GHQ Models Forums

Hey folks.

I normally try and avoid making posts that seem too serious, as it goes against my grain...that being said, what does the future hold for our hobby? Ive been a "wargamer" for about 4 years, and think ive played for a total of maybe 2 hours...there just arent any people in my area that I know of that seem at all interested (dosent help that we have NO gaming shops or comic shops or anything within about 50 miles) which, in itself, isnt too big a deal...i like researching things, collecting books, and painting my minis enough to do that even if i knew i would never get to play a game.

But, wargaming is definately more fun when you can actually...well, play the game. I kind of think i know why our hobby is sort of stagnant, too...yeah, people now, especially younger ones, prefer the instant gratification of video games, etc, but i also know a lot of younger people who whet their interest, in say, WWII, by playing a video game, or perhaps by seeing a movie?

FOW had some success, and i think i know why. A big issue with wargaming seems to be the rules...EVERYONE uses different rules, often with different basing requirements, some are 1:1, some are platoon:1, some are 15mm, etc etc...This makes it an issue at times to game, even if other players can be found.

Thats ok, variety is good. I guess? I like 1/6000 naval minis...others like 1/2400. Micro armor, that is, 1/285 or 1/300 land, seems more standardized than naval gaming, but is still fragmented...and once again, THE RULES!! Other games (Dungeons and Dragons comes to mind) had/have a huge following because, simply, they (until recently, anyway) had one long running rules set. Yeah, rules are funny that way, some people like very detailed rules sets, some like quick running games...there is no reason a rule set cant do both. Panzer War is a neat rules set because it does both. Manages to be realistic, yet isnt overly complicated to play (company level is great, i wouldnt mind battalion level with a fairly homogenous force and maybe 2 players per side) and the same can be said of seekrieg; complicated, but smooth once youre used to it (other than the SK 4 torpedo rules, I hear SK 5 has fixed this, but, I am a math major, the torpedo rules dont seem so bad to me=) I cant comment on GHQs rules, cause i dont own micronauts yet (plan to buy it this semester, along with some more Soviets!) and their ground rules dont appeal to me because i prefer 1:1 rules *which i am eagerly awaiting!* but, i will now end the babble and get to my point(s).

1) Do you think there is any chance a rules set will ever become "the standard" for their particular eras/genres? I mean, 1 set for WWII land, 1 for moderns, 1 for WWII naval, etc... and perhaps, all the game designers with fairly established rules, could collaborate on this? GHQ definately is one of the pillars of the wargaming community, maybe the micronauts set and the new 1:1 rules are a step in that direction? Do you think a "standard" is even possible?

and

2) Do you think we will gain or lose wargamers in the next 10-20 years? Seem to be holding our own, but, like I said, ive been alone here since i started.

Guess ive sent "a salvo across the bow", as it were. I will now await return fire!

CA,
I agree about the fragmentation regarding rules and rules scales i.e. 1:1 or 1:platoon, etc.
At cons I've recieved more results (best) by presenting 1:1 scale this is in 6mm and 15mm. Everytime I put on a game using 1:1 I actually had to turn people away, and that was after letting one or two more in than I should have. The 1:1 rules I used were my own on top of that.For almost 2 years I tried using Spearhead at cons with very few people willing to play. I don't know if it was the rules or the rules scale regarding these results.
Overall in my area there are very few historical gamers which results in just a certain few that play often. I like you really like to play more often. So with that said I actually started to play WH40k for almost the last year. The latest version (40k V) is actually tactically challenging. I have no less than 5 shops within short driving distance to where I can get a game in with someone virtually any day of the week. Tournaments are at least one a month and sometimes more frequent. I've met dozens of new gamers since playing and meet new ones all the time. What is really nice is the rules are really standard and pretty much known amonst those who show up and play.
Don't let me worry you, I am still more a historical gamer than a 40k'r. Its just that there are hardly any historical players or historical players with a standard rules in the area.

The future may lay here with the table showing the terrain and the touch surface knowing where the units are and wha they are doing. We can move the troops and the computer can do the calculations and give the combat results.
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2 ... face-table

jb wrote:...

First of all Hello JB long time no see, havent heard from you for a long time. How is everything up there in Cheese land? Need to call me or get a hold of me some time soon.

Now back to the subject at hand. I agree with you CA on many points. Especially kids and instant gradification with video games and the like. Most kids now a days dont want to take the time to learn or think about tactics and learn rules.

I may self love detail in rules, and would have to say that Seekrieg 5 is the best naval rules i have played yet for the time era of 1860 to 1945. Detailed but flows nicely enough that it is easy to pick up quickly. Even though in the begining it seems overwhelming with all the charts.

As for rules your right some are fast play some are detailed, and everyone has different tastes when it comes to rules. I know luckly i have a great group where I'm at here in northern indiana. We are all very open to new rules and trying new things. That helps having a good group we stand about 20 to 25 as is and we game in all era's and scales. Some of our memebers dont care for Seekrieg or other rules some do. So, those members dont show up on certain weekends. Luckly enough we have enough players to cover those that dont show up.

Where are you located CA you are more than welcome to come game with us every saturday in South Bend indiana if you are with in reason.

I dont think we will ever see a stardard gaming rules set for micro, just because once again everyone has different tastes, when it comes to wargaming rules. We also all know you cant ever make everyone happy, been down that road many times. Ask JB he will remeber we started a north africa campiagn several years ago. had it all ready to go and one guy had to throw a monkey wrench into the whole plan of map movement and ruined the whole campaign never got off the ground. And me and JB live about 4hrs apart so we where only getting together every 3 to 5 months to game.

One other problem i see with wargaming is most of the wargamers are older generation players, and most from what i have heard and seen dont want to leave their house or let alone drive more than 15 miles. Except for maybe to that one or two cons a year, and then most of the gaming session is spent talking about the real life scenario that they are trying to depict on the table top. Which dont get me wrong is great I love research and talking about the real life battles also, but wait till the game is over at least. When i run a game i run the game at the quickest pace i can then after we have finished i then explain maybe what really happened in the real life battle.

Now when we talk about hobby shops well the internet and online stores have ruined that experience. Its way to easy to get stuff online and usually with a little in depth looking find it cheaper than the local hobby store. So unfortnatley the day of the good old book and hobby store are coming to an end. Luckly once again i have a great store here in south bend.

That is my two cents worth and I know that several years ago we talked about on here hosting a con for all us micro heads.

fullmetaljacket

Based on a 40 year perspective in miniatures gaming, we need to realize that this will always be a very niche hobby. The number of people gaming in B.C. has gone up and down, but not significantly either way. The local club I'm part of, the Trumpeter Tabletop Gaming Club, has been running in an organized manner for about that long, and the membership is a pretty constant 100-120, with a good percentage of those people turning up for gaming nights.

Our annual convention, Trumpeter Salute (coming March 12-14th, BTW), attracts from 250 to 350 people each year and has been doing so since the mid '70s when the convention was held in the WISE (Welsh, Irish, Scottish, English) Hall in Vancouver.

It is important to find a group of people with similar interests and a willingness to regularly put aside time to get together and game. Our 1/2400 Navals group consists of 6 very dedicated players and another 4 to 6 who will occasionally join in. That makes for a very satisfying gaming experience.

As to rules, if anything there are far more sets available now than 40 years ago. Back then, if you wanted to do WW2 microarmour, it was pretty well either WRG or Tractics. Ancients were almost exclusively WRG. Find a set that you like, and learn them well.

In terms of introducing people to rulesets, the two key factors are a core group who know the rules really well (and don't argue nitpicky points), and some scenarios that give new players the chance to learn the ropes without being under a lot of pressure because they have a critical position, or marginalized on some corner of the map.

For our naval rules, we have an introductory scenario where each player randomly draws a small force (10,000 build points, which translates into a reasonably good early war CA, or a couple of CL's, or a crappy CA or CL and some DD's). The objective is to sink the enemy players, so there is an equal chance to participate and no particular pressure on a new player. The choice of ships allows learning the basics of ship movement, gunnery and torpedoes quickly.

The one area of gaming that seems to have died out is the monster board game, but for our group, that's probably just advancing age and diminishing memory.

I am one of the few in my area that uses micro-armor or 6mm stuff, but I never have a problem getting a game on the table. Both the local gamers and the regional gamers who attend the HMGS Great Lakes conventions are a mix of historicals and fantasy/mythology players. For most of my historicals gaming, I went to the Piquet system, allowing me to play any era from Ancients to Vietnam in one core system with lots of modules to get the historical feel of the specific era in the game. I started in the mid 70s with D&D for roll play, and Angrif or Tractics and micro armor for my minis gaming. Today, my historicals are either Piquet or Iron Ivan for skirmish level. I play fantasy Napoleonics with Flintloque and Slaughterloo, Erin for Celtic mythos and Typhon for Greek Mythos games, and Piquet finally released their own fantasy rules, so I am getting ready to get a game on the table with those, too. I dont think there will ever be a single universal set of rules out there. I dont like some that are common, and I know some dont like Piquet, although I truly think more people dont like games more from the presentation than from the actual rules. Those who have played my games at Advance The Colors or at the local game store walk away with a lot more information about the rules, and usually much more appreciation for them. And I have not made time to play the rules that I dont like, the idea that I dont like them comes from the negative comments from the gamers who do play them so it's really not fair for me to comment on something I havent tried..

For scale, it may also be an issue for the rules. The Piquet rules for several eras allow for individual man, platoon or battalion level play, using the same based figures. I know folks do use micro scales for skirmish gaming, but to me, skirmish gaming is best with larger scales so I use 28mm there. I play 1/6000 WW1 naval, and 1/2000 Age of Sail. Just about everything else, from Hannibal to Ia Drang, is in 6mm or 1/285th.

At an upcoming con in Toledo, OH, I'll be running the Piquet fantasy and the two mythos games, as we are aiming at getting a bit younger crowd in. Last year I ran everything from a 1600 Samurai game to a May 1940 WW2 game, and I had full tables for each one, but they were all gamers my age or older.

Like others have said, find something you enjoy and look for the one or two others that like them as well. Today we have things like Facebook and Matchup that may help find gamers in your own neighborhood that you dont know yet.


Tom

Good to know the void of gamers isnt everywhere.

I live in Ashtabula, Ohio, the heart and soul of the rust belt, and sadly, the 30% unemployment rate, 50%-ish high school dropout rate, the recession, and the fact there isnt a book or gaming shop within 50 or so miles really kills the prospects of gaming.

The fact that, like most college students, i am ALWAYS broke, dosent help

However, good to see there are some very vibrant gaming clubs here and there! If i could find 6 or so people who enjoyed seekrieg, and another half dozen who played it off and on, I would literally feel like i had died and gone to heaven.

Inclusion is awesome, everyone should get to do their thing! My only real issue with the various rule sets and scales, is it may keep me from being able to participate in games, if my minis are not the correct scale, or based in a manner that is incompatible with the rules being used. Naval games are 99.9% of the time 1:1 (some rare odd people use a dessie model to depict a flotilla) and i suppose having enough ships in the more common scales (1:1200, 1:2400, and my beloved 1:6000) isnt a big issue. By the way, GHQ, I love your naval minis, someday i may upgrade the 1:6000s to yours, but, i can carry my whole US fleet in a small plastic box, which is kind of important these days (plus, see above regarding broke college student)

Im quite happy however, and relieved, to see that gaming overall seems healthy! Thanks for the replies folks, when im done with school and move out of this black hole, hopefully wherever i go has a solid gaming community.

cama wrote:Our "core group" plays GW games - Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k, and Lord of the Rings (we are rare for LOTR, one of the largest pockets of LOTR gamers, in the world!).

Here in Orlando, and the greater central Florida area, we have about 15 regular LotR players, which is rare indeed, having weekly games, and doing tournaments about once a month.

From my own experience I started with West End games Star Wars RPG, which I ran. I had a friend that ran D&D, and a friend that did battletech / mechwarrior. Which was the frst miniature game I played. All that was back in the late 80's, and early 90's.

After that I didn't do much in college, until I went to Historicon for the first time, that was quite the experience. I always loved Red Storm Rising, which larry Bond helped T. Clancy with. I saw L.B. was running a Harpoon game there, so I played that, and loved it. I've only ever played 3 games of Harpoon, and that's because people that play that game are impossible to find.

At Historicon I also played my first micro armor game. I played 2 actually. A WWII one, and a modern one. I'm more into the modern stuff, and really enjoyed that.

Since then, my last Historicon visit, 1997, I didn't do much gaming until 2001 when I started going to RECON, and HURRICON here in Florida every year. I always attend these events if possible. So I attend those regularly, and in 2002 I started playing GW LotR with a friend. I have never played any other GW game before. It took about 7 years to get that off the ground, but I never gave up. Now we've got a great player base for that here.

The idea of 1 system for evey era ( WWI, WWII, modern etc.) isn't very realistic. Though if you look at GW, who has sponsered GT's, Games Days, and has GW stores all over the US, and many other countries. Their systems ARE really in a class to them selves in terms of popularity. Wether you like them or hate them, every ones know's about them. Then you have the Privateer Press and other GW-esque games, but GW is still on top.

So 1 set of rules isn't going to happen, but if there was a "most popular" set, and had a large company, like GW, to sponser, and put stores in local malls. Then you'd see more gaming from that rules set, and from that a growth in the hobby in general, once people "graduated" from one game system to another.

That's the issue more than anything else, I believe. Most small game companies, simply can't afford to promote them selves. As such their games aren't popular since no one knows about them. Games that no one knows about don't get sold in the small game stores that are around, since shelf space is at a premium, and every inch of space needs to sell product. Stores, mostly, only stock what sells.

If, for example, GHQ, put 10 GHQ stores in the 10 largest cities where miniature gaming was popular, based hopefully on some research , more than likely you'd see a growth in those markets.

From a personal standpoint, I've found the best way to promote any game, is have enough so that people can play demo games with out spending their own money. Anyone loves something for free. The people that would come in the first place are going to people interested in the hobby in general.

Start off small playing demo games, and explaining how 'cheaply' the game could be started by a new person etc. Word of mouth helps from one new person to another, and so on.

my .02

I think the hobby is growing. We (Boston Trained Bands) are averaging a new consistant member every 6 weeks or so. Part of the reason is we are very inclusive, if you are always willing to teach someone new then in a few months you have another army to play against.

There is also a trend toward the gaming be less socially unacceptable. It's a lot easier to explain to someone that you get together with a bunch of friends to play a giant board game than it used to be. Let us all thank the constantly addicted video gamers for making the rest of us acceptable. .......


And Boston Trained Bands will also be in Maine in force to support Huzzah.....

I was not pointing to D&D as the future of gaming. I was looking at such a computer assisted rules system, tracking units, deciding combat results, and we just play the tactics and give the orders while the computer running table does all the counting. It could even have AI like current computer wargames and we could even play miniatures against the computer that way.

1. Nope. Different people like different things in rules. Especially historical gamers. Games like D&D have been popular because they are really that good for people into it. Also, they are fantasy which is more flexible. Same with 40K. If I say this weapon will do 2D6+2 damage, then OK. Its fantasy. There are probably a thousand other similar rule sets out there like D&D, but the one that is "really that good" gets most of the gamers in that genera. Historical gamers are more picky about the mechanics and being as close as possible to accurately produce plausible results in my observations. Some like a rule set that will complete a game like this in 2 hours and some like dragging it out over 2 days. The detail has got to differ between preferences. I hope there is never just one rule set for any historical genera and scale.

2. Where you live plays a large part in the number of fellow historical gamers. There is only one game shop in town here and it is pretty much entirely fantasy plus FOW. I've never met a new fellow war gamer while visiting the place although a few I have met otherwise do visit it.. Regardless, I've met multiples more historical gamers in Arizona in the last four years than I did living in San Francisco with a population ten times larger in a whole decade. Historical gaming seems to be alive and well here. Not necessarily increasing, but also not declining.