""What's your focus in wargaming?"" Topic

Last weekend I was at a small local convention, and found myself talking to a fellow wargamer I never met before. Suddenly he asked me "So, what's your focus in wargaming?"

This question made me speechless. My focus? Wargamers have a focus? I should have a focus? Wow, I thought, here's a wargamer who has a focus and is able to limit himself on a single period!

A mutual friend standing by started laughing. "Phil focuses on everything". I guess that's true. I never exclusively focused on anything in wargaming. Lacking a clear focus probably makes you focus on everything and nothing at the same time.

I started miniature wargaming in the late eighties, and for the first 10 years or so, my focus was Games Workshop and Warhammer. This was not out of choice, it was because I didn't know anything else existed. There was a gaming shop in town, but in the 80s and 90s, this meant roleplaying games, fantasy and scifi wargaming. I have still quite a lot of miniatures from this period, which are still being used.

It only gradually dawned on me that "historicals" was not something one vaguely heard or read about, but actually did exist as a product. First by seeing some games at cons, later by trying to acquire some rulesets. I guess it was somewhere around 96 or 97 that we tried a historical ruleset for fighting a Napoleonic battle. Figures? Unpainted plastic Airfix, Esci, Revell, etc. So I guess my focus shifted a little bit.

Slowly over the years my interests (and collection of toy soldiers) expanded, and in my gaming group, we have played many different periods over the years, literally spanning the entire spectrum from Ancients to Moderns. As a result, I have figures for a wide array of periods, although I did cull the collection a little bit lately. But still, I think I have figures for at least 5 or so distinctly different periods that would allow me to stage a decent game with at least 200-500 figures per side.

I never deliberately made a choice to pursue any particular period. I am interested in military history in general. I also do not consider my wargaming as a tool to study history, but I treat it as a game to play with toy soldiers. I guess that makes a difference in defining a focus.

Next time anyone asks me about my focus, I know what I'll answer.

"My focus? Toy soldiers!"

Historical Battles

Phil

Having fun!

Me too, Toy Soldiers!!!

An hour or two of pure enjoyment.

I am also focused on historical battles. Not to say my vision doesn't blur periodically (Science Fiction, Frostgrave)

Focus, hahahaha, good one…. :-)

Killing Nazis

Napoleonics.

Interesting and challenging situations.

It amuses me.

"Games with guns" seems to be the most concise way I can put it.

Having a great time- why else do anything?

Well all the answers about made me smile, and today is a day I need a smile. However to respond to the OP I have begun to "focus" my hobby. There are a number of reasons for this. One, I realize I am never going to be able to collect, paint, build and run all the periods, genres, scales, sizes, and run said games in my lifetime. Two, I realized that because my interests were so spread out I was not able to concentrate on any one project for long. So I began to divest myself over the past few years of much of my collection, and guess what? I still have a lot of toys!

I have also come to a point in time in my life where I also see not only my hobby but many of the material things we cling to as just that, things. Things can be replaced more or less although I know full well that as I divest myself of my collection I most likely will not re-collect those things again.

Now do not think I am getting out of the hobby. I just know I have only so much time I can allocate to the endeavor. So I will continue to work on that focus but there are always new things to tempt me.

Having fun with friends.

I focus on micro-skirmish forces and terrain for a variety of genres and game systems: fantasy, sci fi, 18th century imagi-nation, Frostgrave, FiveCore (hi Weasel!) things like that.

I also paint armies and build terrain for DBA.

Focus???

Toy Soldiers is about the only thing I think is the right answer.

Beyond that it is the IWG. That's "International War Game" An International War Game, is a game where you have several countries, up to a dozen or so, and you create a whole world and the toy soldiers are the tokens and actors that set the scenes, make the battles and form the dioramas that give us pleasure. I like fitting in the complex stories of these countries (all of them Imaginary) which form the basis of the games and scenarios I play. However, it all comes down to the toy soldiers.

Otto

There is a period some people call the "Age of Battles", from the 1600's to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, where armies became not warring clans or feudal hosts but professional armies. It was also a time when a war could be decided in a single days battle, where a decisive victory could be won. In latter wars, such as the American Civil War, generals sought the decisive battle but the armies had become too large, industries too productive and commitment of the civilian population to great to allow it. There were exceptions of course, the Austro-German war of 1866 was quite speedily handled for example, but for the most part wars dragged on longer. This is the period I mainly game in, although I also do 19th Century Colonial and I've begun dabbling in medievals and the Fenian raids.

Focus? Focus? Why destroy the beauty of a thing?

After buying everything shiny I could find for the last 35 years, I've started selling off a few of the projects that are non-starters.

Focus? Not yet. But the vast majority of my actual gaming is usually around WW2 or colonials now.

Finding my opponents flanks, enfilade fire, hitting the line with the mostest, where there is the leastest, losing the least possible troops to achieve the capture of the ace of spades, draw my gun before the enemy, take the option to "shoot'em in the face", where possible avoid zombies, roll high. 😬😎😆

What is this focus you are talking about?

More than anything, I just love painting figures. Playing games is fun, but making the time for it is just hard right now. But an hour of painting in the evening, just makes life good. If I keep painting, projects will be filled out and I'll have plenty of toys to play with when I retire in 4-6 years.

Spectacle. I like the game, but it's mostly just an excuse to put together a nice table with nice figures and set up cool scenarios.

My focus in wargames lasts until something new arrives that gets my full attention, the rest lies fallow until rekindled. Wash, cycle, rinse, repeat …

I suppose my focus is tournament style historical games. I like balanced games, I like being able to just nominate a points level rule set and time period then get a pair of believable opponents and play a game.

Nothing wrong with campaigns, nothing wrong with scenarios but in the main I play tournament style WWII, Ancients and Renaissance.

Late in my life I now focus on:

Fantasy mass battles with Dwarf and Goblins.

Science Fiction skirmish/small units and massive combined arms games.

Historically, I range from 1914 to 1973 aerial war games, Spain in North America in the 1700s and early 1800s, and colonial wars.

VSF skirmish fits in there… "Somwhere"

@Rubber Suit Theatre

I nearly spat tea all over my keyboard, that picture is perfect. lol