Reply To: Inaccessibility of Historical Wargaming

[elessar2590 18207xp 0]

In my local group we haven’t had any problems with new people feeling left out or swamped.

There’s almost like a three stage process that I’ve seen in the past few years.

First is when people express interest/first buy some stuff and it’s pretty much just “Hey yeah you’ve got some US Paratroopers with a couple of USMC support Weapons and a Grant? Awesome let me throw together however many points that is and lets have a game”. People have zero issues with what you put on the table it’s all about having fun and helping you get that crucial foot in the door.

Second is “Hey you know what would be really cool? Maybe swap out a few of those Support Weapons for the Paratroopers Versions or take these Support Weapons instead (eg. The Airborne Anti Tank Guns instead of a Heavy Howitzer) since it would be more Historical”. No one has ever refused a game (that I’m aware of) because someone didn’t have the right stuff on the table more like a nudge towards Historical Accuracy.

Last is the point where the new person isn’t new anymore. They’ve finally got their head around what Tanks you’d expect to see with certain types of forces, what type of gear they’d be carrying, what colours their uniforms are, what type of support weapons fit their play style/theme and what faction/s they like to play. Most of this is self “policing” rather than peer pressure.

I’ve never actually run into this problem to be honest. All the Historical players I know are more interested in having fun than rivet counting and all of them play other games like Star Wars Legion or 40K and like trying new games.

I think what a lot of people misunderstand is pride in historical accuracy. A lot of times when Historical Wargamers are going on about how accurate their particular force is it’s not meant to degrade anyone else’s minis but to show their own accomplishments. For example my WW2 Japanese are a modeled around an early Sinno-Japanese War Platoon and I’ve read a few books about the period plus it’s a very interesting part of the war to me but I’m more than happy to play against someone’s Italian Late War Platoon since it’s about having fun and if I only played games against Early 1930’s Chinese Armies I’d never take them out of the case. Now I wouldn’t use them if we were going to replay a Historical Battle in North Africa but that’s different.

Sort of like how 40K Players will mention they’ve recreated X Company of Y Chapter a Historical Wargamers might point out that their force is based on a real force or (as is common here in Australia) a force that one of their ancestors was a part of. A lot of new people might mistake this personal pride/attention to detail as putting down their “Unhistorical” force when that’s not the intention.