"Miniature Wargaming" Topic

Miniature Wargaming marries two preexisting hobbies: games that model warfare in some way and modeling, or recreating military apparatus and their related entities concretely and in miniature.

Chess, Risk, Advanced Squad Leader, Call of Duty are Wargames but not miniature wargames. Playing with unpainted figures, chits, counters, or any one or two dimensional tokens are not miniature wargaming because they ignore the modeling half. It's gaming alright but not Miniature Wargaming.

Agree or disagree?

unpainted figures

Disagree.

one or two dimensional

No Flats? Disagree.

Chess

Tough call – I agree, but can see why some might not.

Pat

I would tend to agree.

or any one or two dimensional tokens

I've never ever seen any one dimensional tokens.

I didn't want to be the that pointed that out. I thought 'Margard will be along soon, leave it to him.'

I like to think some of my older stuff is four-dimensional

Pat

The statements in the posters intro are just that, statements. Not much to argue with.

There's another shoe waiting to drop. I'll wait till it does.

Neither pedantic, nor picky. Merely a statement of fact.

Mea culpa .. was thinking paper lain flat with no height… I know better.

Hi,
Well, if you want some specific labels for different kinds of wargaming then "miniature wargaming" has to be the sort which involves miniatures, of any sort. So you should be able to include games with painted figures, unpainted figures or flats.
Also, it's quite easy to do miniature wargming with bought, non-self painted figures and terrain and pre-made models, they're all easy to buy if you have the cash, it doesn't necessarily need personal artistic input by the participant. Maybe you could call the hobby you describe "self-crafted miniature wargames" or "self-artistic miniature wargames" because it involves miniatures or models which you have made some creative input to.
All the best,
George.

Neither pedantic, nor picky. Merely a statement of fact.

Puts down cup of Earl Grey Tea, adjusts Cardigan, pushes half-moon glassses up nose, purses lips and says…….

Neither pedantic, nor picky. Merely a statement of fact.

I knew what he meant, and I reckon you did too.

Pat

An unpainted miniature is still a miniature.

Leave definitions to the Oxford English dictionary – they might care, I don't.

I've always felt an unpainted figure is a "potential" miniature so would agree with the OP.

And I feel that a cardboard chit is a potential miniature and disagree with the OP.

I do what the I choose to do and call it what I ing choose to call it. Well, there goes 30 seconds of my life I'll never get back.

'Miniature Wargaming' _is the marriage. Not all wargaming uses miniatures, not all miniatures games are wargames.

The use of miniatures or not, the painting of them or not etc. isn't an essential debate to wargaming.

Of course, if you want to get on well amongst circles that present their games with nicely painted figures I'd suggest you conform to that standard (or have a good alternative) otherwise you might risk finding yourself less popular. Nobody has a right to be accepted within amateur enthusiast circles.

I play games with my own figures I have painted myself. Virtually no exceptions in 35 years. 3 dimensional – but that's the aesthetic I want. I do know I need to do better terrain. aleadodyssey.blogspot.com.au

System 7 Napoleonics…

Agree, more or less.

False dilemma. Who cares?

"Uncle Duke" Seifried called this a hobby/craft/game/toy. I think he was (and is) spot on.

Disagree. Too many unpainted miniatures in wargames. They are still miniatures and wargames. But, a new term, "model gaming" would qualify as an "agree": if you are not building models, but merely putting miniatures on the gaming table/board, that is not modeling anything. To qualify as model gaming the pieces must be painted/rendered such that they attempt to model something else, either real or imagined.

When camping or to test an army, we will use printed paper top downs stuck on MDF bases. We use the same rules as we use when playing with 15mm painted figures. Still miniature war gaming to us. If you disagree that's fine too.

I disagree about the non-painted figures. I don't paint the soft plastic troops because they are generally too bendable.

Flashman 14: STRONGLY AGREE
Details: I want my miniatures rules to require miniatures. In other words, HeroScape, using the advanced rules, has silhouettes of its figures with line-of-sight dots on them to show what part of the figure constitutes being a legal target and what os just a detail. For example, if a swordsman's head is visible, the figure can be targeted. If just his sword, he cannot.
For me, this makes HeroScape more truly a miniatures game than, say, "Hordes of the Things", or "Dirtside" or any other game where the miniatures are simply used for bookkeeping purposes or as nothing more than beautifully detailed counters. (I'm not saying they aren't good or even great games, they just don't strictly require miniatures, while HeroScape does).
By way of explanation, my first miniatures game was "TRACTICS", where line-of-sight, visible portion of a figure and even angle of attack were tremendously important, and nothing helped determine these details like an actual three-dimensional figure on the battlefield (in our case, a sand table).

Printed paper figures are OK and can look more attractive than unpainted plastic or metal. For me, aesthetics are an important part of miniature wargaming.