Is Historical Wargaming Dying Out?

How to introduce new players to the hobby.

 If you regularly trawl through Youtube as I do looking for Battle Reports for your favourite games, Youtube starts to suggest videos you may be interested in. This is how I came across one entitled “Is Historical Wargaming Dying Out?” This provoked some reflection and pondering on my part over the vigour of Wargaming as a hobby. Are we really a diminishing band of aging, battle hardened veterans who are baffled at the lack of new recruits? If membership of Wargames Clubs is dwindling, what can be done to boost our membership and coach the next generation of Grognards? Can we learn anything from the approach of other hobbies and leisure activities to create a growing, thriving and flourishing club scene? 

I’ve been involved in Wargaming as a hobby for over 40 years. Like many, I would guess, I became interested in the hobby as a teenager through the uncle of my best friend at school.  

His Uncle was playing WRG 5th edition Ancients and had a beautifully painted Macedonian army. Over the course of the next five years, I immersed myself in the complexities of army lists, historical research, modifiers, obscurely written rules and arguments over whether a phalanx was the greatest fighting force the ancient world had ever known. Looking back now, I consider what it is that most captivates me about our hobby. Initially, it was the thrill of competition. The triumph of victory even sweeter if it was against the odds, was a powerful draw. But decades later, I enjoy the narrative thread that runs through a good wargame. It’s not just moving pieces around a table and mechanically acting upon a set of results. The drama and tension of attempting to pull off an audacious move which might swing the tide of battle, or the thrill of a last dice throw which decides the outcome of a desperate struggle; this is what delights.  

I don’t seem to be alone in this. Looking at the battle reps that are available in their thousands, many of them feature narrative thread-campaigns in which troops are husbanded and developed in order to invest them with identity. It seems to lead to much more enjoyment and satisfaction as opposed to line em up type scenarios which offer little if any “theatre”. Indeed the scenario concept itself is part of this narrative appeal, as objectives become important and shape the way the engagement is fought. 

When I went to University, I drifted away from wargaming and wasted a lot of my time and beer money playing role playing games. From D&D, Traveller, Gangbusters and Aftermath we swash buckled and hacked our way through hugely exciting narratives that relied upon our imaginations to bring to life the little metal figures in front of us. Why RPGs instead of wargaming? Lack of resources was one factor-packing hundreds of 25mm figures into a suitcase and then finding the energy to set them all up for an evening’s gaming was just not feasible. Also, there just wasn’t a Wargames Club at the Uni. I guess many of you will have had a similar journey in that I stopped playing anything as I progressed through my twenties and thirties. Marriage, career and finally family proved all consuming of my time, energy and finances. 

And then I reached the stage of being a father to two young boys and I was thoroughly sick of playing children’s boardgames. I was living in the vicinity of Nottingham and came across Games Workshop. Yes, I know, the pariah of our hobby! Even worse, my return was in the form of Warhammer 40K. I can hear the howls of outrage from here! 

So we come to one of the key points of my piece. The models were amazing. The backstory is detailed and offers limitless possibilities. The rules are fast play, offer varying levels of complexity and make superb use of the backstory. Most importantly of all, my sons loved it. It wasn’t long before they were painting their own Commanders, begging to play battles with their forces and investing emotionally in the hobby. As we were playing, I naturally dramatized the action. “The blast bounces off his armor as he charges in to deal a mortal blow to the Ork Captain.” “Dismayed by the fear rippling through the ranks, the Chaplain cuts his way through the enemy ranks whilst calling for his Chapter to support him.” 

You may feel that this is not for you, that the appeal of wargaming lies in recreating historical conflicts with rules which reflect the period and the troop types. That Fantasy and Science Fiction are ridiculous froth that are not worth consideration for serious wargamers. Let’s pause for a moment and consider this-would you introduce someone to golf by taking them to St Andrews, lending them a set of your best clubs, giving them a quick introduction on how to swing the club to hit the ball, dragging them around the course whilst they whack away without a clue as to what they are doing and then expecting them to enjoy the experience and look forward to another game next week? Of course not! So why do we try and force young recruits into Napoleonic’s with an insistence that you can’t use those figures because French Infantry didn’t wear shakos in the Peninsular campaign! We have to start with where they are, not where we want them to be. We need to build on the interest and enthusiasm to hook them in before we start introducing them to the wider aspects of the hobby. I can knock up a Russian Peasants cottage because I’ve scratch built many a fantasy wattle and daub building for Kings of War or Warhammer. My sons moved readily from 40K to Middle Earth to Warhammer Ancients. They rapidly developed strategy and tactical acumen as they began to enjoy the challenges that come with different periods and troop types. 

What are some of the ways in which we can build on this initial enthusiasm? What can we learn from the FA that we can use to develop our hobby? What are some of the costs and sacrifices that we need to be prepared to make? I’ll expand upon these questions in my next post. For now I’d welcome comments from those of you who’ve stuck with me until the end. Please consider following the blog so that we can begin to build up a sense of community and reassure me that I’m not just talking to myself!