"What's More Popular?" Topic

SYW, WSS, or AWI? I guess F&IW falls into SYW but it is it's own animal too. Anyway, in the Southern cons I have mostly seen AWI played.

My guess is Seven Years War. More troop and uniform variety.

I guess the answer would be geographical….i can see in the US the AWI being more popular…out here in Australia I have probably seen more SYW and FIW…WSS i havent seen much of at all…

I suspect that it is SYW.

I prefer WSS, but SYW is probably more popular.

That's what I can't understand. Why isn't WSS (and its cousin, the Great Northern War) a hands-down winner?

With perhaps the most standardised (and simple) troop types, tactics and uniforms of the horse and musket era (yet the uniforms are still very colourful), this seems like the ultimate balanced contest for the tabletop and an ideal gateway into horse and musket gaming.

Added to this you have a convergence of some of the greatest military leaders ever (Marlborough, Eugene, Villars, Peter the Great, Charles XII) and some hefty military statistics to boot (Ramillies = largest cavalry engagement in modern history, Malplaquet = largest battle to pre-date Napoleon).

Why is this period so poorly represented in our hobby and in popular culture? Why has someone in the street never heard of Louis XIV and instantly relates Churchill to a cigar chomping politician and not a Duke? Why?

Doesn't the 7YW have it's own Con (South Bend, IN)?

Pretty sure it is SYW. More frequent battles, fighting all over the world (although India is underrepresented), Frederick the Great, Archduke Charles, Empress Maria Theresa. It also translates well to the WAS. WSS, unfortunately, for English speakers, is 4 battles and a bunch of sieges. Marlborough checks out and the Allies lose the war.

Siege games are boring or otherwise not suited for the table top, the 4 battles are huge frontal assaults that are difficult to game. From a game point of view the tactics and weapons of the WSS are identical to the those of the WAS and SYW.

Having noted all this, I must admit that I have started painting WSS after painting extensive SYW British, Prussian, Russian and Austrian armies. It started with the Wargames Factory figures but has moved on to include Front Rank and Wargames Foundry figs.

Greg C.

I am not sure what is more popular. You need a lot of miniatures to play the battles of Frederick the Great, but only a handful for skirmish games in the AWI. A lot of people I know would like to game the SYW, but they don´t do it.

I really like the WSS uniforms, half my Imagination army wears them (my cav even more), but I think that the slowness of the infantry and the ineffectiveness of the artillery makes the WSS less attractive than the SYW.
I haven´t figured out how infantry defended itself in the WSS versus cavalry, and it is much easier to find something about military theories in the SYW era than in the WSS.

So imho gaming the SYW might tactically be more interesting than the WSS. But if I would find a pleasant opponent I would game the WSS, too.
Olaf L.

I'm thinking it may be AWI, there is a lot of new stuff coming out as of late.
SYW is a close second though.
IMHO

It's SYW by a wide margin, if figure sales are any indication.

The Seven Years War Association convention has had its annual convention for at least 30 years straight running. We have been holding it in South Bend on the last weekend of March for as long as I can remember.

AWI. Just because.

You need a lot of miniatures to play the battles of Frederick the Great, but only a handful for skirmish games in the AWI.

But you can play SYW skirmish games as well. Croats, Turks, Freikorps, Jaegers, Cossacks, Highlanders, etc. in Europe, and add Red Indians, Rangers, East Indians, Arabs, Pathans, Moros, and pirates as you branch out to the Colonial theaters.

ja, but the most fascinating view of the SYW is a long battleline with grenadiers and fusiliers and von Zietens hussars and…etc etc

My preference is for WSS for all the reasons Cae5ar stated above. However I concede that 7YW is way more popular.

I would agree SYW is the most popular but I much prefer the WSS and GNW.

While you lament the fate of the underappreciated WSS, spare a tear for the Jacobite rebellions, the red-headed stepchild of the big Continental conflicts.

Also a fan of WSS, know very little about the SYW in comparison.

Depends on the gaming groups in an area, but from what I have seen (in different countries and from within different States), AWI/AR & SYW seem to be the most popular.

I think SYW, but I have been tempted to WSS by the Ebor Miniatures line. Wonderfully animated and a delight to paint…but I like turnbacks.

@ GenWinter: Not to hijack the thread, but how do you find the Wargames Factory figures (or more importantly, their weapons) compare in size to Foundry and Front Rank?

AWI is *very* popular, because it's both an American war and a British war, and those are the two countries that most practice miniature wargaming. In fact in the AWI the Americans get to actually fight the British, not just insult each other on the internet. What could be better?

Likewise the French and Indian War involves both Americans and British, this time on the same side against the French and Indians. Hmm. Maybe that *is* better. Any war with a lot of Indians raiding settlers is bound to be very colorful and dynamic.

Seven Years War has the KoenigsKrieg rule set going for it. KK was one of the big formative influences on the hobby, it got a lot of people to build SYW armies back in the 1980s and has kept them playing it through several editions. Recently revamped and republished, KK has sparked yet another wave of newly built SYW armies.

Other 18th century conflicts, though interesting, don't have that kind of momentum in the US.

@Musketier – The Wargames Factory figures are slightly taller and thinner that Wargames Foundry or Front Rank. The hands are smaller also. The muskets are thinner and I worry about their durability when handled by gamers that do not spend a lot of time painting. On the table top, just don't mix them together and they all look great. Ebor figures are fantastic. If you are just starting out, I recommend Ebor. A friend of mine has an army that contains many of them and if price were no object…

See my blog for an example of the Wargames Factory figures:

link

I just finished some SYW Foundry French guard that I will post soon (as soon as it warms up around here so that I can photograph them outdoors).

Greg C.

No love for the War of the Polish Succession?

Jenkins! Where's your ear!

What about the War of the Hats between Russia and Sweden? I prefer the WSS and the SYW but really anything in the 18th century works for me up until the Revolutionary period in France and beyond.

Right Here Winston! I like that war very much. The only real war that could pass for an Imagi-Nation one.

@cae5ar-Do you really expect the choice to be rational?

The WSS is far more than four battles and a bunch of sieges. There are battles in Northern Italy, a whole campaign in Spain that is won by the French with an English/ Irish general, and lost by the English with a French general! The Dutch remain a powerful force, and he Austrians and Eugene of Savoy add whole new possibilities in the Ottoman conflicts. If one includes the largely concurrent GNW you have a whole range of battles in Eastern Europe. It is a true world war with the new world also involved. There are lots of battles ranging from division sized actions to battles that are only exceeded in size in the Napoleonic era.

The balance in this period between the three arms is about as even as one can find in Horse and Musket gaming. The national forces engaged are also fairly evenly matched. The personalities and diplomatic wrangling is worthy of a television series, but far clearer in its goals and aims than the circuitous and largely inconclusive to's and fros of the SYW.

The AWI is largely a skirmish with one side not truly having its heart in the war, and the uniforms are ok but lacking the diversity and color of either the SYW or WSS! It's popularity in the US is for obvious reasons. If you don't want to buy or paint a lot of figures that's your period.

The main reason the WSS isn't more popular in the US is it does require the reading of some history that is not familiar to many Americans. It's popularity in the UK and The Continent is much higher than in the US. The familiarity in the US is changing as more people are exposed to the fine figures by Ebor and Front Rank, not to mention Warfare and others in the GNW.

It is, when looked at closely, the quintessential Horse and Musket period for all the above reasons, and it lends itself well to Imagi-Nations gaming. Get Chandlers books, Warfare in the Age of Marlborough, or Marlborough as Military Commander, or John Lynn's excellent Giant of the Grande Siècle for a less English viewpoint, and discover what you've been missing.

SYW going back to the 1970s.
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The flavor of the era can adequately be represented by raising several brigades per side.
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Respectfully,
Bill

WAS if you count Jacobite Rebellion stuff!

Don't know about popular, but I have Seven Years War, French and Indian and American Revolution. And I am tempted by the War of the Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War both.

The main reason the WSS isn't more popular in the US is it does require the reading of some history that is not familiar to many Americans.

I would say the main reason the WSS isn't more popular in the U.S. is because the war itself did not impact the English North American colonies to the same extent as the F&IW did.

The Nine Years War and WSS are comedy gold in warfare. It was the period of transition, where armies and generals were trying various things with the new technologies, where cavalry reigned supreme and chivalry was not dead. Nothing went to plan and bafoonery was abound. Read some of Barry Hilton's events section in BtLB2 to get a good idea of things that could and probably did happen during the ECW through the WSS.

I like WSS but SYW and F&IW are far more popular. I do WSS in 15/18mm.

You chose SYW or AWI based on what? Do you have any data to backup your statement? No? Well who does? Do you go by sales of miniatures, number of convention games, a poll, a gut feeling?

This thread brings to light the total lack of data regarding participants in this hobby. There are no statistics that I know of. Don't know if this is something GAMA would track.

We are all guessing. I would guess in North America and Britain the AWI would be more popular followed closely by the SYW and the WSS a distant third. But again that is a guess.

What do we base our comments on? Probably the same as me. We base it on our observation of games played at conventions, number of blogs, number of manufacture production and sales. But I don't know of any real data. Maybe observing and common sense is enough.