"Why Do You Play WW2?" Topic

Simple question (or perhaps not)

Being new to wargaming, I've only played a few games, perhaps just the one, Warhammer, years ago, for about 6 to 9 months.

In the past, I think I can count on one hand (possibly on 3 fingers) the number of times I've wargamed WW2, but the reason I chose it, is because it is popular, diverse with what you can put on the battlefield, and a knock on effect is that it's all new to me so I'm learning more about the history and gear used. It also helps that for the most part, painting models seems relatively straight forward.

So why do you wargame WW2? I realise it may not be the only setting/genre you game in, but for the sake of the thread, why do you wargame WW2?

Especially, if WW2 is your favourite setting/genre, why is that?

Thanks all :)

I like tanks. enough said!

The amount of history available as a reference in books, images and film as well and being able to visit sites. On the odd occasion being able to talk with people who were there plus the family connection.

These are my main reasons but there are so many it would take me forever to list them all.

Interest in history, a deep, complex war where you can have played for 20 years and still learn something new and it has the perfect balance between infantry weapons, tanks, artillery etc.

Tanks, tanks and yet more tanks and battlefront is only readily available supplier/ manufacturer here in nz. Other periods like colonial and naps i have to buy from overseas and can get really expensive and of cause the history of the period

Toys… I like the toys.

And books… I like pretty books.

Why not?

It was an all in fight, has a great variety of units and tech, easy to access minis, games and players.
Plus grew up on the stories both wider history and family.

I am interested in the history and the great events that have shaped our world. Nothing brings military history to life as well as an intelligently conceived wargame.

Phil
P.B.Eye-Candy

It's got such a wide range of interesting battles, weapons, and vehicles, not to mention all the heroic deeds many of the combatants demonstrated.

I was a kid in the 1960s.

The war was all my family ever talked about, most exciting thing which ever happened to them. So as I had an interest in history, naturally I gravitated to WW2.

Try reading 'Achtung Schweindhund' by Harry Pearson.

Thats me that is.

The real American pastime: killing nazis…

I grew up on Sgt Rock and my dad's war stories.

It started with the description on the back of the Squad Leader box.

1. It appeals to the little boy side of me who watched a lot of war movies growing up.
2. It appeals to the grown up side who likes well documented history.
3. Combined arms warfare, it's got it all.
4. Lots of participant nations.
5. Lots of different types of forces.
6. The technology of the era.
7. The fact that you can go from small scale skirmish battles with just a few figures right up to large battles with battalions and anything in between.

I'm similar to Martin. Born in the 50's. Grew up in the 60's, ww2 was still recent history, my parents and their friends had all been involved, either actively or as school kids through it.our teachers were in it. I was brought up on recognition models of spitfires and messershmitts etc.
Agree on 'Achtung shweinhund'' a brilliant book and the author is a lot of us.

Like most of the others I grew up with a dad, uncles, cousins who were WW2 vets as were the fathers of virtually every friend we had (teachers as well). None of those men talked about the war very much but we knew they served. We watched all those war movies over and over again on TV.
My brother and I were modelers and primarily built WW2 planes and tanks. We had green army men and then in 1961 Airfix arrived. So many rudimentary battles between the original German Infantry and the British almost WW2 Infantry Combat Group. Of course I ended up being a History major later on and there it is.

In a similar vein one uncle was a WWII infantryman and the other a Spitfire pilot; my Dad got me some Airfix Germans and Brits and it was all in since then

As well as noted there are lots of minis/rules/references out there – plus I do really like the feel of the Western Desert; The Sands of Valour is one of my favourite books

As with other posters growing up in the 1960's it was my Dad's war. He flew in B-24s as a tail gunner. Plus watching such TV shows as Combat!, Twelve O'Clock High, all the John Wayne war movies plus many others that did have The Duke in them. And then there was building all those WW II model kits as a kid.

Now as an adult I kind of get to relive those more innocent times yet I am able to read and delve deep into the history and understand the complexity and scope of what has to be the single most encompassing conflict in human history.

Same as Weasel…and the gaming is fun.

Goodies v. Baddies in tanks!

Family fought in the war
Child of the 60s
Watch a lot of ww2 movies on tv
Read a lot of ww2 books lboth fiction and non-fiction
Only readily available kits here in nz in the 70s were either airfix or tamiya
Meet evan allen of battlefront in the mid 90s
Brought a load of battlefront books, tanks etc

A lot of love for tanks

Alas, all my uncles are no longer with us. I remember my Uncle Frank (chef) telling me how he once stood about 6' or so away from Montgomery as he give them all a talk.

Another story was my Uncle Frank got lost with his…platoon I guess, and his brother, my Uncle Ken, in his…platoon I guess, found him.

Great stuff – even if the details are probably a bit off.

Because I'm interested in the period. The same reason why people game other periods like Ancients or Nappy I suppose.

Why not?

The war was fought on land, on the sea and in the air. What's not to love as a wargamer. With the availability of such a variety of equipment in all three areas, and in a variety of scales, what's not to love.

All good reasons. I second Good Guys v Bad Guys; and shades of gray all around. All the locations you could possibly want. My great grandmother had six blue stars on her window during ww2. Her sons fought on both fronts, on land, at sea, and in the air. All came home alive. Their stories are just six of millions upon millions, in hundreds of languages.

For the cool noseart. Plus Chicks dig big tanks. :-)

Actually, for all the reasons already stated.

Battlefields in the Snow, daring dogfights above the planet, monster machines exploding in the desert, invasions across blood soaked sand, savage charges through the heart of the jungle, daring covert ops stealing the enemy's new tech…evil mad men dressed in black with metal skulls in their caps trying to take over the world…no this is not Star Wars, it's a lot more damn exciting and interesting and to be honest, a lot crazier than that…(plus no %$4$@ ewoks) ….

Seriously I sometimes wonder, "How did this thing ever happen?" It's the stuff of legend and fantasy and in our wildest most creative imaginations we couldn't have made this stuff up. But the craziest thing is, it did, and some of our finest, best and bravest of our kind lived through it all but some didn't.

……..

PS I think the sequel will be a big let down..

Various permutations of military tactics using a wide variety of elements.

It just looks good too!

What redbanner4145 said. Exactly.
Peter

I have been obsessed with WWII since I was three years old. I would read about it all through school, and into adulthood.

It was WWII and modeling that got me into war gaming, not the other way around. It was a way for me to make that history come alive, just a little bit.

Now I play all sorts of games from many periods, as well as sci fi and fantasy, but WWII will always remain a cornerstone of my tabletop gaming.

Family fought in the War
Child of the 50's/60's
Lived next to a Battle Of Britain airfield (= plenty of pillboxes to play in)
"All our Yesterdays" on TV

I will combine Ubercommando and part of RedBanner4145- to list this again: (thanks to both original posters as I am cutting and pasting…)

1. It appeals to the little boy side of me who watched a lot of war movies growing up.
2. It appeals to the grown up side who likes well documented history.
3. Combined arms warfare, it's got it all.
4. Lots of participant nations.
5. Lots of different types of forces.
6. The technology of the era.
7. The fact that you can go from small scale skirmish battles with just a few figures right up to large battles with battalions and anything in between.
8. I grew up reading WWII Comics (Sgt. Rock, Men of War, Weird War, GI Combat, The Haunted Tank, Gravedigger, War Stories…)

For me, it's all about the visual. When Imove a tank miniature and fire at another tank miniature, all I'm really doing is just moving a model and rolling some dice, but in my head I can visualize the tank popping up and firing off a shot. If the dice miss, I can see it missing and can feel for that tank because what it shot at is probably going to shoot back!

That's without going though my (unsuccessful) charges of infantry over open ground against machine gun fire with Soviets.

A big thing as well is getting to read stories from people who fought in the war, for any nation, and then have something like that occur in game, or even to read a story and remember that happening in game you had! I just finished reading A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan and when I read about the German quad 20mm AA guns really tearing up the Brits, I was immediately reminded of a game where I had Romanian 20mm AA guns really tearing up my Soviets, and it all sort of came full circle.

That is the sort of the thing I like about WWII gaming. The history, the weapons, the visuals. All good stuff!

So I can field the Rat Patrol.

Doctor X for the win!

I too was a 60s child. All of my uncles fought in WWII and most of my aunts were married to WWII vets. Most of my friends had at least some family that fought. I grew up in the peak of their post-war adult life. I grew up about an hour away from Gettysburg so we did lots of civil war playing and later gaming. We played cowboys & Indians too from all the western shows and movies. But WWII dominated the landscape of my youth so we all had a big interest and fascination in it.

I did grow up during the Vietnam War but the reporting on it was usually limited to body counts. Nobody thought of or was interested in reporting an actual story at the time. For a youngster, it was too hard to follow. WWII came in heavy doses of Rat Patrol, Combat, 12 O'clock High, etc. plus all the movies.

Comics forgot to mention commando comics, and there was another one available here not sure of the tittle, battle? Battlefield? Same size as commando and published weekly

"Battle" I think Stephen. I remember the BIG BOLD letters across the front and I believe it was just "Battle"

Thanks war panda

The Commando comics when I was a kid.

Also, there is a huge amount of reference data available for the period. When simulating a tank battle I can get all the technical info I need. If I played Ultramodern most stuff would be classified.

I'm interested which ww2 movie you think is best from the following list of 6 (choice of 'Other' also included).

I've only included Saving Private Ryan as one of more recent movies, but I to give a special mention to Enemy at the Gates (for me at least). Also, even though it's a series, I could not leave out Band of Brothers.

I didn't include The Great Escape, Escape from Sobibor or Bridge Over the River Kwai, because the scope of the movie was narrower, being all about escaping. Likewise with Schindler's List. I realise The Eagle Has Landed is narrow in scope, it being centred around a town but included that one anyway (for some variety).

A Bridge Too Far
Where Eagles Dare
Saving Private Ryan
The Eagle Has Landed
Band of Brothers
Other (Iron Cross, Das Boot, Stalingrad, Kelly's Heroes, The Guns of Navarone etc)

You should start a new post Sparky :- )
But i'll add
Enemy at the gate
The longest day
cross of iron
The dam busters

You are right, I should have started a new thread.

Trouble now, is that if I do, folk will be posting here and probably in the new thread as well.

(I really thought I'd included Longest Day)

My favourite WW2 film is The Cruel Sea (and in my various film lists, is also the top 1950s film and top war film, even trumping 'Ice Cold in Alex').

If forced to rank the the original list.

1. Where Eagles Dare
2. SPR
3. A Bridge Too Far
4. The Eagle has Landed.

BoB is a TV series, so not a fair comparison. It is like comparing 'Secret Army' or 'Danger UXB' with 'Charlotte Grey' or 'The English Patient'.

Eagles is a very silly film, but huge fun.

None of the listed films appear in any of my 'best films' listed, although BoB is one of the finest TV war series of recent years.

It seems I I seriously need to up my game when it comes to ww2 movies

:D

Ice Cold in Alex = proper acting!

Not a movie but a tv series that aired from 1966-68 called Rat Patrol. US take on the long range desert patrol. Would put a link to the trailer thats available on youtube but i dont know how, if you are interested google rat patrol trailer

This one

YouTube link