"Game Design Theory: When Is A Skirmish Not A Skirmish?" Topic

"When it's too big.

In my head I have a pretty clear definition of a skirmish game. It's the same one I've been using ever since I started gaming, more than 30 years ago. It's not a term that I made up myself, but a term I learned from the gamers I played with when I was small. As I grew older, it seemed that this was the norm, but in recent years the term is increasingly used to describe games I don't recognise as such.

Part of this is, I think, a combination of a desire by companies to both sell "skirmish" games, and also to sell more miniatures. In this way the definition of what constitutes a specific type of game is stretched, just like the size of the miniatures that are used in them. In both cases the change is understandable as well as unhelpful…"
Full text here
quirkworthy.com

Amicalement
Armand

One way in which "Skirmish Game" differs significantly from a real skirmish is that the military definition typically includes "not decisive". When analysts relegate a fight to "skirmish" status it is because the fight didn't particularly change the outcome of the larger battle and didn't include significant casualties.

By comparison, Skirmish games are frequently much bloodier.

Well – here's a view – if the ground scale and figure scale are both 1:1 it's a 'skirmish wargame' – no abstraction of scaling for ranges or terrain. Yup – other views are also available :)

1:1 also.

Amicalement
Armand

Yes. If it's not 1:1 man/figure and ground scale, it's something other than a "Skirmish game."

As Gypsy Comet suggests, it's the gap between the military and hobby definitions of the term that leaves certain nefariously-disposed businesses exploitable room for army-creep. Clearly all we have to do to put a stop to this sinister trend is close the gap: simply bring the military definition in line with our own.

I reckon anything with more than a dozen 1:1 dudes a side is no longer a skirmish.