Are You Old Enough for Historical Wargaming?

Atom talks about the age limit for historical wargaming, and discusses a few games that are great transitions and intro into historical wargaming.

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[darktree]

Upsides to historical wargaming: Your codex never sucks is this edition. No-one owns the period. It’s no-one’s IP. It can’t be End Times-ed.
You have absolute freedom to choose whatever ruleset for whatever manufacturer of miniatures you like.
Some eras – particularly the Napoleonic – are visually stunning. Equal in colour and flair to Warhammer Empire, there’s just no griffons.
You never run out of reading material. Ever. And you can be surprised at how interesting stuff is, and how much you never knew.
You can port your hobby focus across to Total War titles sometimes.
Decade after decade – there’s always someone who wants to play it.
The tactics you may win a game by... may have won if for you in real life. And when you reverse history with that... it’s a trip.

[Edithae]

If you're old enough to take an interest in history, you're old enough to wargame. What better way to encourage a kid's interest in the Romans or Vikings than by playing games and painting miniatures with him? (or her).

[Jyllyfish]

Your voice is like butter, I don't even care much for historical war-gaming. I just like to listen to your voice in the background, so calming.

[shaunaporter]

I am 11 years old and have built 9 tanks for flames of war without help and I love playing flames of war

[UbiqueMatt]

Lion Rampant is an ideal introduction to historical wargaming. Easy to learn and provides fun, entertaining games. It's variant's fantasy and upcoming colonial and black powder provide further access into the historical side of gaming.

[FenrisChosen]

When I was in middle school (grade 6, going to grade 7), I had an instructor who offered a summer "'class" on wargaming. A bunch of us boys (while we were a large middle school, I was in a magnet school and thus, other kids in the program were arranged away from the general population of the middle school in question) in the class joined up with a handful of girls. The class itself was really an intro to hobby warhamming, painting, and a loose campaign using the "ancient history" backdrop created with the ruleset De Bellis Antiquatis. We chose our "ancient culture" from the Romans, the Greek, the Celts, and the Egyptians. Obviously the ruleset was flexible enough to pit these forces against each other from drastically different time periods, but it was a blast. From this club, we were introduced to the Lord of the Rings game that GW puts out (this was when it was going into the Two Towers set) and Warhammer.

Additionally, my dad builds plastic models. This has been his hobby since he was a boy, and his abilities in that hobby are enormous. He buys all kinds of kits, specialty parts, tools, and the like to build his models. Additionally, the amount of research he does on these models is considerable. As a kid, I desperately wanted to play with these built models (a HUGE no-no) and know what he was up to. When I got a little older, my dad bought me my first starter deck and pack of cards for the Pokemon TCG. Years later, my introduction to wargaming from the above mentioned class, ignited and combined with my love of games and interest in my dad's hobby in model kits. To this day, he and I will exchange bits of information regarding the construction and painting of kits, including paint choices.

[CrunchGrunt]

I've been a serious historical miniatures wargamer since 1987. I suppose that makes me a member of the Old Guard. I really enjoy the research, modeling and especially painting that goes along with the historical gaming hobby. Along with that I very much enjoy recreating historical battles. The interest is in the "What If" and recreating the who, what, when, where and how. Lastly, I get much satisfaction and happiness from putting together and running a game for friends and newcomers at club meetings, game stores or game conventions as a Game Master. Nothing beats players biting their nails and praying to the Dice Gods over a tabletop covered in cool terrain and well painted military models. Thanks for posting this one Atom.

[Lomhow]

Ever since I was a kid, I was kinda enamored with the landscapes adults would make in basements and the weird train track valleys and stuff. I feel like you just kinda know when you're young that you're gonna get into it.

[rustedbeetle]

I usually recommend De Bellis Antiquitatis as an easy way to get into historical/ancients. Simple rules, and you really don't need minis, just bases to play.

[Matt-tbun]

I started playing a Napoleonic's version of tabletop when I was 8. I was eager and couldn't get enough. Still play it among others 25 years later! I was an odd kid playing with all those old bearded guys haha.

[georgedebleu]

Bolt Action  can be played in any scale, covers the whole of WW2 and is a BLAST!  Also, it requires only a squad or two so per side to start so is much easier (financially) for people to get into. :)  It can be played in 15, 25 or 54mm!   Having played FoW since release - BA is a MUCH  better game.  Warlord has also released Konflikt '47 which is a weird war WW2 game in which you can utilize your WW2 stuff with no problem! :)

Saga can be played in 15, 25 and 54mm too! 

The Naval battles at Origins were Fletcher Pratt Naval Rules.  More than likely the set originally published in 1933 (Yes THAT 1933 A.D.) then updated again during WW2.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Fletcher Pratt was reprinted with the campaign rules and added commentary in January of 2012. (Not sure, but it seems like it is in its 20th printing! xD)

[nathankoole]

I'm 11 years old from the netherlands And love your CHANNEL

[bobemmerson]

I started at age 12 with 20mm WWII and Napoleonic, and some pretty awful home-brew rule sets. When the people I had played with stopped doing war gaming (age 14) I moved into WH40k and WHFantasy as the local store had plenty of players to game against.

When the GW stores stopped running gaming nights we started our own club. Without the constraints of playing GW games we branched out into different game systems. I moved to "Bolt Action" as my main system, mainly playing the minor nations.

Now I run a small business producing Tanks for the minor nations. So I should probably be thankful for GW closing their gaming nights because it led me to creating my own business.

As a post-script, I also have a large "Pike & Shotte" army, but not many play it locally. So I mainly use it as a "Kingdoms of Men" army for "Kings of War"....

[enginetruck]

So, at 14 years old I was exposed to historical war gaming. I played a game with 15mm napoleonic miniatures. That sent me into the world of historical war gaming and a huge war gaming club on the east coast! I was more interested in American Civil War and the American War of Independence. I have stayed with the scale, 15mm. I am now 42 and continue to play and paint. Excellent video Uncle Atom.

[dalt]

Chain of Command for WW2, simple, fast, yet surprisingly detailed and plays out historically well. Battlegroup Kursk is also good for a heavier simulation feel whilst still being fun and (relatively) quick.

[keithscholes]

Admittedly I am old now, but in my teens when I first became interested in wargaming the situation was the opposite of that which you describe, practically the only form of wargaming was historical. Dungeons and Dragons came along in my late teens but back then it was very much a niche interest. My interest in wargaming lapsed in my thirties (other aspects of life intervened) and I decided to get back into wargaming in my mid-fifties and duly went to a local wargaming club. I was stunned, about 70% of the games were scifi and fantasy, largely Warhammer, even the older contingent were largely playing those kind of games. I had invested in an American Civil War army, as that was a major wargaming period when I was first playing wargames even in the UK, only to be told that "we once had someone who played that but he left", I have now settled on WW2 in 6mm but largely played solo. I think though, that there is an interesting study to be made about how wargaming shifted away from being primarily historical.

[MisterKisk]

Thanks for talking about Saga. Seems really interesting to me, and I especially love the time period. Never heard of it before (I'm generally new to wargaming), so I appreciated learning about it. Going to look into starting up a local group.

[shrekkzdadii]

I'm 10, love your channel, love history and play historicals. I find the Napoleonic era fascinating. Do more vids on historical! 😄😀😄

[clapperburn]

Being a fan of Game of Thrones i recently realised that a lot of 11th/12th century Danish history is very similar to the events of GoT, this got me into painting medieval/dark age figures which I will most likely use for Lion Rampant. I definately felt 'the click' a year ago, however I am only 18 years old. Awesome channel by the way, just subscribed ;)

[captjingles]

This video definitely explains my growth in gaming. Started with 40k and fantasy, moved to war machine/hordes, and now really like DZC. But recently I've looked into lots of historical games. For me it's the crowds playing. I like a semi-competitive game with opponents I enjoy being around. After 3 years in my area it's become the historical crowd I enjoy most. Awesome videos!