John the OFM | 28 Jul 2021 6:13 p.m. PST |
There was a recent thread about what you "don't get". But it wasn't a "Poll Suggestion". So, I'm asking what wargaming practices puzzle you, or you don't get, or whatever. Me. Glossy large toy soldiers. I get it that these are nostalgic, from our youth. But I never had, or collected Britains sets. So, count me puzzled at the raptures of joy. Yeah. I'm a jerk. |
GamesPoet | 28 Jul 2021 7:03 p.m. PST |
|
khanscom | 28 Jul 2021 7:15 p.m. PST |
…but Gummi Bears with spears are OK! |
Old Contemptible | 28 Jul 2021 7:20 p.m. PST |
Slaughterloo or Weird Napoleonic's, whatever its called. Point systems for historical miniature gaming. Glossy figures Yep, Teddy Bears in uniform 48mm and up 10mm and down Teddy Bear Fur (looks like shag carpeting) Zombies WWIII in Europe, I get that a couple of times it almost came to be, but it didn't. Korea, Vietnam and Arab/Isralie I get. Weird WWII Toy Gaming for adults. Tournaments Non-historical matchups. For example; Assyrians vs. Aztecs. |
USAFpilot | 28 Jul 2021 7:36 p.m. PST |
-Figures so small I can't tell what I'm looking at. For me that's anything smaller than 15mm. -Games simulating air to air fighter combat. Spending hours gaming what takes place in under a few minutes. |
John the OFM | 28 Jul 2021 7:39 p.m. PST |
USAFPILOT. Imagine playing those aeroplane games by mail. |
miniMo | 28 Jul 2021 8:11 p.m. PST |
Gladiators. Jousting. OK, there's dice rolling involved, but no particular tactics to make it much of a game. |
Editor in Chief Bill | 28 Jul 2021 8:41 p.m. PST |
I used to think giant stomp robots were dumb. Then I started playing BattleTech, and now I think they're OK. |
etotheipi | 28 Jul 2021 9:11 p.m. PST |
So … puzzling?
Nearly everything I do … |
Sgt Slag | 28 Jul 2021 9:22 p.m. PST |
Playing historical war game scenarios, and being upset when the game turns out different from the historical result. I played a great many historical games with rivot-counting friends. They were often disappointed when the game deviated from the historical result. I will never understand why they were disappointed. If they really wanted to see history repeat itself, why roll dice? Why not just recreate the battle, in miniature, on the tabletop, following the historical script? Not being a jerk/smartazz, this happened, repeatedly. I will never understand it. I thought the point of playing history was to gain insight, to see if they could do better than the historical commanders had done. I'm not a rivet counter, I am a gamer. I don't care what happened in the past, I only care what I can accomplish in the game scenario, myself, given the prescribed situation. I have never understood the idea that a game, using a random result generation system (dice, cards, whatever), should ever yield historical results -- there are sooo many variables. If I were God, and I could do a "reset", and let humans re-fight a battle, again, and again, with complete random chance, I would never expect the same result, every time… I am not God, but I get the point of there being hundreds of variables, I understand that any single variable can change the overall result. In the 1930's, an American military war college played out a naval battle with Japan, using miniatures, and a large floor space, per Frank Perla's wargaming history book. They repeated the games more than 300 times. On average, for those 300 games, the US Navy won, very much like the US Navy did, in the real war which played out in the 1940's. The average result, of 300+ games, came out closely resembling reality. My friends seemed to expect every single game scenario they played, to give historical results… Every game scenario they played, they thought should be a close re-enactment of historical fact. I just do not get it. I never will. Cheers! |
enfant perdus | 28 Jul 2021 9:30 p.m. PST |
Glossy large toy soldiers. I get it that these are nostalgic, from our youth. I get the people who collect them. The people who game with them do puzzle me a bit. Prehistoric, i.e. "caveman" games. Sharp sticks, crude clubs and masses of conjecture. I just can't. |
John the OFM | 29 Jul 2021 1:51 a.m. PST |
I don't get Alamo type games where the idea of the game is to see if the defenders can "do better" than historically, by surviving for two hours longer. Having said that, I've run the Wyoming Massacre as a sort of local history joke. But one time the settlers actually beat the Loyalists. It's never been a foregone conclusion. |
Flashman14 | 29 Jul 2021 4:17 a.m. PST |
I've never been drawn to vehicular combat: WW1, WW2 Naval seems especially dull to me. Ship to ship, aerial dogfights, zzzzz … Armor is ok if there's plenty of infantry involved, but sea, space and air combat is not for me. And you can imagine that caps my popularity in an already shrinking pool. |
Col Durnford | 29 Jul 2021 7:43 a.m. PST |
I've never been a Napoleonic gamers, but add in Orcs and I'll go running. Any game were the game scale is to short. I hate the idea that my MP-40 is out of range for a figure standing on the other side of a house. |
robert piepenbrink | 29 Jul 2021 8:38 a.m. PST |
A-historical matchups--at least the ones which couldn't possibly have happened due to time and distance. (This includes "time warp" games where elements of the DAK take on the ANV and such.) Where is the joy in taking an army to an environment it isn't trained or equipped for to fight people it never heard of? (Yes, I know it sometimes happens--very briefly. But what sort of game is it?) Otherwise historical games with zombies or equivalent--Weird War II, 1812 with Baba Yaga and the like. If you want to do fantasy or SF, do fantasy or SF. (I do sometimes.) Dice-heavy games. Not games with a lot of dice, but games with a few very important ones. "Roll low or you can't move this turn" or "a bad roll on the reinforcement arrival time means you can't possibly win." Roster games, and the more complex the worse. Take off points for being shot at. Add in points for rallying, but you can't exceed twice your lowest point except maybe if you ever captured a standard--you did write that down, didn't you? Distributed command points. I understand--though I don't always care for--"You're a +2 Commander and you rolled a 1: pick what three units you're giving orders to this turn." But what the Devil is represented by "you must distribute 12 command points/chits among your various subordinates"? Am I loaning them ADCs? Are we transplanting brain cells? In sum, excessive bookkeeping, excessive luck and games where I can't understand what the game mechanisms (or the game) represent. |
20thmaine | 29 Jul 2021 9:19 a.m. PST |
Teddy bears I don't get either. I'm not big on pirates, but I understand the attraction. Glossy toy soldiers – they are pretty, I can understand people liking them but I don't want them. So, not much really that I don't understand, quite a lot I don't want though. |
John the OFM | 29 Jul 2021 9:59 a.m. PST |
Collecting command cards and discarding unwanted ones until you get the one that finally allows you to do what is explicitly evident and needed. I once had Zulus rampaging in my rear at Rorke's Drift, but for three turns (I believe the proper term was "bounds") I couldn't turn around my men defending the mealie bag wall (that nobody was attacking) until I drew the card that allowed my thin red line to turn around. By the way, I had three "Volley" cards. Carnage ensued. The pompous twit of a GM thought it was quite historical. Neither I nor the Zulu player thought so. |
John the OFM | 29 Jul 2021 10:02 a.m. PST |
Games that try to re-invent the English language. For example, by inventing new terms for "turn". Like "bound". I could go on, but all it does is let the author pretend he is being innovative. |
Glengarry5 | 29 Jul 2021 12:29 p.m. PST |
I was playing a 2mm Sudan game when I noticed one group of Ansar was moving much faster than the others. I asked why and I was informed they were cavalry. I couldn't tell from looking at them. |
Crow Bait | 29 Jul 2021 12:37 p.m. PST |
Games I don't get, none. Players I don't get, plenty. |
robert piepenbrink | 29 Jul 2021 12:47 p.m. PST |
As a hardened microscale and nonoscale player, Glengarry5, USAFpilot--I bet you CAN tell. You just can't tell in the same way at the same distance you can with larger scales. I was never noted for my sharp eyesight, and my experience is that I can walk through the Distlefink and immediately identify period and units for any 25mm+ game. For a 15mm game, I have to stop and look at the table, and at microscale and under, I have to sit at the table and look at the units--these days with reading glasses. But it's a game, not a display. I haven't run into anyone who can't actually look at a painted 2mm and tell cavalry from infantry. But I know a number of people who walk past without looking and mutter "too small to tell." If you don't care for them, that's fine: I just won't invite you to my 2mm Leipzig. But it can be done. |
Old Contemptible | 29 Jul 2021 8:18 p.m. PST |
At 2mm I just assume play a board game. To my eye there isn't much difference between a figure and a game counter at 2mm. |
20thmaine | 30 Jul 2021 2:20 a.m. PST |
One thing with 2mm is that you can really go to town on the scenery. And including naval forces in the game doesn't spoil the look. |
Col Durnford | 30 Jul 2021 5:56 a.m. PST |
I do agree on the 2mm board game. I have used 2mm for a map games that transferred to 25mm table top games. All my 25mm colonial units have counterparts in 2mm. |
Patrick Sexton | 30 Jul 2021 6:18 a.m. PST |
Not really anything I don't get, if a friend is running something, there really isn't anything I won't play. But there is one hell of a lot of things I won't consider buying. And +2 to John on the reinventing the English language in rule sets. |
John the Greater | 30 Jul 2021 6:50 a.m. PST |
Armed garden gnomes. No, I am not kidding. |
Sgt Slag | 30 Jul 2021 7:37 a.m. PST |
John the Greater, thanks for making me LOL, this morning! Gnomes are my favorite demi-human race to play in AD&D. I also have a Gnome army, in 28mm, for my 2e BattleSystem games (AD&D-based mass fantasy battles). Your comment really made me laugh. Thank you! I play some games which are likely, "far out" (I wrote rules for war gaming with green, tan, and gray, plastic Army Men -- more fun than a human being ought to be allowed…), but I am having the time of my life with them. Laugh with me, or at me, I don't care -- I am too busy having fun! LOL! Cheers! |
Texas Jack | 30 Jul 2021 12:37 p.m. PST |
Mixing eras in ancients is kind of weird to me, but what really leaves me cold is Napoleonic skirmishing games. To me it takes away the whole beauty of gaming massed Napoleonic armies advancing to glory across the fields of battle. But most certainly to each his own. |
Chimpy | 30 Jul 2021 1:57 p.m. PST |
Turnip 28mm – Wargames Illustrated June 2021 edition. So get a Napoleonic figure, glue a Medieval helmet on its head and add random undergrowth. Then cover it in mud coloured paint. Other than that I'm really not going to say because chances are that I'll play and really like it. eg WW1 Western Front trench warfare |