"Greatest Wargaming movies" Topic

My one criterion here (which you will probably ignore) is that this movie MUST lead to wargaming scenarios! Either you put the game on, or you dream about doing them.

Now, FILM pedants will argue for Citizen Kane as the Greatest Movie Evah!. Ptui! You can't make a wargame out of THAT! Neither, sadly, the Godfather. Or Singin' in the Rain.

My favorite movie inspirational for gaming is Zulu. I have played in at least two Rorke's Drift scenarios, both with widely different rules.

Earlier tonight I mentioned The Man Who would Be King. There is certainly an army, but used against who?

The Wind and the Lion has possibilities.

People have been gaming The Lord of the Rings since the Courier was mimeographed.

I would LOVE to do Shaka Zulu. (
Note I have not left out miniseries…)

What do you suggest? (I have deliberately left out a few, knowing they will show up.)

Khartoum.
55 Days to Peking.
Uttu.
I'll leave room for others to answer.

Star Wars. Any episode.

Interestingly enough, I don't play any Star Wars games at all these days.

Battle of the Bulge. Massed German attacks of tanks.
Them! Troops vs giant ants.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters. Troops vs giant lizards.
Pursuit of the Graf Spee. A must for 1/2400 naval.
Starship Troopers Troops vs bugs.
The Alamo, with John Wayne, Mexicans vs Texicans.
War of the Worlds Troops vs Martians
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Troops vs Indians
Downfall Battle of Berlin German troops vs Russian troops
Gunga Din British colonial
Zulu British colonial Africa
Gone With the Wind, Red Badge of Courage, Gettysburg, ACW
Beau Geste 1939 French colonial North Africa
55 Days at Peking Boxer Rebellion
Dr. Zhivago Russian Civil War
Wings both ground and air combat, WWI
Bridge at Remagen US vs Germans at Remagen Bridge
Bridge Too Far Market Garden US / BR vs Germans
Guadalcanal & Wake Is US vs Japanese
Das Boot Convoy battles North Atlantic
The Longest Day & Saving Pvt Ryan D-Day
Cross of Iron Eastern Front
Red Dawn Cold War gone hot
Pork Chop Hill & Retreat Hell Korean War
The Green Berets & Full Metal Jacket Vietnam War
Dogs of War African mercs

All of these movies are in my personal movie collection and I have played wargames for most of them and planned wargames for all of them.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Well , that takes care of most of those I left out…..*grin *

Ahah! You left out The Five Feathers!!!

March or Die

Isn't that Four feathers?

I ran Market-Garden largely on the inspiration of A Bridge too Far and the old SPI title "Highway to the Reich". Gettysburg is next after that followed by "Charge of the Light Brigade"'.

Castle Keep
Battle for Los Angeles
Kelly's Heroes
Fury
Flyboys
Soldier-Harlan Eddison/Outer Limits(WH 40k Space Marine in 20th C. pursued by Chaos Marine)
Halleluja Trail
Longest Day-Ouisterham-Pegasus Bridge
Zonetrooper

Son of the Morning star
the horse soldiers
She wore a yellow ribbon
Waterloo
Gettysburg
The crossing
Zulu
All movies which inspired wargames for me.
She wore a yellow ribbon was the best one.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Aliens.

The Red Baron (a lot better then Flyboys!)

Mongol.

Not a movie, but Band of Brothers must have been a huge inspiration to many wargamers.

Charge of the ligth brigade
They die with there boots on
Alamo
Longest day
Kelly's heroes
Where eagle's dare
Sands of Iwo Jima
Sand peeples

The Warlord (Charlton Heston as a Norman knight)

I'm still working on a scenario based on The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent

Grelber

Battleground
Bataan
The Dawn Patrol
The Cruel Sea/Action in the North Atlantic/Corvette K 225/In Which we Serve for all those convoy games
Captain Blood for pirates
Many of the above

"King of the Khyber Rifles" and, of course, "Carry on up the Khyber"

imdb.com/title/tt0029850
bet you forgot this one!

Band of Brothers was mentioned but "The Pacific" has not. So I nominate that one. The Airfield assault in particular.

The Wild Geese

Attack Force Z! Early Mel Gibson WW2 actioner: YouTube link

Some really good ones mentioned so far. "Black Hawk Down" is certainly one that's been done a few times. While "Charge of the Light Brigade" has been mentioned, I would specify that it must be the Errol Flynn/Olivia De Havilland version.

"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" has some scenario fodder as well. There's also "Shout at the Devil."

Rob

Saving Private Ryan has gotten a few people I know into ww2 gaming.

That Italian/Russian Waterloo movie.

Colonial gaming seems to bear a heavy debt to Zulu.

Aliens (just look at all the 15mm dropships).

Starship Troopers

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
War and Peace (the Russian version) – massive Borodino reenactment

LT

Northwest Passage
Alexander Nevsky
Ivanhoe

Hamburger Hill
the Boys in Company C

Sink the Bismarck
Apocalypse Now

Barry Lyndon
Waterloo
Gettysburg
The Horse Soldiers
Kingdom of Heaven
The Last Samurai
The Last Valley
Gladiator
Alexander
Glory
Tora! tora! tora!
That'll do for now!

Mollinary

Major Dundee
Two Mules for Sister Sara
The Undefeated
Juarez
Magnificent Seven

Sink the Bismark

Channel Dash (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau)

UFO (Gerry Anderson – they made a movie from the various episodes).

Spartacus
Kingdom of Heaven
The Horse Soldiers
Ben Hur
Cleopatra
Young Winston

The 300 Spartans
Siege of Firebase Gloria
Dam Busters
The Blue Max

Warriors…

Ron

All of those mentioned, PLUS

TV series Combat and Rat Patrol!

Khartoum, I just plain forgot about that one.

Tora! Tora! Tora! While an excellent movie but not a lot of wargame potential.

Battle for Los Angeles is a good update on the War of the Worlds theme.

The Crossing is a good choice, I overlooked it too.

Northwest Passage is a good choice, but for me the lack of 1/72nd scale figures has been a hindrance.

Alexander Nevsky has tempted me, but again, not my period.

Sink the Bismarck is a great movie, but I am not sure it is as inspirational as Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

Combat! And Rat Patrol are two excellent choices that I simply overlooked.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

High Road to China for post WWI pulp adventures.

The Eagle has Landed
Dad's Army TV series
The Odd Angry Shot

Captain Horatio Hornblower
Every Age of Sail boardgame or miniatures rules set had a scenario of HMS Lydia vs the Natividad.

"I'm still working on a scenario based on The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent."

David! I've wanted to see this silly mess for years, but have never caught up with it, yet.

That said, there are only TWO good reasons to watch this movie (and a number of others), and we both know what they are: MAMIE VAN DOREN.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

TVAG

Utu--sought out books,bought the Richard Huston figures when they came out,built a pa,bugged Russ Dunaway for years till he made them(Wasn't just me,of course).

Pa destroyed in Snowmeggedon.

Them! But inspiration came when the Monstrous Movie Music CD came out in the 90s(Great series,BTW). Put together a purposely "cheap" game at Historicon with rubber ants and plastic green army men.Played selections from the CDs,including "Tarantula", during the game. The kids seemed to be having fun. Later saw a couple of different "good" games,maybe Bunkermeister's was one of "Them!"

Has anyone ever tried "Viking Queen",a horribly misnamed film? And did you try to work a Viking queen into it? It's really Roman Britain,with druids as madhists:
"You-are-the-Viking Queen!"
"Wait--what?"

And I hope I'm not "bugging" everybody with all this necroposting!

What about the Japanese War Films like:

Battle of the Japan Sea
Port Arthur
Retreat from Kiska

These are a few examples but why aren't the Japanese War films or some of the other countries War films not listed with films like Sink the Bismarck and Tora-Tora-Tora?

And when someone says the Greatest Wargaming Movies I think of Historical War Movies and not Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

To me Sci-Fi and Fantasy gaming I don't consider as Wargaming hence the word WAR in Wargaming.

I love Godzilla and the mutant bugs like THEM but to me they shouldn't be in the Wargaming lists they should be their own like Sci-Fi's Greatest gaming movies or Fantasy's Greatest gaming movies.

Believe me I really like playing Sci-Fi and Fantasy games but they're separate from the Wargaming games.

Just my Two Cents worth.

Point taken on Them!,Cap but I would say

1--I didn't start it!
2--Aren't some of the "War" movies above at

least partly fantasy anyway? (Cue ominous organ music)

More than two cents worth-- I enjoyed Port Arthur, though there was a awful lot of protracted dialog.Haven't seen the other two. The original question,however, was about films that inspired people's games,actual or aspirational. There's that fairly recent Korean film about their war, with no Americans. I wonder how many games came off of that?

Hafen von Schlockenberg you could say that I'm old fashioned when it comes to Wargaming and I understand you didn't start it so don't worry I won't bite:)

I have several Japanese War films including the 3 that I mentioned others I have include:

I bombed Pearl Harbor
Zero
Japan's Longest Day
The Purple Squadron

Bunkermeister with regards to Tora-Tora-Tora I think there's gaming potential in fact I took part in a Pearl Harbor game back in the 80's where I got to bomb Battleship Row.

So I think other people could do similar games nowadays.

Many of these movies are about historical events which already qualifies them as possible scenarios.

The criteria should be "a movie not based on actual events which offers a possible wargame scenario."

Just saying…

Um,so now we have to narrow it down to war movies about wars that didn't actually happen? And Cap has ruled out sf/fantasy, so no Aliens vs Avatar games.Hmm…that doesn't leave much.

Going way back to the OFM'S original post,a prediction: Charles Foster Kane and Gene Kelly will appear in the next Howard Whitehouse game.

Hafen von Schlockenberg you're putting words in my mouth that I never said.

All I'm saying is that when you come up with a list of "The Greatest Wargaming Movies" I believe it should be movies about Historical Wars/Battles etc and not Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

For me the list should've films like:

Sink the Bismarck
Waterloo
Tora-Tora-Tora
Midway

And the list shouldn't have films like:

Starship Troopers
Star Wars
Them
Battle for Los Angeles

See I'm from the old school where when you say Wargaming you mean games that are about Historical War Battles or periods

That's all I'm saying.

Beau Geste?

Whoops! Bunkermeister has that in his list.😃

'See I'm from the old school where when you say Wargaming you mean games that are about Historical War Battles or periods'

There aren't many times I will say someone is flat out wrong but you are flat out wrong. And since I have been gaming since at least 1969, I am pretty sure I qualify as an old school wargamer.

Patrick Sexton I don't think I'm flat out wrong as you say you have your opinion and I have mine because I've been doing gaming since 1973 so I think I know something about Wargaming.

When I do Wargaming it's Historical and when I do Sci-Fi or Fantasy(like Lord of the Rings)there either Sci-Fi gaming or Fantasy gaming what's wrong with that?

For myself I don't consider Sci-Fi or Fantasy Wargaming I connect Wargaming with Historical gaming and that's how I've seen it since 1973.

So you can disagree with me all you want but I don't think I'm wrong.

Cadet Corporal Gideon: Doing comedy since 1973… :)