"Why historicals and not fantasy or sci fi" Topic
28 Posts
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Baycee | 10 Aug 2014 2:41 a.m. PST |
Hi guys, I recently let out some steam regarding my decision a few years ago to ditch Fantasy and Sci Fi completely. The link to my article is bellow but i will also paste it here as i really want to hear other opinions on this matter. link (slight covered G.W. bashing maybe?) "It looks nice, doesn't it? Well, that's the point! Your army should look nice as you lurch across the battlefield launching your Orc regiments towards the enemy with an 18″ measuring tape. It's why i got into wargaming to be honest. It's why i fell in love with Orcs and played them for a good few years before i moved (unfortunately) on due to lack of time. Lack of time to assemble the miniatures, lack of time to pack them, lack of time to deploy and ultimately lack of time to actually play a 3 to 4 hours WFB 6th Edition game (you might say i skipped painting and that is correct as back then i hated painting and would rely on botched paint jobs or no paint jobs for my army). But ultimately the love of the game chooses to ignore time and if you really really like the system and the game you will find time, right? And that's what happened to me. Slowly over the years i built that yearning back. The yearning to collect and field an army. And i was dreaming also about painting the miniatures in a certain color scheme (you might notice that i was a bit grown up now compared to 8 years ago) and about conversions and cool stuff that i could do with my Orcs. But then the first issues cropped up. Warhammer Fantasy was not the way i knew it anymore. It wasn't about big regiments and maneuvering (you might argue that it was never the case however when you play a 6th Edition Orc army that has 4 regiments of 25 Orcs, 6 regiments of 30 goblins, 1 regiment of Black Orcs, a few fast cavalry, Giants and chariots it was the case for me) but it was packing the biggest punch you could get in either a character or spamming big rare monsters (or even big special monsters). And on top of that some of the rules were totally out of favor with the local crows and everyone was looking to 40k, so Orks it was. I even managed to buy a huge painted army at a very good price and i actually did play a game with them and it was so fun. Again i had 100+ boys on the battlefield, all yelling war cries and stomping their boots in anticipation of a good fight. But right about that time i discovered Flames of War and a bunch of other Historicals due to the people that just wouldn't play 40k. And so followed a long agonizing process of decision based on the following aspects: 1. Historical miniatures never go out of fashion: You know that Imperial Roman battalion box you bought from Warlord Games 6 years ago? Well, in 20 years time they will still be Imperial Romans. It's not like Hail Caesar v.7 comes out and now you have to buy a whole new box just because they now have a modified X pattern armor on them and the Pila has been replaced with a repeating lance launcher. And you know those Panther G that you bought from Plastic Soldier. Well, they are going to be Panther G's for a long long time now. 2. Historical rulesets use the same troop types: Yes, if you're playing WW2 Germans and you want to go the Armor way you do have a long long list to go starting from the lowly Panzer I and II, going all the way to King Tiger, coming back down on AT alley with Jagdpanzer I to Jagdtiger, back again to StuG's and Sturmpanzer/tigers, diving head first into the Sd.kfz. 7 or 10 series for AA together with Wilberwinds and Ostwinds and finally getting to Recon Pumas and other Sd.kfz. 222 like vehicles. Don't forget the half tracks! But even if that list is long it will NEVER go out of date as long as you collect it all. No one will ever create a new King Tiger v2 that you need to buy because you don't have that model. Once you have a full 5 or 10 out of each (that's the goal!) you can play (in the scale that you chose, be it 15mm or 20mm or 25mm or 28mm) any system that you want. I own Flames of War, Battlegroup Kursk and BlitzKrieg Commander as rules. I can play all these 3 games with my small but developing German force. 3. Historicals are cheaper: For one there's allot of competition in the historical market. And that's because no one can trade mark Space Mari… sorry, Panzer IV and interdict everyone else to even think about creating a new one. Nowadays for Flames of War you can choose from Plastic Soldier, Battlefront, QRF and a few more for a Tiger. Sure, Battlefront has basically all options available (and you should go to them for specialist vehicles) however around 30 USD will get you either 100+ 15mm miniatures or 5 tanks (and even more if you're getting Zvezda's). For bigger scales the price is still cheaper then what it takes a Space Marine player to buy 3 boxes of Tactical Squads, which he wont do anymore anyway because he has to invest in the new Space Wolf Gunship which does cost around 80 USD. This all took probably 6 months or so. But by the end of this reasoning i decided. I just sold my Ork force (and i still regret it on a purely soul crushing sort of point of view) and started to invest (slowly) into things that won't go out of fashion. And if a certain WW2 ruleset does not please me i will look for another one and use the same miniatures. And if i feel like bashing some barbarians all i need to do is buy an Ancient ruleset (Clash of Empires is the last one i stopped to look at) and get around to paint my Imperial Romans. What i won't have to do is cry over a heap of plastic that i paid 600 USD for and is now made useless because of the new rule edition or because the models are not in the Army Composition chart anymore. Special Note: This post is not aimed at bashing Games Workshop (although their recent policies do make one wonder, coupled with their financial report) but rather describing exactly why i chose to take G.W. out of my life for good." |
Pijlie | 10 Aug 2014 2:45 a.m. PST |
I think you should, as in any hobby, pursue what you enjoy. It should not be necessary to justify this. As a matter of fact, I started with SF, switched to historical and have been mixing the two now for years, to my great enjoyment. But that is my choice. Few figures ever go out of fashion, as long as they are not made for any specific ruleset and are so specific you cannot use them for anything else. When you avoid these, all should be fine. |
warwell | 10 Aug 2014 3:10 a.m. PST |
As I read the arguments I thought that they can also apply to fantasy (and possibly sci-fi), depending on how you approach it. 1. Won't go out of fashion – seems to me that an orc will always be an orc and an elf will always be an elf. Once one had a fantasy army one does not have to change it unless one wishes. 2. Same troop types – knight, warriors, hordes of orcs, etc. Do those basic troops really change? 3. Cheaper – I use 6mm and as far as I can tell the prices between historical and fantasy are not greatly disparate. Also, one can use historical figures to stand in for one's fantasy humans (and at 6mm I can use historicals for elves too). "What i won't have to do is cry over a heap of plastic that i paid 600 USD for and is now made useless because of the new rule edition or because the models are not in the Army Composition chart anymore." It seems to me that the problem is not fantasy or sci-fi but using a set of commercial rules that keeps churning out new editions to force people to buy new books and figures. Anyway, best wishes on your new gaming path. As long as you are having fun then you are doing it right. |
Dark Knights And Bloody Dawns | 10 Aug 2014 3:11 a.m. PST |
I began in the GW world of gaming much like you and again after a while I switched to historical gaming which I find more relaxing and far more interesting. Fantasy and Sci-fi is still in my blood but now I write my own rules and base it all on C.S.Lewis, Jules Verne and of course the great H.G.Wells. Will I ever go back to GW? No, life is much more fun without them. |
Yesthatphil | 10 Aug 2014 3:35 a.m. PST |
I am probably more interested in the military history than the game … and probably more interested in the military figure collecting and modelling than the game – but the marriage of all three that wargaming offers is quite compelling. Wargaming related interests that lack roots in military history have never really had the same appeal – and in truth, I doubt I will ever have time for them. I am almost certainly beyond the half way point in my life as an enthusiast but it seems to me there is more to explore, learn and understand than I have been able to tackle so far. Phil |
45thdiv | 10 Aug 2014 3:57 a.m. PST |
You can use those GW space marines with other sci if rules. two Hour Wargames 5150 rules are just right. As for your comment on cost per figure, you are correct. Every fantasy or sci fi figure is at least 3 or more times the cost of a historical figure. Part of that is the volume of sales. Sci if and fantasy games rarely have more than 200 figures on the table at any given time, and for the most recent games out there it is half that. Historical games have 2 to 3 times that amount. Still if you game 28mm historical, I have seen the new figures coming out at close to $4 USD a figure. But they are mainly for the odd era being played. Napoleonic, AWI, ACW and the like tend to be holding at $2 USD range. And when you drop down in scale, the cost goes down even more. You make some interesting comments, but I do feel that you are directing them at a single game format, i.e. GW and 40K rules. I think that if you like sci if or fantasy, there is nothing wrong with those figures as they can be used for other game rules. Matthew |
Patrick R | 10 Aug 2014 4:12 a.m. PST |
I'm a Fantasy and SF gamer, I enjoy the genres and the gaming and I also recognize they have limitations. Many fantasy figures borrow from historical examples, which means that your Troglox'nith!rathaxz'thar™ flying chicken death rider™ with Zngrt'h'ght'th™ Fatal curved Slashitar™ is only a few skullz and a funny hat away from a 12th century Turcopole cavalryman. |
Baycee | 10 Aug 2014 4:24 a.m. PST |
Thanks for the comments as they have been illuminating. @ Warwell It seems to me that the problem is not fantasy or sci-fi but using a set of commercial rules that keeps churning out new editions to force people to buy new books and figures. I think you probably nailed my issue. I am coming to a point of my young life (only 32 mind you) where i recognize this direction and whenever i see it i simply bail out of that system. Any game where they will revolutionize the rules for more figs i will bail out (i toyed with Infinity for 1 month an got out because they had monthly releases). I am maybe a hypocrite because i am seriously considering buying a few BFG fleets. |
Pijlie | 10 Aug 2014 4:57 a.m. PST |
You are never a hypocrite as long as you practice your hobby for fun and don't get your pants in a twist because of it. It's not a religion. There's no law that says you can't play both historical and fantasy and there's no law that forbids you to change your mind. Look around on my blog pijlieblog.blogspot.nl/. I enjoy both as well as together at times. There are plenty of things in life to feel guilty about. Wargaming certainly is not important enough to be one of them. |
sillypoint | 10 Aug 2014 4:59 a.m. PST |
Play for fun, collect everything you can! Hobbies often defy rationalisation. I don't rationalise the hobby…much, just like I don't attempt to rationalise why my wife needs so any shoes and handbags. The person with the biggest army wins, clear leader at the moment is the first emperor of China! |
Dynaman8789 | 10 Aug 2014 5:09 a.m. PST |
I'll be honest, your post was too long so I didn't read it. For any hobby the reason someone does it is simple, they think it is fun. Anything more than that is justification. |
20thmaine | 10 Aug 2014 5:14 a.m. PST |
I would only give up a period or game because I no longer enjoyed playing it. Hobby = for fun. That's the only rational I apply. |
Who asked this joker | 10 Aug 2014 5:29 a.m. PST |
I think the"real" reason to play historicals over Sci-Fi/Fantasy is the closed setting. As mentioned by the OP you have a finite set of forces to choose. Nothing is made up. You get what you get and have to make the best of those forces. With Sci-Fi/Fanatsy, you can have any sort of unit/figure/vehicle you can imagine. It can lead to the GW style "upsale" of more powerful units. If you like this sort of gaming then fine. Constraints, to me, are what make a game fun. If it is so open ended and with so many areas of gray that you can nullify your opponent with the metagame, then the game ceases to be fun. I've seen this in historical games as well but for the most part, it is easier to do with unit mix in Sci-Fi/Fantasy. |
FABET01 | 10 Aug 2014 5:48 a.m. PST |
Don't confuse marketing with gaming. It's probably the biggest pitfall in gaming these days. If the formative years of this hobby we had to make up and adapt so much of what we wanted, that they idea of giving up anything was absurd. These days we expect the complete package to be there at the time of purchase. And if you think that hasn't become a pitfall in historicals take a look at Flames of War. Embrace what you love about the hobby and the creativity that first sparked it. You can take your fantasy and sci-fi minis and play anyone of a number of other fantasy and sci-fi games (try Songs of Blades and Heroes or for example). Or better yet make up your own. Your biggest difficulty will be finding a like minded person to game with. |
Doug MSC | 10 Aug 2014 6:06 a.m. PST |
I enjoy history so Historical miniatures fit in with what I enjoy. Never got into fantasy or sci-fi but have played some of them with other gamer friends. They were OK but Historicals are what I enjoy the most. |
Dave Crowell | 10 Aug 2014 6:08 a.m. PST |
When I play historicals it is because I enjoy the research and history side of the hobby as much as the gaming side. As for your argument that only fantasy and Sci-Fi are prone to fashion changes, nuts to that! WW2 is hot right now because of Flame of War, it could go out of fashion again. Get deeper into the historicals side of the hobby and read the endless ink spilled about basing standards… No one made you and your gaming buddies upgrade to the new shiny version of WH40K or Fantasy. You could easily have kept playing forever with the rules and minis you already had and liked. To be honest it sounds to me like the fault is not in your stars but in yourself. Certainly GW is not fully to blame for your dissatisfaction, not are historicals the gateway to the promised land for you. I haven't been to a meeting of my local club for at least two years. They are historicals only, but haven't played a rule system or period I am interested in for that long. A lot of it is Flames of War, a rule set and subject that really doesn't interest me. You are playing your games not because of what games and minis you are most interested in, but because they are what the people around you are most interested in. I can't think of any other hobby where the chief advice is "Do exactly what the people around you are doing" even if it is not what you are most interested in doing in the hobby. An Orc is an Orc of course. GW are not the only rules to use orcs, and if your local players require you to have only the latest model to play, well ask them why. |
Cosmic Reset | 10 Aug 2014 6:43 a.m. PST |
I think it is really just a matter of what "feeds" the hobbyist. In your case, it appears that you were(are?) very rules centered, not just rules, but locally popular rules. While I have a couple of sets of rules that I would play regularly with a group that wanted to use them, I don't regularly game with a set of rules introduced to me after 1983. Over time I realized that there was too much similarity in most fantasy and pre-industrial period games to keep me completely happy. I prefer the diversity of equipment that technology has brought, thus I have almost stopped gaming everything before about 1860, stay in the colonial/Victorian era mostly for adventure gaming as opposed to traditional historical battle games, and otherwise focus on the age of mechanization (past. present, and future). For me, the most important part of the hobby is creating the environment, building terrain, making the constructs of nature and humanity (and aliens). And the creation of armies, adventures, peoples, and sometimes, battles. As I've become more of a solo gamer (though not exclusively), I am at my happiest point in "the hobby", as I get to do exactly what I most want to do. The hobby is an exploration of history, nature, science, and imagination. It is a medium for creativity. It is an adventure. It brings together diverse, seemingly unrelated subjects and combines them in surprising ways to create a fabric that I refer to as "the hobby". For me that hobby obviously includes the historical, but, that hobby cannot exist without science fiction, or fantasy. The hobby is, what it needs to be, for each of us. |
Tankrider | 10 Aug 2014 7:31 a.m. PST |
LOVED all of my GW Warhammer Fantasy Battle stuff.. played it for years and never tried to keep up with the latest and greatest thing. Sold it all off when I started to have nobody to play with because I wasn't keeping up with the latest and greatest thing and put all my gaming time and money into FoW because I could game with others anytime I wanted to and I love the tournaments for this system! When it all comes down to it, to me gaming is a social event. Doesn't matter what I am playing as long as I got cool guys to enjoy the game with. |
79thPA | 10 Aug 2014 7:53 a.m. PST |
I used to play fantasy and historicals back in the late 70s (I actually used my historical ancients as fantasy humans) with house rules. Not to sound like an old fart, but things were simpler then. There were not GW type power houses, tournament play, codexes, army lists/points as used now, etc., etc. I don't have any interest in the new style of fantasy play, but I would certainly play old school fantasy again. |
nazrat | 10 Aug 2014 7:54 a.m. PST |
I still have all my GW stuff (5 Warhammer armies, 2 40K armies, and ALL the Specialist games with multiple armies/gangs for each one) and play all of it occasionally for a nice change from our regular WW II games. We play an old version of the rules because I too got sick of the constant revisions. I will say that I was never "forced" to buy ANYTHING from GW-- I made every choice myself and saying otherwise is ridiculous. I may have paid too much for some things in the later years but the fun I had painting and playing was worth every penny. No regrets!! |
brunet | 10 Aug 2014 8:58 a.m. PST |
I don't like SF of fantasy wargames. But hey, that's just me having fun with historicals. If others like SF/fantasy more, its great and their hobby. |
Bashytubits | 10 Aug 2014 9:48 a.m. PST |
I love historical, but I also love sci fi and fantasy. Too many subjects too little time, sigh. You cannot go wrong with ancients though, they are what started me into miniature gaming. |
grommet37 | 10 Aug 2014 10:03 a.m. PST |
The original post seems to be more about specific "commercial" rapidly reiterating rulesets (and about finding players using such rulesets) than about the genres such rulesets seek to dominate. I'm a solo wargamer (15mm SF), so I don't have to play what the players around me dictate, nor what a specific company tells me I must play to be current in their universe. I can easily field a platoon for less than $30 USD, and use any of about two dozen highly recommended rulesets to do so. I can mix/match/ignore/revise any of those rulesets to homebrew my own house rules. When I got into the hobby, about six months ago, the guy at the GW store told me that 6th edition was just out (he didn't even have all of the 6th ed codices). Now, a mere six months later, when I would still be collecting and painting my thousand dollar/thousand point army, 7th edition is already superseding what was "brand new" a mere half a year ago? Sorry, but no. My hobby is doing it myself and depriving that company of any revenue they might gain from me. I write my own fluff, background, alt-history, etc. Much as Otto described in his recent Imagi-nations thread, that, to me, is the fun part. I hope you enjoy your newfound freedom. I find it has less to do with genre, and more to do with (attempted) monopolization of the market by particular suppliers and their business models. Perhaps this thread should've been titled "Why FoW and not GW." Cheers. |
Great War Ace | 10 Aug 2014 12:56 p.m. PST |
I've never understood selling off "old favorites". I have a couple of erstwhile gaming friends who did this throughout their gaming "careers". And more to the point, they rebought and painted miniatures that they had earlier sold because they were "getting out of that period", etc., and then later changed their minds. Space/storage considerations aside, why would you need to sell off an earlier favorite army? You might come back to your original interest in the future. In fact it is almost certain, unless you dump gaming altogether, forever…. |
Skeptic | 10 Aug 2014 5:35 p.m. PST |
@Dave C.: Errm, actually the club in Ottawa plays mostly, but not only historicals. There have been games of Dr. Who, HOTT (Hordes of the Things), and Star Trek, among others. Apparently, the historicals-only policy used to be a condition, actual or implicit, of using the War Museum site of several years ago. Now that the club is at its third location since then, that policy is obsolete. |
raylev3 | 10 Aug 2014 8:57 p.m. PST |
Time and preference. Although I played, and enjoyed, D&D back in the 70s when it was merely the three folio books, at the end of the day I have a hard enough time finding the time to play historicals, much less fantasy. And, my interest in wargaming is also driven by my passion for military history. |
Grelber | 10 Aug 2014 9:46 p.m. PST |
I started in historicals, tied to my Airfix collection and an interest in military history. Fantasy and SF have looked tempting from time to time, but I always lacked the time and money to go into them. Now, I'm in my 60s, and starting to wonder if I'll live to finish all the historical armies I've started or want to start--no time for fantasy/SF. That said, I do indulge in a little bit of fantasy, usually what is appropriate for the army I'm working on. Thus, I have a troll to go with my Vikings to fight, but Vikings do not fight Cyclops or hopping vampires. Grelber |
OSchmidt | 12 Aug 2014 4:45 a.m. PST |
I did em all. Board Games, Historical minis, AD&D Fantasy. Now I do Imagi-nations. Straight historical forces but the countries are all burlesques of real ones in the 18th Century. The Princessipate of Saxe Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein, Bad Zu Wurst, Gulagia, Flounce, The Grand Duchy of the Grand Duke of Gorgonzola. I've studied history all the 66 years of my life, got several degrees in it, and discovered that you can't make this stuff up! Fantasy has NOTHING on real life. Once you start getting into the details of kings and queens and mistress' and wars, you begin to see that the whole thing is ridiculous. Let me give you an example. Louis XIV is going to a masked ball in a carriage where he is travelling with his queen, AND his Maitress en tete' Madame Montespan. (Oh my, what a delightful ride that must have been). They are getting into the coach. Louis says to Montespan: "Madame- you are wearing scent! You know I despise it when you are wearing scent." Montespan retorts. "I wear scent because you stink! If you bathed more I would not have to wear scent!" Louis then slaps Montespan, who then hauls off and gives Louis a haymaker right to the jaw and down they both go, and old Le'etat cest moi" himself, rolling and wrestling and punching each other in the mud and horse crap and dirt in front of the grooms and lackey's and anyone around. Why was Hitler able to browbeat so many people? Because when he threw one of his towering tantrums he would scream at them right in their face. He had terrible bad breath, everyone had trouble not fainting or retching from it. The world is ridiculous, humanity is ridiculous, you are ridiculous, I am ridiculous-- even God is ridiculous. But-- there it is-- that's why I believe it all, and that's what makes life here bearable. War games are a ridiculous, stupid, silly, flighty, absurd hobby. Nothing is solved, nothing is proven, it's not curing cancer or ending world hunger. So do what you want to have fun. It's all an accounting function. The miniatures are not connected in some essential way with the real life prototypes they represent. They are simply ascribed mathematical values. If you wanted to take Moreschauser's Ancient rules and make two opposing armies, one Mongol and one Russian- have at it. But you could for example for the Heavy cavalry on the Mongol side have Mongol Horse archers, and on the Russian side T-34 tanks. As long as the values for each are identical, it works. As long as both sides have an equal chance because the ascribed values are equal- they are equal. "I do it to amuse me- Jacon a' son gout!" says Prince Orlovsky. |
Old Contemptibles | 22 Aug 2014 12:42 p.m. PST |
It is pretty rare to see some one go from non-historical to historical gaming. Tragically it is usually the other way around. I was once part of a really active historical gaming club back in the 90s only to see 40K destroy it. I found the pre-requisite to historical gaming is a love of history. Reading books, researching your own scenarios, unit histories etc. I have always maintained that historical gaming is a related but different hobby from non-historical. Different mindsets. When I here the word wargaming or talk about wargaming sci-fi or fantasy isn't part of it. Bayce, once you graduate from FOW, from tournaments and point systems and start playing actual historical battles or even historically plausible battles. When you start researching your own scenarios, unit histories, uniforms and read books about your favorite period, you will never go back. I got into this hobby because I love history, the gaming is a bonus. |
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