"Little Wars TV- Ideas to grow historical wargaming" Topic

I have just been watching Little Wars TV discussing how to grow the historical side of the hobby.
YouTube link

I found it interesting and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the subject.

Excellent review!

Good on them. A selection of good ideas. I personally think the biggest barrier to entry is actually the painting of the figures to produce a playable army/force/warband/etc

Barriers include history not being taught to a level in school now-days to peak interest. Also agree with nsolomon99 above, most folks don't have the time, patience, or talent to paint figures. Nor the money to have them painted. Hope there is 3d printing with dot matrix color or laser jet color printers tied together. They are out there.

The idea of a all in one channel where wargame video content can be found is a good one.

Barriers include history not being taught to a level in school now-days to peak interest.

Absolutely! If you don't teach history, nobody will be interested in playing historical games. Why would a kid who's being taught the "1619" version of history that the US is a racist evil country want to play, say, a Revolutionary War game?? Of even just neglectful teaching where kids have no clue about WW1 or WW2, let alone the Civil War, or other international historical events or settings??

I learnt history because of wargaming.

The barrier to entry at the moment is the lack of stores carrying the modern day equivalent of a box of airfix soldiers. In the past airfix kits were everywhere -- even at my local corner stores. However, I did notice GW kits along with White Dwarves at my local newsagent, so perhaps gaming is coming back.

I am not sure why we think someone needs to have miniatures and/or paint to enter into the hobby. I have plenty of gamers in my group who don't have a lot of miniatures. No reason to paint more in a genre when I have a ton already. Some do some don't. The first step is to find those interested in history and especially military history and introduce them to the hobby. Some love it, some don't. Once they are hooked on it, then you can work on the collecting aspect if that is their thing.