A miniature game has to be a wargame?

[shimondParticipant 285xp 1]

There’s liquid water on Mars.

This is the news that made me think, I really would like to play a game focused on the challenges and adventures that this discovery will bring to humanity. Can this be done with miniatures or are we restricted to always play miniatures Wargames ? Is fighting and combat the only challenge we are looking to in miniatures games?

Probably the only genre that add something more than just fighting is dungeon crawlers with some extra challenges not always focus on combat, but do we have alternatives? If no why? Is the medium ( miniatures) just not the right one for anything different from fighting?

[kevlinParticipant 1687xp 0]

Interesting question. There are survival board games out there that could be transferred to a miniatures game and many board games today have really nice miniatures to paint and play with. It is a thin line between a miniatures war game and a board game today, it all depends on your definition of a Miniatures war game.

Take Mansions of madness from Fantasy flight games as a good example of a board game that could be transferred to a miniatures game. Here you have the places to go and puzzles to solve without it being a straight up war game.

I think the problem lies in the board. It is quite a challenge to be able to create a new board every time and still have the other elements. I think the board game hybrids like Mansions are the best of both worlds.

Could the definition “miniatures war game” be the problem maybe? I think different people bring with them different definitions of what they think is part of this genre. DUST is a miniatures war game but still you move in squares on a board, the same with Mantics Deadzone. So the freedom of movement is not always a prerequisite. The history of the genre is armed conflict so I think the heart of it lies here. No matter where you place is the fight mechanic is at its core. If you remove the war game out of it it becomes one of the many great board games we have now.

That was a long thought 🙂

[torros 23816xp 1]

I think this is where board games come into their own . Miniatures go on the table once all the talking etc is over

[zeker1966 1633xp 0]

I can see an RPG of some type being used as a means of surviving or exploring Mars (or both). In this case the miniatures can be used to represent their interactions with each other and/or the environment. No “war” as such. A board game could be developed along these lines as well. I don’t think miniatures always has to mean war but it is, perhaps, the easiest use of miniatures?

[osbad 4279xp 0]

There are sports miniatures games. So we habe Blood bowl for instance.  Dreadball, Elfball, Guildball etc do involve violence, but they aren’t “about” killing unless uou want them to be.  Gaslands is about racing rather than directly killing each other.   I also recall a game from someone about football hooliganism, and Subbuteo is a tabletop game without even any violence.

I guess there had to be some form of competition inherent in the situation being gamed that is interesting enough to be turned into a game, so warfare or combat provides that element in a more exciting wdy than many things.

[coxjul 13301xp 1]

You haven’t seen how I play Subbuteo with my old 1960s/70s Leeds United team ( even has a shorter, ginger haired number 4)!

[mecha82Participant 10037xp 1]

This is interesting topic. I would say that miniature games tend to be wargames because of they origin as something that was part of officer education in UK back in old days. That said I could see some kind of cooperative miniature game system that’s not board game being able to work as long as it encourages working together one way or other. Other way would be to combine miniature game with RPG by having players control single figures while some kind of DM controls enemy models.

[shimondParticipant 285xp 0]

I guess my main question is more like to we always need challenges or enemies to overcome fighting? Yes, sure, there’s blood bowl and guild ball and so on, but aren’t they just another way to depict combat?

[angelicdespot 4689xp 0]

Very interesting question. I’ve often wondered something similar re: roleplaying games. Gamers tend to play dungeon crawls, horror, intrigue, espionage type games, etc. So a bit more varied than your average wargame and there are more exceptions (magical ponies, rock bands, etc.) but there are definitely genres that RPGs are better suited to than others.

I suppose with wargames and miniatures it comes to atmosphere and ‘cinematography’. Why use miniatures in wargames rather than cardboard? Because we use miniatures to fire our imagination so that we can ‘see’ the action taking place.

There are plenty of board games that aren’t wargames, but do they suffer for not having miniatures? In most cases no. Abstract board games with numbers, words, shapes, etc. are by definition abstract and don’t need minis. Building power grids, settling islands or fighting pandemics are all cool and somewhat cinematic things to do… But would miniatures contribute to making those things more cinematic? Not much, if at all.

So to return to your original question, are miniatures only suited for fighting games? I would turn this question around. What games would benefit from using miniatures? Not many, to any great degree.

If we try to think of exceptions… I suppose city building (or space colony building) could be enhanced by really nice models of cities (or bases). Games like Ticket to Ride benefit from having plastic trains, but would they be much improved by having much better quality trains? Probably not.

Sub Terra is a game about trying to escape from a cave. The base game comes with meeples but I think the game is improved by using the miniatures that are available separately. The cave is ‘haunted’ by something, but there’s no actual combat. So I think it comes back to it being ‘cinematic’.

If a game can be improved by being imagined as a blockbuster movie, then there’s probably scope for using miniatures. If not, then there’s probably no need for them.

[darkvoivod 7112xp 0]

I guess miniatures are mainly usefull to simulate physical challenges. That doesn’t necessaraly mean combat, allthough that would probably be the first one to spring to mind.

They’re very well suited to similate races and sports. Anything where physical positioning compared to the others involved is important. This doen’t need to be violent, but there should be competition or miniatures are probably redundant.

You could make a miniature game of Tag work if you want to I suppose. Different characters might have different skills, such as speed, dodge, tag or overcome obstacles.

[boazParticipant 545xp 0]

Even in tag or sports their is conflict … conflict shows up in survival, in racing , in almost every use of figures … except maybe model railroads , or an odd diorama …

[Author]

Posts