Reply To: "Golden Age of Wargaming"….perhaps not?

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 0]

Great thread.

I guess it also depends on how you define wargaming:

* “Hex and chit” games, like the old Avalon Hill games. While I don’t play these games, the only publisher I know of for these games are GMT. Even though Hasbro acquired the AH name, it only did so for Acquire, and didn’t release any “hex and chit” games since.

* “Rank and File” miniature wargames, such as historical games. The Miniatures Page is still around, but not as active as non-historical miniature games. I think it’s worth asking this question on TMP for their POV. FFG dropped their generic fantasy Runewars. CMON is currently supporting Song of Ice and Fire. GW, of course, dropped its Warhammer Fantasy line, replacing it with Age of Sigmar, so mebbe this is a wash. Not sure if Bolt Action games fit here, since I haven’t played them.

* Miniature skirmish games. The original WH40K had five-man 28mm squads. GW also had their 15mm Epic scale miniature games. Relative to each other, WH40K was a miniatures skirmish game, and Epic a miniatures wargame. Epic was eventually discontinued, although may be coming back. Song of Blades and Heroes and now Frostgrave are popular generic fantasy miniature skirmish games. Mantic is currently supporting its Vanguard miniature skirmish game rules.

I would say that Eurogames and, thanks to Kickstarter, miniature boardgames are doing quite well and much better than both “hex and chit” and “rank and file” wargames.