"The older you get, the further back in time you wargame."
And this put me thinking. Is it true? For myself or for those around me at the local club? Does one start as a youngling playing Warhammer and end up as an old grey beard peering over his Egyptians? And is it happening to me, now that I`m about "halfway" in years averaged on the life counter?
Like so many, I did indeed, at the snotnosed age of 14, start out in this hobby with the Warhammer game, which was back then just coming out in his 3rd edition incarnation. Truth to be told, we thought we where buying an expansion for MB's Heroquest, boy was I wrong - in a good way-. After years of basement gaming (well, attic to be precise), I moved on to a club, the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, as my gaming group was falling apart.
Those luring creatures called girlfriends had infiltrated our bastion of puberal masculinity and many fell by the wayside.
There, I continued playing Warhammer fantasy, but discovered the whole world of historical gaming as well. Mind you, we are talking the 1997 - 98 era here, so the internet was still in it's fledgling shoes, and GW mail orders where still done by sending in a printed paper with a cheque. It was also there that I set my first steps into this realms, with someone I still play with in the current Dux campaign. I was introduced to playing dark ages with a set of home brewn rules.
Now, it didn`t glue to me back then, but the first seeds had been planted and ever since then, I have been maintaining an intrest in the period and playing the Irish on occassion ofter the decennia. But I kept focussing on my Warhammer (and by then, 40k iteration as well), storming the tournament scene and being to often on the road to some event left or right in the lowlands.
Fast forward to about 7 years ago, and about 2 years before my "break". I was growing tired of playing always the same people, with the same armies, a few years before that. We had a created a good gaming group within the club, famous inside the clubdoors for always playing space games like Babylon 5 from Mongoose Publishing, but also a year long Flames of War campaign (avanti Savoia!). The historical fires had been poked up a little more back then.
Soon after those ended, the 6mm era in our group came along, with Future War Commander being the weekly game. But also it's historical variant Blitzkrieg Commander. Now, while being historical, world war 2 gaming for me is a lot like gaming 40k. You got your killer tanks and infantry that must grab and hold objectives.
But there was something else during all those years: the annual mega battle ACW. This period or war has always been my cup of tea, and once per year I got to play it in earnest. There, it actually all began with, as I tried (and failed) to convert my buddies to play the period. But it did slowly happen that I started hovering towards other groups and occasionally picked up a game left or right in various periods.
The break of 5 years then took place, due to influences that trashed my original gaming group a decade and a half before.
But the fire re-awakened after the rather sour-ending LEGO adventure, and the first thing I turned to was... historicals. SAGA Irish to be precise, being both dark ages and it looked like something to get quick games in with. Back at the club, I then immediatly dropped in the Dux campaign that was about to start and be on the path to gaming again.
I also at that time started restoring (and re-buying) my warhammer and 40k forces, because well, those are ideal to get yourself playdates most of the weeks anyways. But compared to years before, I tend to play them now when I don`t have an historical game on the line somewhere.
Another very appealing fact to historical gaming is the painting. Compared to most fantasy and sci-fi figures, our ancestors ran around rather bland. That is not saying the models aren`t detailed or so, but they are just not covered in skulls, chains and other bits and bobs like the imagined brethren, making the paintjobs a lot more basic. Scrutiny amongst other players is also far less in the historical gaming middles I've found, but harder on another level.
For example, a Union trooper MUST be blue and a british AWI soldier shall be red. You loose the creative liberty of coming up with flashy or unique colourschemes, because, well, it was recorded they dressed like that. Same goes for proxy troops etc, the historical community tends to be more WYSIWYG the the fantasy one.
Which might be a good thing, though with the limited weapon options in any given pre-1900 era, most armies where quite identical in material and it where the generals and the quality of the soldier that made the difference. Either side generally had the same technology level, compared to the widely variants in sci-fi gaming, but where the what you see.. rule is barely implemented these days it seems.
So while limiting perhaps in a way creativity (I am not saying elaborate painting, look at the Napoleonic wars for example), it does help out with ease of play in recognising what is facing you.
The final aspect perhaps is money. While I keep saying to all those that state that GW is expensive... try becoming a LEGO moc'cer and then you will see your wallet really cry, fact is historical are way cheaper.
For my 25 euro, I either have a box of 5 GW models, or 40 Perry infantry for the ACW, the latter as such coming to a measly 0.5 euro per figure. That is not expensive at all in my book, considering the time in life you will be spending together with your purchase while painting and gaming them.
This might sound like an odd point, but once you start to have bills to pay and mouths to feed, this can become a big factor in your hobby budget, to get more bang for your buck. For the price of a big GW kit these days, you can buy an actual complete historical army at for example Warlord Games.
So with these three points in mind:
* availability to play games
* ease of painting
* models for your money
is it true that the older you get, the more you tend to turn to historical gaming?
Yes and no if I look back at myself. On the one hand, the first point is the most important. Your Roman army isn`t going to get you anywhere if all the historical players in the area only play French Indian Wars. But if you have access to a club and can get games in of any period (I`m not talking rules, that's a bigger cl*sterf*ck then in fantasy) they become very appaling.
Add to that perhaps budgetary restraints as you get older, and dwindling eyesight (something we all will be faced with eventually) and those all in grey uniform armies come mightily attractive for sure.
Well, those are my thoughts on the subject, I think in conclusion that it isn`t so per se (my Nemesis comes to mind as a prime example of someone who has barely any intrest in historics as years go by) but the lure to start dabbling in that aspect of the wargaming is definitly out there for the most of us as the years tick by.
Cheerios!
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