"Is there hope for Historical Wargaming?" Topic

There are a lot of naysayers within the hobby that have been saying it would die since the 60s when it first started! I personally am very optimistic, and you can read my full opinion in the article linked below. I wanted to know what the general consensus of this forum was on the future of the hobby.If you enjoyed my article, please subscribe!

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Quite a few manufacturers seem to think so.

Great to see you and your group are so young. I started out with boardgames almost 40 years ago, then got into minis after my time in the army (my early 20s). Been doing it ever since. I love it and hope to see it grow more.

Started in the 1960s with a centennial game og Civil War. This was when we did not know the difference between Wargames and board games. Other early games included Stratego, Risk and Broadsides. Still board games. First wargame was 1971 with SPI games. First time I heard the wargame term. Napoleon at Waterloo. Kursk and Korea were bought in 1972.

So I have heard the doom call since the 1990s. In the 1980s, it was the collapse of baseball card market and decline in comic books as the price for them went up. I just looked at old comics with 15 cents on the cover. The first twenty dollar wargame was the monster game by GDW on WW2.

TimePortal, looks like you are my twin as far as what started you in the hobby, including your first SPI wargames!

Those were good days but i did not find steady opponents until I got into the army in 1976.
I remember three of us were playing Bar Lev in the BOQ. A Jordanian LTC was watching the game and taking notes. Lol.

There seems to be more providers of every period and scale than ever before?

ACW is available from almost everyone -- shoot -- OG has 6 ranges of ACW under it's roof and one more soon to be released in 28mm under license.
Then there is 3D printing.
Sales are good at OG the last 37 years and still growing strong
Some things have changed and become more difficult as material prices and everything else soars --- but I would suppose our beloved little hobby and "industry" is reasonably safe?

Russ Dunaway

Nope, done, over. Thursday, August 5th 2024 will be the last day you can do historical. Of course, August 6th is the start of the zombie apocalypse so it won't really matter.

So my birthday celebration on August 4th should be a real blowout, Grattan! You're invited.

There's always hope. I predict an upswing in scythed chariot games starting on August 6th 2024…..

Of course, August 6th is the start of the zombie apocalypse

So technically speaking, any Zombie games post-August 6, 2024 will be considered historical?

Hmpf. "Historical" zombies and vampires? One more time, Nap:
QUESTION: "How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?"
ANSWER: "Four. Because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

As for the "narrow" definition--i.e., actual historical miniatures play--I think it will continue to get worse for up to ten years, stabilize and then get better. It will get worse because the Boomer generation will continue to die off, and there are few young historical miniatures players. It will stabilize because there are some, and the schools and media can hardly do a worse job with military history than they do at present. And it will get better, because change is inevitable and almost any change in the environment will be better for historical miniatures than what we have now.

Worst for horse & musket, of course. Because it's almost counter-intuitive if you have no military historical knowledge, and there's no transition point from fantasy or SF.

Working in our favor: the overall joys of pageantry, the satisfaction of getting history right in miniature uniforms and flags, and that prospect of reversing history which fantasy and SF can't offer.

And, of course, if people will stop saying "bin my castings once I'm dead" faced with the expense of GW and company, we can tell the next generation of miniature wargamers that if they stick to historicals they'll never need to buy or paint another figure unless they want to.

It would be interesting to have a discussion on what is being bought vs. what is being played. At this point in the hobby gamers seem to have plenty of disposable income as game manufacturers race to publish/produce a massive amount of games, rules, and figures the last several years. The question is whether or not most of this is getting painted and or played? Game manufacturers are probably satisfied with the sales of their products, but I have some doubts that most of it is getting used. Board war-games, for example, are coming out of the woodwork seemingly ever day, but you don't see many of them hitting the table more than once before gamers buy yet more games. It's an interesting situation.

This subject has been brought up here many, many times. Most younger people would rather play RPG, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. It takes a special kind of kid to get interested in history. And that's the key. If they lack a love for history or at least an interest in it, they won't be interested. They may play a game or two and that's it. Then it's on to what the cool kids are playing.

Ironically we are in a golden age of historical miniature gaming and a renaissance of historical board gaming. There are so many products available now compared to thirty years ago.

The graying of the hobby? I try not to think about it. I just revel in the moment.

Miniature wargames, board wargames, scale models, quilting, model railways, etc. Every hobby is supposedly on the way out, according to some.

Nothing to worry about unless it actually happens.

Good point, aegisc, but it's been going on a long time. In my capacity as "casting magnet" I'm spending a fair bit of time completing units which were purchased, partly painted and left unfinished some years back--a decade or more is my reading on some of them.

I would guess the gulf between purchases and played games arose in the 1990's, and has worsened since. The Boomers could finally afford more stuff, but work and family obligations got in the way of actual painting and games. I know it's the very late 1980's that I began to sell of stuff I bought, purchased and never gamed with.

I think it might be going 'full-circle' – reside/reverting more to board gaming focused again…..Kriegsspiel.

I don't see big battalions, much less new armies being collected and painted up as a future trend.

Like a few here too, I've been reverting to ever smaller scales for new projects – but then these miniatures units are more like embellished game counters (actually, feel this down-sizing might even reflect a healthy trend for not losing big battles vs. the industry-focus on big figure skirmishing, and the resulting loss of context for a battlefield).

Interesting what we know and what we don't know. Perry, Warlord & Co clearly think there's still a decent-size market for large scale historical miniatures--even in horse & musket. But while we generally know how many cars were sold in any given year, or how many people watched a movie in a theater, we don't have any idea how many 28mm castings were produced and sold--ever. And where are the games? Fewer historical games in HMGS conventions every year. I was intrigued to note at the SYWA Convention this year that only skirmishes and very small battles were being fought with 28mm or 54mm figures. All the "proper" engagements were 15mm or smaller. Little Wars podcast battles also run skirmish or small-scale.

But the castings haven't gone away. I could locate about 50,000 25-30mm Napoleonics--probably substantially more--just in northern Indiana. That's not considering smaller scales and other periods. I think there's a lot of historical miniatures wargaming going on "below the radar" of conventions and the Internet, but I have no good way to confirm or deny that, let alone measure activity year by year.

Robert, I remember painting up some of those 30s for Bill N., who always loved going to those big Napoleonic bashes in Indiana.

Having mentioned downsizing, I'm co-hosting a 28mm AWI game, and doing a Colonial Congo action in the next few weeks, but these really big skirmishes (still, we certainly aren't a consistent lot – reflected by our varied collections and in their multitude of scales). :)))

Do think this trending [again] for big battles -

"I was intrigued to note at the SYWA Convention this year that only skirmishes and very small battles were being fought with 28mm or 54mm figures. All the "proper" engagements were 15mm or smaller."

It occouers to me that the end of Historical gameing is proably never, we are past the worst. With the digital age it will never end while ever there are two folks that want to play.

The need for commercial support is over. Digital copies of rules are available for free on wayback type systems so no need for rules to be in print. Figures are just 3D prints from yopur own machine and they are nolonger specialist items, especially FDM printeers. 3D files will always be available to even the very few players that may remain.

We are in the golden age, 20 years from now you will proably be able to get 3D files from a few photos, so possibly no CADDS skills needed to generate any historical figure/vehicle.

Certainly 20 yeras from no painting skills may not be required (I would maintain that none are required now but I am I acknowlege, an outlier).

Historical games are safe whilever there are historians around.

I think the missing part of the question is 'with figures'. I suspect future generations will play historical wargames of some kind, but I suspect they're lees likely to use expensive figures that they have to paint when they can play something on line.

Mark J Wilson – Online gaming is not a replacement for a wargame. Nobody plays Football online as a substitute for playing in the physicality, why would wargaming be any different? Folk may still want to paint. In the UK knitting is having a revival and yet there is no need for it. it's a physical thing to do, nobody wants to knit online.

"Historical games are safe whilever there are historians around."

I think this highlights my previous observation – now an example for the future (where this historical side of the hobby has been going) – Warlord's new Achtung Panzer game.

So does historical armor doctrine mean anything towards the discussion of presenting historical WW2 gaming today? We'll, not to blame Warlord for wanting to jump into the World Of Tanks frenzy either, after all GF9 had their Tanks game come out years ago, but dogfighting with tanks, in dense terrain, without an infantrymen or AT gun in sight is not historical wargaming, it's like fighting in a phone booth, but the little guys with their panzerknackers are strangely AWOL – it's also ignorant of historical armor doctrine (there's that sticky thing called 'combined-arms' that makes this current crop of tank shooters just marketing bastardizations), but fun gaming for sure.

So is historical wargaming in a golden age? Definitely war-like gaming is, maybe with a few tanks, a dozen+ figures around [or not]……but then there's "3D-Printed", "resin-cast", "plastic-multipart", blah-blah-blah (as if "Golden" depends more on the history of figure making).

If folk are playing fantasy like the game you are describing its not Historical.

The point is when I was a Kid getting hold of models was a problem. That is no longer a problem nor is getting rules. Ego we are in a golden age for folk who want to do it. Fantasy gaming whether with WW2 models or not is not Historical (Hysterical perhaps).

World of tanks is a fantasy game dressed up for some bizarre reason as historical but fantasy nonetheless so talking about it is off topic.

I for one see no gain in millions playing historical, there are not that may folk interested in history.

Certainly sheer quantity is no positive description of a game. I detest Football and Fishing but they are national sports in the UK.

Being in a minority does not make any sport unsuccessful. far fewer folk play Polo than Football but that does not make polo any less successful as a game.

Ush, people are playing at least four retail WW2 games like this, one is a popular Whataruleset, a couple others boxed sets by the big game companies, with add-on models galore – it's what all the cool kids are doing. :)))

"Ego we are in a golden age for folk who want to do it."

Well pardner, gazing over at the gaming shelves – "there's been gold in them hills" forever!

FlyXwire To be honest I did not understand your post. If its not historic its not historic so why mention it in a post about historic gaming.

Who care what the "cool Kids" are playing, they lack real imagination and can't follow their own dreams but instead compromise accepting to be one of a herd. By no means a positive trait, so again why mention the such folk as they may not be a relevancy to historic gaming.

The last sentence makes no sense to me. I fail to see how it reelects in any way on historic gaming. Reference to shelves is at best an anachronism but without any obvious useful reference. Gaming in the UK long since ceased to be based in shops. That a game is not in current commercial production (perhaps what you statement implies but I could be mistaken) makes it no less of a game than if it were in production.

Well, there's the discussion topic at the top, and a handy blog link was included -

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Hey, I also like football and fishing, it's pretty big here in the USA too! :)))