Cult Of Games XLBS: Are Historical Wargames History?
September 6, 2020 by avernos
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It’s the XLBS SHOW!!! Happy Sunday fellow CoG…
It’s the Power of Three this week. A trilogy of OTT Celebrities.
@lloyd starts us off talking about a 14-year-old Schoolgirl! Yup, it’s going to be that kind of show… 🙂 {she was a real spitfire}
@avernos always impresses me with his ability to chug through projects. The Ogres are Amazing and well done!
Quote of the show…..”Nice from afar, but far from NICE” Well done @lloyd
and then @brennon said, well, check it out at 53:18 …… nuff said.
Love the Bushido Battle Board! Even fish in the resin water under the walkway bridge. Nicely done @darkvoivod
As far as the question of the week….”Is Historical Wargaming Dying out?”
I don’t think it is…..but if you’re only gauging by age of the gamers then we’re screwed. I’ve recently seen a video where the young were asked questions about history and they couldn’t answer anything correctly. When asked if they maybe should brush up on their history lessons, they replied, “History is not important, only current times and Social Media are important.” With an attitude like that, I have to quote @avernos with a modification to his famous saying and give you, “Young People really are the Worst”…..
As for Gerry’s problem of no FLGS…. you’re not alone. We haven’t had a store here in close to ten years. When there was one open it catered to cardboard crack almost completely than tabletop gaming. There is talk of a new one trying to get started but the COVID thing has slowed it down a bit and now I hear that the card players are trying to push the owners into only doing cards like before. Claiming that “No One plays tabletop games anymore”.
I’ve been working on my Para Bellum CONQUEST: The Last Argument of Kings kits. First to be worked on are my Men-at-Arms. Coming along nicely. I do like the size of the miniatures. It’s nice to work on something that doesn’t feel like it’s going to break in my hands as I handle it.
Although I think I’m getting a bit carried away with my purchases.
Three Two Player Starter Sets – (I found them really cheap)
two boxes of Militia – (on sale)
two boxes of Militia Bowmen – (on sale)
one box Steel Legion – (standard price)
and all the Hero Resin figures currently available ….. – (all on sale)
I’m looking forward to the new kits coming out soon!
Happy Sunday!
I’ll have to see what that other video has to say, hope it’s short, but y0Historical gaming has been a thing for over 100 years and will continue one way or another.
Maybe part of its fanbase that is interested in historical what-if scenarios have new tools and toys in the form of software like the Total-War series, but I suspect modelling and collecting big boys’ toys will continue to appeal to many, possibly alongside more imagined genres.
I think of of the first people in the video, David (the Frank Zappa wannabe) nailed it with product/packaging. As someone’s who would nail the average age profile I grew up with make-do toys , for example for me Lego was just bricks that you used to create things from your own imagination; various newer generations are used to getting specific boxes of Lego to build specific things. The idea of collecting elements from all over the place from various hobbyist specialists and fusing that into a cohesive game takes time, research and effort – having it served up oven-ready box (just add paint and glue) appears to be the model going forward. We’re even seeing 40k go that way more and more over the last 10 years, I’d be interested in seeing GW’s revenue stream breakdown between box-sets and unit boxes.
I reckon if you were to ask that Irish sounding chap in the Little-Wars video he’d probably admit to being a more old-fashioned eclectic collector 😉
what a fresh faced youth he was with no grey in the whiskers.
Historicals still have that stigma attached to them, of being played by folk (which is fine) that are so into the facts, that even when building the models for a person just wanting to shoot a tank is intimidating. I glued a gun on a 25mm shaft, which one is that?? No idea of the slight difference of the 3 gun options, then in your head all you can hear is your opponent telling you that you’ve got the wrong gun followed by the full history of the factory that made the gun and where it got its metal from and why the owner loved to fish!
When you play the games though, its different, people are kind and friendly, well mostly, but even then there is certainly the air of superiority that comes with historicals, i know FACTS! Not your made up imagaination none sense of fantasy where anyone can just play.
Blood and plunder hides being a very historically accurate game under a wrapper of pirates – not by the company themselves, but the community i feel promote pirates – which lends it back into fantasy, cos no one really knows what pirates did that much and can make it up in their heads all that swashbuckling.
I love chain of command, i think its my favourite system for wargaming histoicals and plays quickly and makes for a fun game, again with a sense of history but also a bit of freedom to have fun.
Maybe historicals are held back because they do garner respect and you should be respectful when playing – wars happened, people died – should you really be comfortable with playing a game representing real people (in an abstract way, real wars, real death and real tragedy) by trying o rescue a stuffed picachu from a hidden crate under a tank?
Maybe the weight of history weighs us down into thinking we cannot take the piss when playing these games as that would show disrespect to the people that fell and suffered – maybe that is right, maybe we need games that make us remember, but at the cost that they do not get played expect by a very few people.
* Internet High Five *
Epic post.
I smiled when you discuss the stigma of historicals, come on we have all known a “your buttons are the wrong colour” person. But they are the minority. I knew a recreationist years back and that community apparently loves giving crap to their version of it, “you didnt hand stitch using a 2mm bone needle” if you used a sewing machine for something including internal seams.
I have always love historicals, many of the older (more distant in history) are even more interesting, at least to look at. When I was young I had a friend whose dad was into Napoleonics, I dont think I had seen anything more amazing than his complete painted armies. Then you see something with a distinctly different colour scheme and point it out and ask why… maybe you need a questioning and inquisitive mind for historicals? Like you said it is based on fact so the whys can matter whereas in fantasy and scifi its usually just because.
Back on point, B&P is so well researched and as a game those little things are always in the background. Mike is a beast, whenever he is on and a really obscure thing is referenced and he freaking well knows about it and usually explains how it is in the game or if it isnt why. Pirates are a gateway drug to historicals I tells ya. “Do you want to play English vs Spanish in the New World as they fight for control of something” or “Wanna play a game with pirates, you can be the pirates” before you have finished most people will be picking out their army 🙂
Is historical gaming dying out?
As Henry Hyde tweeted “Don’t be daft”
No yet watched the show, but was curious about the topic.
For my two cents I don’t think historicals are dying out, but I think what gamers think as typical historical games are.
There has been a leap towards squirmish/war band scale games (take Saga for example- everyone take a shot) over the years, where as Games where you are moving whole battalions / regiments / brigades like used to be promoted (fire and fury, shako, are the two immediate pre coffee examples) are I believe definitely on the decline as time and space does.
I think you also don’t have to be as historically accurate with skirmish games if you don’t want to be – how many people own a Richard Sharpe model not to mention Harper and co. You can be more general and get away with it rather than buying a specific standard and then being told off cos the facing colour isn’t right or even having to research it…
I do think that there are some people who are put off by historical gaming still have misconceptions about it being just doing a historical battle and redoing it step by step
I woukd also suggest that what @nogbadthebad suggests about historical gamers being over fussy about facings etc isn’t my experience either. Again it is a probably my misconception but proxing units is not something the majority of historical players are that worried about as long as they look correct enough ie your not using British Napoleonics as French or SS as Russians into WW2 and from what I read online or see at clubs there some Scifi and fantasy players get annoyed at the WYSIWYG and players trying to proxy figures in. There is anal in all sections of wargaming
I agree @torros, I think as it has been around longer (arguably) people have more experience either first hand or from others of historical gamers so all get tarred with the brush.
I might profer the hypothesis that people are less forgiving of those telling them they’ve coloured something wrong, compared with wysiwig as “the rule book states” wysiwig. I also think those who most likely to complain are possibly tournament players who sometimes fail to remember not all games are tourney related and fun can be more important… (apologies to any tournament players who feel slighted, not the intent, rather a sweeping generalisation)
Lol Hi Guy’s.
Yay the Scots saving the country again.
Happy Cogg Day All. That Heroquest board is looking SWEEEET was a huge fan back as a kid, hours spent with mates dungeon delving. I was thinking the other day that Warlord Games must at some point release a Allo Allo set for bolt action as they did with Dads Army. Really like the look of the new Mantic Goblins.
Audrey Hepburns resistance work was known to me but it lit up those little grey cells and reminded me of Hedy Lamar and her work on Radio guided Torpedos during WW2 see link below
https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/hedy-lamarr-radio-controlled-torpedo
As a biased fan of Peters Paperboys and Wofun I’ve found both great introductions to historical game and recreation games in terms or range and accessibility.
I think both Peter and Wofun are doing excellent jobs, for £20 and a printer you can get enough sheets to recreate pretty much any conflict you want from Peter, and if you’re after something as nice but more robust then the Wofun are rocking in at roughly half the price of 15mm figures with the benefit of no painting.
I’d never heard of Hedy working on the torpedos that is fascinating, thanks for the link
Your welcome. Big fan of Wofun especially the sets using Mr Dennis work, I still struggle with the digital faces Wofun chose to use on the earlier ranges. My nephews and I have great fun with the paperboy range.
You need a tin foil hat Lloyd.
Yay up the anti @avernos
Run the inquisitors are coming.
He may have seen a glaswegin hen night that scary 20+ drunk women Gerry
Hobbit Orks ?
The pubic Wars? Gerry
Mantic have a lot of really good fantasy ranges, and provide an affordable way to play mass fantasy and also have an awesome rules set in Kings of War. I would guess 85% of the negative stuff you read or hear about their models and kits comes from people who have never bought or even built their stuff. 95% of people who complain about Restic don’t know how to use a hobby knife…
Yes, the first goblin plastics and Men at Arms where terrible… Restic shouldn’t have been used for Asterian and some of the fantasy infantry and some of the hybrid metal/plastic kits are an abomination… but the people who have said that their plastic elfs, dwarfs, Undead, Salamanders etc aren’t detailed enough are so full of fucking shit they shouldn’t have a platform to spout their bullshit.
Yup. Mantic stuff is a mixed bag. The restic stuff generally from around 5 years ago is a bit of a pain – most of the Dreadball stuff is in this category, as is some of the early Deadzone su=tuff, but the later stuff is a bit better (although I am still not that fussed of it as a material generally – but it is better than GW’s Failcast it has to be said), and they had some unfortunate experiences with their hard plastics when they first switched to a Chinese supplier away from Renedra (the first version of the goblins, and the first man-at-arms sprues that you mention for instance).
However, the newer stuff is as good as anyone’s really. Although they aren’t really “cheap” anymore it has to be said.
Had they kept up the quality of the Renedra hard plastics which are as good as anything anyone produces even now 10 years later really things would have been hunky-dory. It’s a shame they couldn’t make it work for them as their dalliance with Chinese manufacturing really damaged their reputation for many people.
The new where’s Gerry game?
The corona virus may change thing’s guy’s.
Happy Sunday!
From my personal perspective I would certainly say the historical wargame hobby is changing. Warlord, a company led by guys who learned what worked at GW, is perhaps at thd forefront of that movement, but Gripping Beast, and others are also in that space.
Making historical gaming accessible to the time-poor and the non-obsessives is what works.
Nothing wrong with being obsessive over accuracy and minutiae, but when that was the *only* way to play, then gatekeeping was an issue. Now anyone can become a “historical wargamer” by buying a Warlord starter box off the shelf and havibg it on the table in the same time as they can for 40k.
To that end I see historical gaming as an easier sell to friends who find (say) WWII less “childish” and embarassing than fantasy or scifi.
I have no data, but I’ve seen it in my own club and friendship group.
Happy Sunday…. and I have nothing to add…
maybe @blinky465 …. how about that chess like gaming piece in the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars… can you do those minis? Moving and with sound? 😉
Erm. Nope.
don’t be shy 😉
The video an board game’s may join together ?
Darkangle the world.
@robert – I bought into Dreadball as soon as it was released. The quality of the minis is appalling. Not just the terrible rubbery material they’re made from, but the lack of detail on the goblins, for example (just blobs for hands IIRC). A few years later I tried them again, a couple of boxes of resin furniture for dressing up a sci-fi board. The detail was there, but the pieces were warped and curved and didn’t sit flat. Their customer support wasn’t brilliant either and after two weeks of basically being told there was nothing wrong with the scatter terrain, I gave up on the idea of being able to return them and tried the hot water trick; they didn’t hold shape and returned to curved and unusable in a couple of hours.
I’d never buy from Mantic again.
@zorg – board + video games combo? I’m working on it. A few months ago I had a playable demo, but my brother-in-law pushed for a full on RPG-type game. It’ll be ready soon. One day…..
@avernos – I can’t decide whether to bellow “challenge accepted” or “sod right off”. I’m away for a few days next week; I guess it depends on how I’m feeling when we get back!
It could be the future with the best bit of the two areas joined to make better games.
Like that Xbox game you scan the figures into the game to play as that figure?
You should start a 3D company that you can nip around to print the model’s for the people who don’t have any.
For years I thought the White Dwarf was a heavy metal magazine as it was in with the that lot at the shops.
It’s beer O’Clock?
A brill show Guy’s.
Historic wargaming covers a range of games that are on the more abstract side (more ‘gamey’ if you like) to more simulation style battles. I can see the former being fairly healthy, but I think the latter is possible more niche and passion projects. After all, recreating something like Austerlitz requires a huge amount of effort.
One of the things I like about historical gaming is the variety of rule sets, and that there are typically lots of different manufacturers to supply miniatures, often independent from the rule systems. I like shopping around and supporting different independent companies to buy minis, rules, paints and bases. But I recognise that the same thing is also a barrier compared to the more comprehensive package offered by GW. However, companies like Warlord are starting to cover that.
The only thing the Wargames Strategy and Soldiers survey average age tells you is the average age of the people who completed the survey. Reading anything further into it is naive. The easiest way to answer the topic, which you do at 1h 31, is look at the market. Are a lot of historical manufactures struggling and going out of business? Have new companies stopped entering the market? Have new ranges stopped being launched?
I also don’t get the doomsayering that computer games are going to kill miniature wargaming. I’ve been hearing that argument since the 90s and 30 years later computer games haven’t killed off all the hobbies that they have predicted they would.
Re Historicals, a more relevant question would have been “Are some historical wargames from some periods dying?”
One of the problems is that historical warfare has many different styles of warfare because it spans all of human history. Playing Bolt Action doesn’t resemble Saga any more than 40K resembles Kings of War. Both BA and Saga are ‘company’ size historical wargames, but totally different in nearly other way. You couldn’t port an army into the other’s game, use the usual tactics and expect to have a great game.
In terms of the wargaming market, Ancients, Dark Ages, Medieval Napoleonics, WWII and to a lesser extent Moderns are the historical ranges people know. Other eras get played but far less regularity.
One of the points that got repeated throughout that Little Wars video was that there is no ‘total package’. Have a look at the way GW gateways into it’s games. Squad to company to army rules in both AoS and 40K. If I am new to the hobby I can start with Kill Team, then play Combat Patrol, Incursion, Strike Force, Onslaught, Armageddon etc. What historical ruleset allows me to do that?
It has only been recently that a small group of manufactures started to produce all aspects of the game; Miniatures, rules, terrain, paints, how to play videos and magazines.
The next aspect is advertising. Many companies still advertise their miniatures as bare metal.GW has White Dwarf and it’s multimedia unit releasing weekly videos etc. If historical wargames product creators do advertise it’s in a small number of magazines or on OTT, otherwise they are reliant on conventions for people to notice them.
That’s all before you start talking about the different scales available
Exactly!
School girl helps kill 1000`s of people…!!!!!
I’ve heard the eulogy for historical games for over 30 years. I’ve been told video games will replace all entertainment, and historical games will die out due to “greying” since the 1990s, long before I was grey myself.
I think there are some barriers to entry which are worse for historical games, and I think historical games have been slow to modernize both the rules themselves and the way they are marketed until recently.
I still try the fantasy or sci-fi game de jour from time to time, but I always come back to historical games. I think history will always have an audience, and I think there will always be at least a few people who want to make things and play with toy soldiers.
I very much enjoyed the discussion on Historical war-gaming. I believe I am in agreement with Lloyd that the popularity is difficult to see given the vast different types and scales one finds in this arena. Naval combat, land warfare, 15mm, 28mm air warfare, ancient, Napoleonic, modern. I go to Historicon and would need a personal fortune to just buy one copy of every rule set available for historical wargames. Great show, many thanks.
Ben, I picked up the Monster Scenery Forest at my local game shop. Very happy with it and I recommend it. The plastic is softer than Mantic Terrain Crates but is durable.
*Ears perk up* Did someone say goblins?
Goblin hordes…. god no!
Happy Sunday folk.
I think historicals used to go through a bit of a “fad” at times, but it was usually triggered with a range of minis being released (unlike games like 40K when it’s a new edition of the rules). Players may use different rules, but the miniatures is the common aspect that they all use. I remember when SHQ released their 20mm Vietnam range (at the time there was a couple of manufacturers like Platoon 20 who’s sculpts were a bit “meh”), and then everyone and their dog was playing 20mm Vietnam games. Again when Old Glory/Skytrex brought out 15mm WW2 (long before Battlefront did it), there was a trend for WW2 gaming.
But perhaps things seem a little static these days due to the dominance of companies like Warlord and plastic 28mm figures. These have steady sales, and don’t seem to trigger a “fad” in gaming (and that sudden spurt of interest in a particular period). Which is a pity, as it was these sudden fads that could bring club members back together into playing a common period and scale (and even rules), rather than the fragmented mess that historical gaming is these days. Perhaps this is why we “feel” the historical side of things is stagnant and perhaps dying because we no longer have these big spurts of interest in a period and scale driven by new “shineys” appearing out of the blue?
My Battle Magazine from 1974 has a letter on the Letters Page stating that historical wargaming is dying.
Its been a long death then… was bollocks then, its bollocks now. 😉
Just look at the masses of plastic kits available for historicals, that 20 years ago were almost non existent… historical wargaming has never been bigger. Given how much it costs to tool one sprue, imagine how many the Perry twins must have sold to release scores of plastic kits… if its dying, then more death please.
The issue is many come to it later in life, as their tastes change, and that give it its older demographic.
Or go ask some actual historical wargamers if its dying?
But I will admit, if you go by the historical section of the forum here, thats pretty dead. Maybe historical wargamers don’t partake much of this site? Be interesting to know, as my sense is this site is all about sci fi and fantasy really with the occasional side order of historical games, many of which have a more fantasy slant… like pirates and the like.
@piers There was a letter in one of Donald Featherstones magazine from the mid 60’s saying the same thing
I think the historical participation on this site was higher when it had a Historical Editor.
When Jim was publishing his articles and having vid interviews with Warren, etc, I think there was more of a historical community feeling. He certainly drove a lot of the discussion in the Comments Section on videos.
The community based projects, especially the Bootcamps, which drove a lot of the content production in the lead up – producing the tables, interviews with the game developers, reviews of the models – have dropped away.
With Covid-19 causing people to not congregate, supply chain issues, and perhaps other reasons, there have been no Bootcamps this year. I would guess it will be a year or three before we see another one with the level of travel to get to OTT HQ that we used to see.
Perhaps “the Disco” has swallowed up a lot of the discussion threads that used to be in the forums. Any Historical Gamer breezing past the website won’t see that it exists easily – it isn’t in the menu structure.
Brilliant show gentlemen totally agree with the chat about historics, i am now fully engrossed in bolt action and all things WW2 enjoying it thoroughly and have been for a few years. Young people and history sure history to them is yesterdays facebook or twitter or what the f they look at now, they really donkeys….polite way of saying asses. keep up the good work gents…oh and ps..keep warren busy…lol
I had a look at the project system here. If you open the filters and look at ‘genre’, it gives you a count of how many projects have been classified under each. Probably no surprise that Sci-fi is top (566 registered projects), followed by Fantasy (508), but Historical is third (350). A crude metric, but it suggests that historical wargaming is far from dead, although also reflects the idea that it is not as popular as Sci-fi or Fantasy themed games (at least for the users of this site).
Was saying similar about history (as a subject, not wargames) earlier. I was kicked off A Level history as I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about the material. I even did say I’d be very interested in late 19th Century Germany, Bismark, etc. and so on.
Great show
Historical war gaming has always had an issue of being an old codgers game simply because the majority of war gamers since the 80s on the whole started in fantasy and Sci-fi and moved into historical at an older age.
I’m one of the exceptions as I’ve always played fantasy and historical games. I was a late comer to the Sci-fi genre, apart from Traveller and Paranoia RPG.
These days when someone asks about getting into historical games I’ll point them to games which have a starter box set, such as FoW, Mortal Gods, Gangs of Rome, SPQR, Saga or Bolt Action for example. The reason being they’re easier for a newbie to get to grips with and there are plenty of choices out there these days.
What makes games like 40k and Sigmar so accessible are the starter sets, its all in one box there is no need to shop around to get started. It’s easy simple with no unnecessary complications.
These guys do Napoleonic box sets https://thewargamingcompany.com/products/categories/esr-napoleonics/
There’s been a few other companies trying box sets but they never last long
Was watching Little Wars TV vid. This Christmas there bringing out a type of historical starter set
Good discussion. As I mentioned on the radio show I just think less kids are interested in history. I hope they do come back to it as they get older.
Is Historical dying….I’ve said this in several discussions over the years that historical gaming has always been an older demographic. Many of us start in fantasy or Sci-Fi war-gaming when we were younger and switched across to historical as we grew older. So it’s not dying it’s just that it appeals to an older demographic. As lot of the current fantasy and sci-fi gamer’s get older several will start to switch across to historic’s. This has been made easier with many manufacturers producing starter boxes for their games. I know a few gamer’s who have switched to Flames of War from Sci-Fi because of the starter box Hit the Beach, plus with the range switching to plastic also helped in enticing them to switch.
Skirmish style games such as Gangs of Rome and Test of Honor have also played apart in tempting some folk to try an historical game, as they can dip their toe into historic’s without to big of a commitment, it’s an easy entry into historical war-gaming.
So I don’t think it’s dying as it’s always been an older demographic, and I think it’s currently in a healthy situation. It’s just that historical’s are changing with the times, they’re starting to up their game so they can compete, by producing starter sets, making the games a lot more accessible and an easier entry to the genre.