Is historical wargaming dying out?

Today while painting some miniatures and preparing some terrain I was listening to one of the episodes of the Too Fat Lardies' podcast -Oddcast 35-. They brought to my attention a video from Little Wars TV concerning the apparent death of historical wargaming.  

As someone in his mid-thirties -I'm 35-, I thought it would be interesting to bring my point-of-view to the debate table that is the Internet. As in the podcast, I think it's useful if I explain a bit my background in the hobby previous to give my particular opinion on the subject.

Catholic Miniatures

My first experience with miniatures -not wargaming- is kind of an odd one, I started with what could be called religious miniatures. My father was a deeply catholic man who every Christmas religiously built a nativity scene at home. The traditional one usually involves the actual nativity scene, the three magi kings in their camels and maybe adds some extras like animals and few village buildings around in around the 1:32 to 2:48 scale. 

As a fun fact, I discovered that in countries like Spain you can find huge markets with plenty of figures, terrain, animals, etc. to build nativity scenes. So you could say that most people there is into miniatures. 

When I was old enough, around 5, I used to help him, and expanded a bit the scene to include roman soldiers, markets, rivers, etc. To the point that at around 8 my father send me to a Catholic association that every year had a display of "nativity scenes" that was more like an ancient times diorama scenes including Roman military forces, plenty of buildings, fishermen in small boats in lakes, etc. Everything was build from scratch using woods, plaster, ceramics, etc.

A photo of a Christmas traditional miniature stand I took in one of my recent visits to Spain

WW2 Dioramas

One day while going to a big warehouse to buy some supplies, I happened to see some small plastic WW2 soldiers and vehicles -I guess around 1:72 scale-, and I couldn't resist. Since I discovered the Lucasarts Indiana Jones PC games when I was 5 I had been obsessed with WW2 and military history.  So instead of buying some extra paint bottles, I bought a couple of models and built my first WW2 diorama (a D-Day landing craft with soldiers exiting it). 

Since then I occasionally bought and build some military models from fighter planes to tanks as soon as I managed to save enough money for it. My allowance was meager, and as one can imagine, like any small kid I also had other -completely common- interests (like reading WW2 books about Waffen-SS and such, and play WW2 PC games). 

Into wargaming miniatures

When I was already a teenager, I started visiting a gaming store where I had Lord of the Rings roleplaying game sessions with my high-school gang. I felt in love with the Games Workshop miniatures sold there, and with my of one good friends we started building a small Warhammer Fantasy army. At that time I couldn't even imagine that historical wargaming existed, so my approach was to simply buy the most historical realistic army I could find in Warhammer. I choose the Empire, because it had a strong Germanic pike & shot feeling, and I enjoyed pushing the trays of infantry pike-men and shooting my artillery guns. 

Due to the lack of contenders to play with, my interest faded and I focused more on PC military simulation. 

When I joined the military as a professional soldier, I had to abandon everything I had at my parents home so I completely forgot about it. To this day I have no idea where my Warhammer Fantasy figures ended.

Rediscovering the hobby

Many years later, In 2015, I was visiting Stockholm's old town (Gamla Stan) and I happened to found a huge hobby-store. In the upper level they had a huge collection of Games Workshop stuff, that I felt naturally attracted to. Looking around I found a few odd boxes in a dark corner. They were something different. They were WW2 miniatures from Warlord Games. Like in my childhood days I could simply not resist. 

At that time I had no plans to play any wargames, but I really couldn't stop myself , so I decided to buy a plastic tank. The problem is that I could not decide between a British Firefly or its great opponent the Panzer VIA Tiger. So my wonderful wife simply offered to buy the other one. That's how I started my WW2 wargame miniature collection. Every trip we did to Stockholm I purchased a new vehicle. 

One day while talking to some of my PC military simulation friends online, I was told about a WW2 board game called Memoir 44. I purchased right away and convinced my wife to play some games with me. She loved it and we played plenty of games. 

We enjoyed it so much that I dusted off some of the Warlord's plastics I had on display and asked her if she would be willing to take the next step. She agreed. And we purchased the Bolt Action starting kit -and some extras-. 

And since then we have been playing different historical wargames (especially Test of Honour, Bolt Action and Chain of Command). Here in Finland wargaming clubs are rare and mostly focus on fantasy games like those from Games Workshop, so our flat has become our own private historical wargame club. 

My opinion

So, as seen in my lengthy story I've always been a military history buff, and with minimal exposure to miniature historical gaming I have always gravitated towards it one way or another. At the same rate I visited most WW2 museums and battlefields in Western Europe and the Nordics, and purchased tons of books, I have always been interested in miniatures and dioramas too. Just that I didn't even realize historical miniature wargaming was a thing until few years ago. 

I may be an odd case, but if when I was a kid I had known I could play tabletop wargames with WW2 historical figures I would have done it right away. And I know of plenty of kids interested in military history that would also follow that path. That's why I really don't buy into the belief that all youngsters tend to gravitate towards flashy fantasy and sci-fi games. 

There's also the argument that "PC killed the radi... -sorry- tabletop star". Which again I find it unfounded. Actually one of the reasons why I'm so invested in historical wargaming is that it allows me to take a break from a day in front of a computer screen. And bear in mind that I lead a PC military simulation community and participate in two events a week with them, so I'm not precisely a luddite. 

I don't even think that you need a huge social experience where you have to join a club and travel to plenty of places to enjoy the hobby -although I'm sure it's fun too-. As I said, I mostly play with my wife at home -it's a pandemic-proof system-. And thanks to Internet you can share experiences with people from around the globe.

Availability of figures and terrain has become a bit of an issue for me, as I live in a country with not much following. But again, thanks to the Internet I managed to purchase stuff from all over the World -especially from Blighty-. Although it's certainly pricey to import from abroad.

In conclusion, my opinion is that historical wargaming is not dying at all. But it has a huge issue, simply put: it lacks visibility. I have the perception that many people that could be interested and thrive in the hobby don't even know it exists.



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