Home › Forums › News, Rumours & General Discussion › Reign of the Neckbeards (or why do historical re-fights). › Reply To: Reign of the Neckbeards (or why do historical re-fights).
I’ve found a good thing to do, and I’ve done it often, is to find a battle you want to replay, and modify it for a “pop” game system. I’ve done several (usually Scottish) battles this way and it’s easy enough to get someone into it – they have their Orc/Elf/Alien army and a good grasp of their rules and the scenario objectives – and often they have learned something in the process.
We did a 40k Watling Street thing with “Boo, Da Ork” riding around on a Squig Chariot years ago for some shows and it stormed.
The issue with getting people on board historical gaming in general is getting over the “fun” barrier. Pop culture games have surface candy coloured fun for all to see. I’m not saying historicals are not fun, but it’s a different, slightly more academic fun, which is usually less appealing en masse.
There’s also an obliqueness in historical battles. We can tease LOTR or Game of Thrones or Starship Troopers about the wild and whacky tactical decisions they make, but recreating them on a board has a simple point of reference. “Go watch the film” is much easier and immediately entertaining for most, than “go read about Waterloo”. There’s great sources, yes, but there’s a grimness about real war that pop culture avoids. Heck, pop culture can automatically make real history more accessible – your pirate accent is no doubt modelled on Robert Newton or Johnny Depp depending on your age, I’ll always channel Christopher Lambert in Highlander when shooting Nazis, and I’m always being accused at coming at Tank Commanders with them negative waves, man.
I think the key is not to be altogether too precious, even with refights – no rules for a game are 100% battle accurate, and there is always room for negotiation. How accurate you want to go is up to you, but I’d encourage everyone to give a historical refight or two a go, even if it’s just a loose representation of the battlefield and involved forces – Stirling Bridge is still entertaining if it’s 50 Space Marines holding off a horde of Tyranids at a bottleneck. If you can pull a few people into a more accurate version later, brilliant, but don’t force them and put them off. Perhaps follow up with a “cinematic” Thermopylae or whatever. Baby steps from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
