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

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

“It’s interesting that much of the debate seems to be flitting around scale which imo is a rather different question.”

It’s kind of linked to rules, larger scales mean smaller game scale (hence why there’s so much skirmish/warband rules around at the moment. Sure you can do the refights and battles using 28mm figures but you’d need a BIG table to do so (which is why we’ve seen this type of wargaming fade away).

It was initially 25mm for wargaming back in the 70s, this was the first scale adopted by the manufacturers for minis produced for Wargaming, then 15mm gain popularity as players didn’t always have the big tables needed/or wanted to play big games (plus the figures were cheaper and quicker to paint), then 28mm seems to have swung back into the limelight lead by the availability of the plastic figures (6mm was always there bubbling away with gamers).

And if we look at how the Wargaming press used to cover the games we can see how in the 80s/90 it was about the big (game scale game), refights and orbats. But if you look at a magazine today its about skirmish/smaller (gamescale, by this I mean figure ratio such as 1 figure equals 20 men…if the rules even have the concept). And the general availability/popularity of rules has changed as well with Skirmish gaming leading the ways at the same time 28mm’s surged back into the foreground.

So in a way I do think it all links together, now question yourself. Has this been market/demand led, or have the big companies dominance unintendingly steered gamers towards a certain scale and thus certain types of games over the years?

I don’t feel that we’re in a Golden Age of Wargaming because going to a Wargames show in the UK (which to US people here is basically the Traders Hall with a few display games thrown in) the choice doesn’t seem to be there anymore. The traders shelves are awash with all sorts of 28mm goodness. Same with the rules, other than a few specialised book/rules traders most of the shelves have the popular rulesets produced to accompany said 28mm goodness in one easy and convenient package.

So to new gamers they are steered towards purchasing 28mm and like I’ve said I met gamers who have never heard of 15mm figures before (ok they were fairly new to the hobby). But it’s such a shame they haven’t been exposed to tactical games like Johnny Reb (or a newer alternative) etc without have to seek out the “Dark Cultists of old school gaming”. They can’t find this stuff in the magazines, the Wargames Shows or even online much (unless they know where to go and know the secret password 😀 ).

Is wargaming accessible as a whole? Yes indeed it is, there a lot more gamers about than there used to be…

Are the miniature products better than ever? Yup, the detail on these modern figures ar every good (although with the advent of CAD programs for sculpting I think the posing has gotten awful on some ranges…but that’s another issue).

Is the variety of wargames rules better than ever? Here I start to quibble, yes there lots of good rules out there “British Grenadier” for AWI (but had you heard of it before?). These days if the rules aren’t by one of the big companies, they just don’t seem to get any limelight, and the big companies are into producing 28mm skirmish games (probably following on from the overwhelming success of W40K in propelling a company into a very comfortable fiscal position). So perhaps I need to rephrase my question….

Is the variety of easily accessible wargames rules better than ever? Here I’d have to say no.

Is the variety of types of wargaming better than ever? Here I’d definitely have to say no. Looking round at out local club last week we had 3 games of 40K, 2 games of Star Wars, 1 game of Saga, 2 Bolt Action and a Cruel Seas game. All of these are the big box, easy to obtain games. All of then “skirmish” (well if you count Star War fighters and MTBs as a single man). Whereas in the 90s you probably would have seen 3 games of 40K (it’s always popular) -Skirmish, 3 or 4 Ancients games (15mm) – Rank & File, 1 or 2 Black Powder Games (in mean the era, not the godawful rules) – Rank and File, a historical naval game with battleships (WW1 was always popular at the club) and then a couple of ww2-moderns games – Skirmish.

So the “history” isn’t as popular as before, nor anything not skirmish level. So going to the club recently (probably not the best place to take a poll) I feel the variety of games HAS gone down. Similarly the variety of easily accessable/purchasable games has down down at Wargames Shows.

….and don’t get me started on Kickstarters, we’ll be here forever 😀