can’t see any use or need for this definition accept maybe as a brain exercise.
Even if the definition was tight, I’d rather see gameplay or read more about any given game before deciding to buy, classification of skirmish or not does not really say if the game is interesting/fun.
So Stars Wars: Legion would be a company level formation game? Did I get that right? What would be Blood Bowl? Gang level skirmish? And what about Star Wars Imperial Assault?
Great video.
I would call blood bowl and Star Wars IA both living board games.
I’ve got one fore you
Middle Earth SBG
Definitely Skirmish but what else?
I can run an army of 3 Heroes or an army of 200 Minis at the same points level competitively against one another. That’s an extreme but even at the normal game size it is very reasonable to see armies with widely varying sizes. Every Faction can run all Heroes and Ever Faction can run a Horde which would break this mold.
I’m with @dignity 40K is a Company Level Game. Space Marine forces are roughly 3/4 of a Company, IG forces are a Company everything else can fit into what we’d generally consider to be a “Company” (Company is about 100 men plus HQ, Support and Battalion Support). Remember the Rule of 3’s. Three Squads to a Platoon, Three Platoons to a Company.
Then we get into the Historical Wargaming issue where no one can decide on what level of game we’re playing.
For example Napoleon at War represents a ‘Division’ but the units we move around are ‘Battalions’ which are formed into ‘Brigades’ so is it a Divisional Level Game (that’s what I call it) or is it battalion since that’s the unit size?
Are these Skirmish Games surviving though or are they Pump and Dump’s? Test of Honour is Dead Warlord don’t even support it, Cruel Seas is basically dead, Shadow Spire is dead as far as GW selling it, Silver Tower is also gone and plenty more. People talk about a lot of these games but if anyone wanted to grab one now well too bad you’ve got to get the new shiny thing instead. One of the problems with these smaller games is you need to be constantly selling people new stuff. If someone comes along and buys a 40K army that’ll hold your margins over for a while but if they only buy a single warband then you’re going to need to get them back for more.
Don’t get me wrong if a game isn’t a good game it should die but to say we’re being flooded with these games when in 6 months half of them are dead isn’t really correct.
Warlord have trashed their credibility with me I’ll not be buying anything from them unless it’s a PDF. They’ve shown me that they’re a pump and dump company that just rushes things out. They’re the same as any video game company that puts out a buggy mess then patches it over the next 6 months using their customers as Beta Testers while telling them they bought a final product.
Their awful Cruel Seas and SPQR Releases and the last few Bolt Action Books were utter trash that required “Day One Patches” to make this big expensive Hardback Book usable since they just don’t bother editing, play testing or proof reading. If you have time to create entire new games you have time to sit down and make sure the ones you already sell are ready to be on the shelves. They literally changed a Core mechanic of SQPR with a PDF FAQ so now your rulebook is useless without a dozen loose sheets of paper alongside it. Now I don’t mind that after 6 months of Community feedback, that’s what games should do. Not after a week of them copping complaints on Social media so they just throw something out that should have been found while playtesting to appease people.
Lord Of The Rings would be Gang/Skirmish predominantly but goes up to Warband/Formation – even though each model effectively works as an individual within that.
Test Of Honour isn’t dead, it has been taken up by Grey For Now Games and they are working on it. Warhammer Underworlds still has a vibrant organised play scene, Silver Tower is gone yes…replaced by Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress.
Both Test Of Honour and Underworlds still exist and you can buy all the warbands and models you want for it if you like. If not, you can go and use the models in your other games.
I think for the most part smaller scale ‘skirmish’ games are thriving. I mean, maybe I’m biased because I just cannot be arsed with larger-scale games anymore (honestly, too much time and investment for too little actual pay off in my case) but I think that a lot of people are really impressed with the offerings from companies like Osprey and the like who are getting rules out there for people to use their massive collection of models.
On the topic of Warlord, there should certainly be another level of scrutiny in there from those creating the games…any company should do the same. You don’t want to make a defunct product at launch otherwise it will end up putting a lot of people off.
I stand corrected on Shade Spire I didn’t know it was the same thing as Underworlds.
Test of Honour is Dead though that I won’t back down on. Warlord totally dropped it and that means all their Independent Retailers dropped it. Here in Australia we had half a dozen retailers selling Test of Honour because they had agreements with Warlord but when they dropped it the game stopped being sold.
So maybe it’s not dead but it’s now sold by one very tiny company that the majority of people have never heard of and dropped by most of it’s Independent Retailers. From one of the biggest names in TableTop Wargaming to a tiny business is a dead game in all but name.
Blackstone Fortress isn’t a replacement for Silver Tower, one is Sci-Fi the other is Fantasy there’s no reason those two couldn’t co-exist and one is not a replacement for the other.
I mean, if you really want to play the Fantasy version of Warhammer Quest GW re-created then there is the second set they released, Shadows Over Hammerhal.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-Quest-Shadows-Over-Hammerhal-ENG
It’s still available and is more in keeping with the traditional Warhammer Quest design where it’s 1 Vs Many. I personally think ‘Overlord’ based board games have a lot of problems when it comes to satisfaction gameplay-wise but it’s still there and the option for those who want the Silver Tower experience.
I was merely mentioning Blackstone Fortress as it’s their new(er) dungeon crawler which has been consistently updated over the months since release. It doesn’t quite fit into what we were talking about though in the grand scheme of thigns (maybe we screwed up there) as it’s a board game front and centre.
Test of Honour isn’t quite dead, it is still mentioned in dispatches. It has been re-released by Grey for Games (I think it is the company owned/ran by the original rules writer) and is being distributed by Footsore Miniatures and Games.
it wasn’t rereleased, warlord didn’t own it they were publishing it for the author. He then decided to print the second edition by himself and formed Grey for Now, releasing it in conjunction with Footsore and they produced a new line of miniatures for it.
Warlord doesn’t own a fair few of the games they print, Test of Honour was just one of them. They don’t own Konflict ’47 either, Clockwork Goblin does. The Dr Who and 2000AD games are all purchased IPs (which means they on a timed contract) which is why the previous Judge Dredd Miniatures game has ceased and is going to Warlord. Who knows with the Rick Priestly games in their catalogues, but I’d assume that as he’s mates with them all they are there forever.
What I’d say about bigger than battalion level wargames is that generally you can swap individual model count to stands, as the miniatures generally reduce to smaller and smaller scales.
Similarly I think chaning from ground to air/sea/space combat with ships still holds true to the definitions, it’s just a label change to dogfight, flotilla/squadron, fleet scale battles.
From an army point of view, small combat between say sqaud, platoon, company firefight against another small group is a skirmish combat, a large battle from battalion upwards to battlegroup is a mass battle, people why do we need to have all this definition difference to me if if the game designer says its skirmish then its skirmish and same for mass battle.
I think it was important for us in this case because we wanted to classify what kind of games we were talking about (low model count, mostly individuals activating on their own etc).
Which, by the end of our chat I think we were able to do!
You are right though; if a designer calls it a skirmish game in the broad sense then I don’t really care what it’s meant to be classified as haha.
Pointless views seems a very fitting title 🙂
Have to agree with @lloyd that there’s too many games.
I’ve been trying to find a game to replace 40k since 8th Ed’s release, and I’ve looked at a lot of new stuff over the past 2yrs. I’ve seen a load of my local club players pick up the same starter sets (Star Wars Legion, Adeptus Titanicus, Necromunda for example) only for them to do nothing with them and return to playing 40k day-in-day-out. 40k has now in itself become a barrier to entry to other games at my 2 local clubs. I’ve seen new people sign up to the clubs FB pages and ask about other games and get answered with tumbleweed when they ask for opponents, it’s getting quite sad and I do wonder about the future of the clubs as a result.
That’s where, as I was saying during the show, it’s on the owners of these clubs and the ones that set up games etc each week to be the ones championing new games to offer opportunities for newcomers to share their newfound loves and then make them a feature week in, week out.
It’s a big ask of course and you’d be sensible of course but it would help get more games out there! Imagine having a couple of warbands for SAGA/Frostgrave etc as part of the ‘club set’ which could be rolled out by someone to play against if they wanted a pick-up game?
Not through a lack of trying on my part 🙂
We have 2 of us who are pushing Bolt Action (and have been for many years) at one club, but again, people have bought armies and then gone straight back to 40k.
I suggested we have a full club day instead of an evening on bank holiday monday a few weeks ago. Within 1/2hr of the hall booking being confirmed, one guy had been round and ensured everyone was going to be playing in a apoc-sized 40k game…
I suggested running a Necromunda campaign, again, couple of people initially said yes, few bought gangs, but apart from running 2 intro games, no-one played after that.
The other club however has just “descended” to running endless 40k campaigns – finish one, start the next. Even as part of the club committee, when I suggested a non-40k event it was instantly dismissed followed by a tirade about why I wasnt helping run 40k campaigns (strangely enough havent been back to that one for several months now and will be standing down at the upcoming AGM)…
Ugh jeez! Well, at least you’ve been trying!
@olliep seems they have BP syndrome at your club (BP stands for a person at a certain club)not saying this is the case with your club , but one club I know hes a long standing member who is bone idol, basically wants to turn up a club like the old steriotype working class husband sitting at table waiting for meal with knife and fork in hand, in this case wants to play same game every week as too bone idle to learn new rules, with someones else’s figures and game.
Hehe, nah it’s more that the GW-marketing machine has sucked them all in and spat them out as 40k zombies on the other end. They do occasionally look outside the GW/40k range, but that tends to last about a week before they return to the previous zombie state 🙂
Just as well, said person is so lazy deliberately turns up late to avoid helping set up game, and hides in toilet at end of night to avoid putting anything way.If his games master doesnt turn up he hovers over other games winging they are .not playing the game he likes.
Stopped going and bumped into him at a show (more winging about paying to get in as he doesn’t like spending money either)and you could see he was angling to get me to go back so I could put games on for him.The funiest thing is watching him at xmas, his wife refuses to cook at xmasdinner so he does somersaults with not wanting to pay for lunch , but not wanting to cook it himself!
Wow he sounds a barrel of fun! 😀
He was, He was a driving instructor, someone told him the job involved sitting on his arse all day and telling other people what to do, he never got over the fact it involved work.
It took 30 minutes for @lloyd to go mad.
To be fair I think that was some good going.
I don’t blame @dignity for being confused tbh…
@lloyd is very good at applying symmbolic logic in that he is able to pick out and take to basics of what is actually meant out of what is said!
I do that at work meetings, and everyone loathes it when this little voice at back of room
says ‘Would you like to run that by me again’.
Always a good idea to do that near the end of a meeting to make it longer and do less work #protips
I think of it like this:
“Skirmish” is the battle of the warg outriders vs the protectors of the Rohan refugee column where small groups of fighters and individuals fight.
“Mass Battle” is the battle of Pelennor Fields where massed blocks of troops go at it.
I’m sticking with the old definition, Skirmish is where 1 figure on the table represents one man. Mass battle is where 1 figure equals multiples (eg 1:20). “Skirmish” defines the level of the game (or abstraction) and not the number of models on the table.
“Skirmish” level games (ie 1 figure equals 1 man) I think have been oversaturated because of the dominance of 28mm in the market. As the scale of the minis decreases, then the rules used with them tend to bring the game up in scale towards BIG battles.
Phew that was a lot to take in
Next weeks topic. Static grass. A great basing material or a poor mans flock?
Oh my gosh, Friday is done and Saturday is already here. As for the skirmish games… its pulling a ton of dollars away from my main wargame, specially there’s so many of them and there’s a lot of cool models to get.
A good discussion and nice to see a willingness to go back and recap previous discussions. It seems a lot of people are getting lost in dictionary’s and the military terminology of what constitutes different size forces, their make up and what best describes them.
I think the goal was to have a descriptive word for a game that helps you understand what that game involves in gameplay and miniatures from that descriptive word.
In all honesty, I am not sure that is achievable, thankfully it’s not really needed anymore either as for most you can just search for them online to find out what they are all about.
Thanks for the shout out.
I agree with Gerry that the most important lesson is to define your terms at the start of a discussion in future.
I get the impression reading horus500’s original post that by “formation” he meant several units fighting as a group (e.g. several squads, their transports, and a supporting tank deployed close together and working together throughout the battle) rather than a unit of multiple models fighting together (e.g. a squad of space marines or a unit in saga).
Correct. Exactly what I was saying!
The problem is the word Skirmish. A Skirmish formation is an irregular open formation.
In the classical period, one where typical infantry lack sufficient firepower to repel a cavalry charge, there is a correlation between the number of figures and their formation. More individuals leads to tighter specialized formations (infantry, arches, cavalry…). So, the number individuals involved in the battle makes it either skirmish or massed formation. Referring to something as Skirmish or not in this period tells you a lot about the numbers involved.
In the modern period, where typical infantry has good ranged firepower, they are always deployed in a skirmish formation. There is a strong disincentive to be packed in with your colleagues because of the switch ranged firepower. So, the term Skirmish in a modern environment provides no demarcation to the number of individuals involved in the battle. So one resorts to specifically specifying the number; i.e squad, platoon, company, etc..
In the discussion, you kept switching periods…
Side note, been a cultist for a few years and I never understood the abuse on @dignity. After three episodes of Point of View, never mind. ?
I want to start with saying I’m not trying to troll. Your post had me thinking and I appreciate that.
The word skirmish not skirmish formation. Below is the definition as I learned/understood it. I looked it up after reading your post to clarify it for myself and figured I’d share. there is a difference between a “skirmish” and a “skirmish formation”.
Skirmish
“noun
an episode of irregular or unpremeditated fighting, especially between small or outlying parts of armies or fleets”.
“(skûr′mĭsh) 1. A minor battle in war, as one between small forces or between large forces avoiding direct conflict. 2. A minor or preliminary conflict or dispute: a skirmish over the rules before the debate began”.
these were the first two definitions to pop up when I searched
Side note, I couldn’t agree more with your side note 🙂
loved it guys.
I’m fine with the definitions you guys came up with. I’m not sure i’ll remember them by tomorow though, my brain is moosh now 🙂 !
Yes there are a lot of games out there and more coming in every month, i think each and every gaming group has to talk between them and settle on themes, type and time periods and, maybe like @warzan said: “buy into the hobby” though! My friends and i have a few games (hmmm, maybe more than a few 😉 ) and we play them im cycles: 1 weekend, game A, another game B, etc
We’ve also focused on Frostgrave, because the game keeps evolving…
Anyways, that was my two cents!
Just to clarify on my definition of ‘Formations’; from 1914+ it quickly becomes apparent that marching in ranks, line-abreast at machine guns isn’t that viable and infantry become looser formations of squads in a company/regiment etc. The thing is that (in wargames) companies and regiments are rarely just made up of infantry. You can’t call vehicles (ok-maybe bike/cavalry squads), tanks, artillery , etc skirmishers. So they are part of a formation, like say a panzer genadier company, Imperial guard etc, under a common commander.
I do think we’re overcomplicating things here. As I said before “traditionally” a skirmish set of rules has 1 figure representing 1 man. And that’s the level of abstraction for the rules (usually no rules for things like C0nC or Fog of war etc). They can be anything from the simplistic to quite detailed (perhaps to the level of an RPG) with players keeping track of things like ammo left in a clip/magazine.
The “size” of the game is perhaps more determined by the space available (eg the table), the wargamers budget, and finally time available. So it’s a very subjective thing (and I don’t feel should count towards any definition). I’ve played Skirmish games on a 2X2 and anything up to 6X4 (40K would be a good example of this).
The oft forgotten “figure ratio” used to be a staple for most “rank and file” games, however with the prevalence of the “skirmish” rulesets many gamers in the last 15 years or so may not have encountered this or even of heard of this. The most common one is 1:20 (or one figure represents 20 men), this give us things like a Napoleonic French Infantry Battalion being made up of 36 figures (representing 720 men). Rules that tend to use a figure ratio tend to be an indicator of the rules being rank and file.
The fact that most modern rulesets don’t even mention a figure ratio means they are simply a “Skirmish” level game (and most modern ones are extremely simplistic compared to earlier rulesets). So the market has evolved/devolved over the years in terms of complexity.
But at it’s basics, we have Skirmish, mass battle/rank and file, and grand tactical rulesets. Skirmish has a figure ratio of 1:1 (doesn’t matter if these figures are organised individually or in squads), mass battle/rank and file (usually has a figure ratio and basic units are the battalion or Regt), and finally Grand Tactical (where the units are usually Brigades or Divisions on a single base. Rommel is a good example of a Grand Tactical Ruleset).
That’s the way things were historically back in the 80s/90s, and we used to see a mix of all types of rulesets on the table. It’s only in the last 15 years that many gamers seem “disconnected” from any rules that are NOT skirmish level (and have a hard time conceptualising what rank and file, mass battle, and grand tactical rulesets are…….)
Maybe the definition should be
If in the game one figure be it infantry/tank/ship or plane equates to one infantry/tank/ship or plane then it’s a skirmish game and everything else isnt
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.” Machiavelli, The Prince.
So with this in mind I believe using the term ‘Skirmish’ withn the new classification grid is going to grind the gears of most to the point that you’ll always meet resistance. What it means in gaming is one thing, what it means in milatary terms is another. Add to that you’re confusing ‘a skirmish’ (noun) with ‘to skirmish as skirmishers’ (verb and noun derived from said verb). Skirmishing is everything it was described as – a harassing, screening use of loose formation troops within a larger battle, often against and around tighter formations (seen as the default).
A skirmish as an encounter however has traditionally referred to the nature of the encounter, which is an ad-hoc encounter between forces (often asymmetrical) outside of a ‘planned battle’. Traditionally this would be scout units or vanguard units clashing in situations where the main aim would often be to simply survive. Occasionally there might be objectives to achieve in the encounter (gain recon info, capture that building/ overlook fo strategic benefit come the main battle) which is where we can exploit the possibility of a ‘game’.
The 20th century saw a move away from the ‘planned battle’ format as communication technology improved and the breadth of a planned battle extended outwards as sides attempted to outflank each other to the point that a battle-line stretched for tens if not hundreds of miles and the ‘battle’ became a looser linked, inter-dependent set of smaller encounters that individually could be considered skirmishes as the sense of an overall ‘battle’ became harder to perceive except on a large scale map. Consider what the BoW/OTT Infinity and FoW online campaigns are recording!
I think the ‘man-to-man’ concept is safer for the ‘individual model as a unit’ level than ‘skirmish’; although there are inevitably multiple issues with ‘man-to-man’ so perhaps ‘model-unit’, ‘formation unit’ of multiple models with common characteristics and ‘block unit’ of multiple models (ranked).
Of course this becomes tricky and loops back on itself when you play with scales and find yourself playing on a board where a single model-unit is effectively representing what is considered a ‘block-unit’ at a larger scale…
I mean – is my single model-unit representing a whole space fleet now playing in a skirmish game?
WE have a running joke in my group of friends,
One of the guys bought a skirmish game (which we see as being anyhting with a “low” figure count, where models are based individually.
Typically something like Mordheim, or Saga would fall under this banner,
Anyway he went mad and bought hundreds of figures for this game that he promised would only need 10-20 max. So now our rating system is very sarcastically based solely on the word “skirmish”,
“I’ve got a new game lads, it’s a skirmish game?”
“proper skirmish? full skirmish?”
“wooaah, no, not full skirmish, im not mad… half skirmish”
“oof, half skirmish? might still be a few too many figures for me”
The lad who’s fault this is hates the system, the rest of us still find it hilarious… it’s been years now ?
Little late to this edition,but i’ll try to lay out my ten cents on this in some sort of coherent order.
Skirmish Games:
Mordheim
Necromunda
Spectre Spec Ops
Kill Team
Frostgrave
Vanguard
SPQR
Mortal Gods
Warcry
Shadespire/Underworld
SAGA
Blood & Plunder
Sharpe Practice
Chosen Men
The Walking Dead: All Out War/Call to Arms
Mass Battle:
40k/Apocalypse
Warhammer Fantasy Battle/9th Age
Kings of War
Blücher
All choices are my own,for good or ill.I put 40k in Mass Battle because of the amount of formations/detachments that can ( and are ) taken.Couple that with the amount of time it takes to play a game ( not even a full 6 turns ),is why i put it into that category.
In my mind term “skirmish” is simply overused by game producers as a marketing device used to imply that this is a kind of game that can be secondary to you main hobby, presumably 40K or AoS. This way producers seem to position their products in slightly different market/niche than biggest competitors. The same applies to GW itself which has no business in competing with its own main products, therefore produces games dubbed skirmish, that are additional, not replacing their main milk cows.
Is Lloyd wearing a peaked beany cap?
As a game writer I think we need to look at the action level.
By this I mean does each individual figure, representing a single person, get an action. If so, in my opinion, it’s a skirmish game (IHMN or Frostgrave for example)
If each figure represents one person, but they act as a unit, then this is a small unit action game (Lion or Dragon Rampant, W40K).
Above this, where a figure represents more than one person, you are getting into battle games running from squad to company, regiment, brigade and army levels.
I never knew any of this was an issue.
For as far back as I can remember the Gamer standard…
Skirmish=usually low model count with individual actions (determined separately)
Mass battle=usually higher model count with unit actions (determined together)
Rank & file referred to the use of formations usually on trays and had nothing to do with the size of the game.
>Iinsert genre here< followed by skirmish or mass battle. I know there are always exceptions to the rule but almost every war-game fits into one of these categories.
I always thought this was to keep things simple for new/young players.
I think having some definitions would be great. Here is the FOGH humble submission:
Scuffle – less than 5 figures, a typical RPG encounter (“… and that’s a SAN role!”)
Brawl – 5-10 figures, En Garde type of detailed sword fight
Feud – 10-30 figures, Dux Britanniarum type of fight between small war bands
Skirmish – 30-100 figures, company level action
Engagement -100-150 figures, several companies in action
Battle – 150-500 figures, a proper game!
Campaign – 500-1500 figures, series of battles
War – 1500+ figures, epic club weekend