"What false wargaming assumptions have you discarded?" Topic

I know that I cannot ride herd on this discussion.
However, this came to mind when I was reading the Poll suggestion of favorite Napoleonic Rules.

It got me thinking about how … religious the Napoleonic Discussion board has become. There are witch hunts for heretics there, and I would not be surprised to find out that there have been murders committed there.

I did not start out in The Hobby™ the usual way, playing with toy soldiers as a lad, and making up rules and then "graduating" to blah blah blah. I had cowboys and dinosaurs and a back yard and a front porch with railings. No military strategy, beyond PSHKEW and the tank hit the T Rex, who fell off the railing.

I started when I was 14 with Avalon Hill boardgames, and did not hear about formal miniatures game for at least 5 years, from the pages of Strategy and Tactics (a VERY early one). It was Napoleonics, of course.
So, for the longest time, I asociated miniatures with Naoleonics. However, that is not what I started with.
My first miniatures were Ancients, a mess of Persian, Macedonian and Roman. I converted Airfix Robin Hood figures into peltasts, using beer can tabs for shields, etc.
Then, I got into TSATF Zulu War and AWI with 1776 rules.
I always felt guilty about not doing Napoleonics, though. It was almost like I was not quite a "REAL" wargamer, unless I showed up at the Master's home with 4 48 figure regiments of the Wogastisburg Schlempffenbuetel Leib Garde. (They had to be 30mm, too.)
So, I dabbled in 15mm (I felt guilty about that) British Napoleonics. I was on fire for a few months, painting Scots Guards, Highlanders (both), Rifles, etc. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I had no real interest in them, so I sold them. Strangely, I repeated this process a few years later.
FINALLY, I had the liberating flash of insight that if it BORED me, what the heck was I doing it for? I decided that anyone who wanted to, could play with my Ancients, my Zulus, my Hessians (they already did, by the way), and if someone else wanted to do a Napoleonics game, they could lend me troops.

So, here, after far too long an intro, is MY #1 "false discarded assumption":

1) You are not a REAL wargamer unless you do Napoleonics.

Add yours, with or without a long winded intro. You may adhere or not to my guidelines, as you see fit.

More detail = More Realistic

Real world tactics = Game world success

1. Playing with others is necessary to having an enjoyable wargaming experience (quite the opposite in many cases).

2. Historical research is necessary to enjoy playing with historical miniatures.

1) "Simultaneous Movement"
2) Shots fired in battle are effective only if they hit someone.
3) As above: "More Detail=More Realism"
4) Parade Ground march/manuever rates are the same in the field.
5) One game design can represent any conditions in any other period.
6) "Serious Painters" use only Enamels.

TVAG

How do we know they are, or there are, false wargaming assumptions?

They are false because I (you) once held them and now have discarded them. Easy definition.
You certainly cannot expect everyone or anyone else to agree with you, except they would be blinkered pig-ignorant morons if they didn't.

That wargames are 'historical' and give an insight into 'what really happened'

Equal points = balanced game.

That hobby wargames can accurately "simulate" war.

That a longer and more expensive rulebook meant a better game.

Examples: When I was a lad: Star Fleet Battles, Advanced Squad Leader (Hundreds of pages, mucho money)

Now: FUBAR (1 page, free)

Having enough figures, or too large of figures so one can form a phalanx from one end of the table to the other end and still thinking that it is fun.
regards
Russ Dunaway

Games are reflective of real battle.

Corollary: More detail = more realism = a better game

My conclusion is that a clever design (even if it contains a lot of abstraction) that rewards good decisions tends to be a good game, and often a lot of fun. It also, can return a very historic feel and result.

When trying to simulate reality, it's often a good idea to model at a higher level (I.e. Not at the bullets and biscuits level) to achieve some sense of realism.

For me it's not so much "detail" as "More complexity = more realism = a better game." "It's got to be a great game, it has flow-charts!"
That the referee should not deviate from the rules as written.
That wargame rules writing was a science and not an art.
That the miniature figures on the tabletop should always instantly obey every order accuratly and in a predicable fashion.

It's just a game is a valid excuse not to even try to be realistic.

How many of you once believed these false assumptions that you are discarding?
I promised that I would not ride herd on this discussion, but I do kind of insist on that, that YOU once believed it.

I don't want you to list the foolish assumptions that other people have.
I want ones that you once genuinely believed.
Of course, if you have discardedthem, they are by definition "false". But, you must have heldthem once.

Ditto Willtij's experience. While I still have my SL/ASL and SFB, I merely use the pieces with simpler rules.

Ted

That house, represents a house (big game scale, as opposed to skirmish scale).

That block of units cannot move through an artillery "park".

Hills are THE most important terrain feature to occupy.

Points reflect the real comparative values of units in the table top (which is why in WRG 6th there were so many Late Romans, as opposed to EI/Marian/Camillian Romans).

That historical wargaming actually has anything to do with history.

Grognards are reliable sources of information.

That you couldn't use plastic figures. 'It wasn't wargaming unless it was metal'

That was in the late 70's. I could have saved £100.00 GBP's!

the latest edition of the game is the one you must play…

The only one I ever clung to was, metal was best!
Acrylics were crap was a minor assumption.

I haven't discarded any of mine. If I believe it, it must be Revealed Truth.

One ruleset for every period under the sun.

Uniform colours are a precise science.

Than I am always a better commander than my opponent.

That you will not die until all your figures are painted.

I know everything there is to know about the period in which I am gaming, because I have studied it first as a *brushing knuckles on chest* "historian".

That Warhammer – fantasy or ancients – is a good wargames system.

That I got over my tendency to roll ones. Lots of ones.

-----
Warren B.
minisculpture.co.uk

That good strategy will offset bad dice rolling and that good dice rolling will make up for poor stategy. See my delimma.

That my opponents will view the game the same way I do…that it is a game. Once had a guy in a club I was in not talk to me for a while because in a tournament I destroyed his Monolith with a lucky shot before he could bring the bulk of his Necrons onto the table. I have since moved on to better games and more careful selection of who I play with my toys with.

1. That the core group of people I game with will have little or no turnover. I have a small cadre of people who have been with me since the beginning, but many of my closest buddies have moved or drifted away from the hobby.

2. That given time and the growth of the hobby the net percentage of gamers who are "difficult" will go down.

3. That terrain that consists of a green felt cloth thrown over stacks of paperback books with masking tape roads is a phase that is exclusive to newer gamers and will disappear in time.

4. That "established" vendors are forever.

5. That given long enough, one rules set for each period will gain absolute ascendency and become the hobby standard.

6. I will never let my collection get so out of hand that I end up buying something I already had.

7. I will focus on a few periods and not overextend myself. I've done better on this than some of my contemporaries, but I made a master list a few years back of every period for which I had figures which blew this little chestnut right out of the water.

8. Women and young people aren't likely to be much of a threat in a game. I crossed a woman in a Limeys and Slimeys game once. She relentlessly chased my butt through three subsequent games just to get even.

9. I will never seriously consider buying Foundry figures.

10. Essex and Minifigs will always dominate 15mm gaming.

11. That by the time I reached 50 I would usually be the oldest person in any game I played.

12. Dedicated historical gamers never play fantasy games.

13. Someday I will have enough books.

14. I will never seriously consider quitting the hobby altogether.

15. Dice are neutral.

16. Age will never rob me of energy at a convention.

17. It will never make sense to buy figures directly from the UK.

18. Ebay will not make flea markets (largely) obsolete.

19. I will someday organize and run a mega-game.

20. As I get older I will game more than I used to. I always thought that retirement would be the Nirvana of gaming. As I near it my "crew" games less and less. Perhaps this assumption still has some potential. I sure hope so.

A good game had to last at least six hours.

The pinnacle of being a gamer is to be a game developer… I am SO much happier being just a player…

That playing historicals is serious wargamming, while gaming Fantasy or Sci-Fi is not.

That I will finish one army before starting another.

That I will not buy any more figures for [insert number here] weeks/months.

That there is only one 'correct' answer to any historical question, & the corollary, that all other answers are completely incorrect.

In ACW, that cavalry are for charges.

So if I never thought *28mm was the optimal size for a wargame figure* in the first place, I can't propose it?

Years ago I did think *hard plastic was better than soft plastic* (hard plastic wargame figures go back to the 70s, of course) ….

I'm sure someone once said *the dice even out* and even that *the more dice your roll the less random the result* … (the latter being a 'yeah, but …' proposition )

Still, the majority knows best (isn't that how democracy works …)…

Phil

Wargames can't simulate actual combat.

Realism is a bounded quantitative concept.

Wargamers will play by the rules.

Wargamers know their history.

That the Dice Gods rain on the just and the unjust alike.

That the more detail in the rules the better the game because it will simulate reality better. There are a couple of bad assumptions in that statement that I have come to discard.

That I can always judge how much I'll enjoy a game just by reading it and evaluating the mechanisms used. Some, of course, I can tell are not for me immediately. Others, however, really do need a test drive, particularly where they hit up against one of my irrational biases (e.g. card based activation systems).

Doug

That all wargamers find fun in the same parts of the hobby as I do.

More detail/charts etc. mean more realism, mean better game.

That casualties determined the ability of a unit to function as a unit….in a linear fashion.

That all green troops fought like crap and veterans were ALWAYS better.

"It HAS to be true….it was on TV!"

I used to believe that the more detail, the better the game….no more.

That I could with a game with better tactics….until the dice rolls.

That I would never see a really bad looking game a convention.
(unpainted figures, mismatched scales, and very little terrain.)

That I would actually have the figures for the same period in 3 different scales!!