Reply To: Inaccessibility of Historical Wargaming

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

I’ve been in this hobby for 30 years and I have seen attitudes change dramatically over this time.

I must first point out that I live in the U.K. and have the luxury of being able to have had access to the hobby at its full.

I started out in school getting involved in a D&D group after reading The Lord of the Rings abs being blown away by the story. When I left school I joined a local gaming club (Devizes in Wiltshire) where I was introduced to historical Wargames. At this time fantasy and sci-fi gaming in clubs from my experience was frowned upon, likewise was wemen playing games.

As I experienced through the late 80s to mid 90s our hobby took a dramatic dip, especially in the historical gaming scene. At this time GW was growing fast, opening stores and welcoming all walks of life to play there games. This at the time was a breath of fresh air and it reinvigorated the historical scene to try and make it more accessible to all.

I am glad to say after coming through these times that our hobby is in a strong place right now and I think it is recognised that the hobby needs both sides to survive while still making it open and accessible to all.

I enjoy both historical and I will say GW style games in equal measure, I am very open minded to try anything. I think the reason historical gaming can seem inaccessible is something @torros said in that historical gaming you have a vast subject to choose from. Also within these subjects we all have our own ideas on how things are done, yes we can all read books on a subject, but from my experience a lot of books and views are open to interpretation.

Using the Bolt Action from the OP I think it was bad timing to suggest what he did, but I don’t think he did anything wrong as he seemed he wanted to help. Bolt Action isn’t a decent set of WW2 rules, but they are good at allowing people to play a game using WW2 miniatures and they are good at bridging the gap between 40k and historical gaming.

Sorry for the long post, I got carried away. Now I am very lucky to have built a room with 2 tables and game at home with a group of people, but my advice for anyone trying to get into our hobby or getting into a particular part is to look for your local club where today you will find any help you require more so than what I experienced when I started.