Yes, wargaming is quite time intensive.
I think weâre on a similar timeline, so I think I can say thereâs nothing to stop you enjoying it now. I started wargaming in the mid-1960s when a school friend introduced me to Don Featherstoneâs âWargamesâ and âNaval Wargamesâ, the former utilising whatever was available from Airfix for WW2 and Ancients (Airfix Magazine ran a series on how to convert figures from their âRobin Hoodâ, âSheriff of Nottinghamâ, âTarzanâ and âArabâ bendy figure sets to complement their âAncient Britonsâ and âRomansâ sets for the latter). The naval side was catered for by 1:1200th scale Eaglewall ships or made from Balsa and Card to approximate drawings to that scale in the âFighting Fleetsâ section of âModel Boatsâ magazine. All of these required considerable floor space to play and so no longer feature as part of my gaming as I now require a support to kneel down or (more problematically) stand up. Fortunately there are now equivalents which can be employed while sitting round a dining table. Fleets are made up of 1:3000th scale ships (I still use 1:1200th scale for sailing ships.although there is a new system which uses generic 1:700th scale vessels mostly available as a dedicated series of plastic kits) while large WW2 and later land battles are fought in 1:300th scale (1:285th in the US), squad level engagements in 1:76th to 1:55th. There are, however, a multiplicity of alternative scales to suit tastes, budgets and space.
The last couple of posts on this thread have emphasized the time commitment of wargaming, but this is a product of the numbers of models in the forces involved and the level of detail desired. I have to accept that my unexpired airframe hours are limited so there will be no more big armies, but that does not mean no more additions to my gaming forces.
As for the time spent in gaming itself most systems are geared to giving a result in the course of an evening at venue hired by a club, roughly 3-4 hours, although some quick-play systems can yield two satisfactory games in this period. Mega-games can be managed by hiring a venue for the whole day (usually a Saturday or Sunday); we hired a village hall equidistant between two towns which had separate clubs. Although Iâve emphasized club activity to explain game duration, Iâve probably played as many games with a friend or two at someoneâs house. A surprising number of gamers play at home with their âsignificant otherâ as their primary opponent (a friendâs wife was a particular devotee of âMutant Bikers of the Atomic Wastelandsâ).
Given that most of your time spent with your forces will be in building/painting, the old adage âGet an Army you can love even when itâs loosingâ still applies, although there are now systems which offer core boxed sets and individual add-ons which contain pre-built and decorated ready-to-play models (âStar Wars:X-Wingâ and âStar Wars: Armadaâ immediately spring to mind).
My own particular addiction is to the quick-play systems âDe Bellis Antiquitatisâ (DBA) for primarily land battles in the Ancient and Medieval periods (part of a series of rule sets often referred to as âDBxâ) and itâs Fantasy spin-off âHordes of the Thingsâ (HOTT), I have forces for both in 15mm and 28mm scales.
This is no longer necessarily true, some game-dedicated plastic kits (such as those for âFlames of Warâ) are nicely detailed despite being made of few pieces, while some of the Games Workshop plastic is now so finely made it can barely survive the building and painting, let alone the rigors of play.
Regards,
M
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Board wargaming is definitely a social hobby unlike modeling, comic books, action figure collecting, stamp and coin collecting, etc. that are often solo hobbies. One has to have really good friends or a Wargame shop to play these games because as board wargamers said, to have a really good board wargame requires more than two to three players.
As such, please do consider online video games if you donât have access to board wargame stores or a group of good trusted friends to play with and good wargame army collection. Since board wargames can last days, weeks, or even months to play and finish a game, and with COVID-19, playing a video game online via PC or console might be better and more secure.
And I think thatâs what happened as kids invested in online video games where money can be spent buying credits to boost up online characters and army statistics.
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Iâm way deep into miniature wargaming (vs board games). The rules nowadays can be very simple and basic to some of the really crunchy ones from the 70âs and 80s. The games can be very fluid or static like Risk. There are really 3 parts to it: modelling to include painting and terrain making; reading up on the genre whether history or sci fi & fantasy; and playing the game. I fall in the modelling and reading part and donât care so much about winning a game. Thereâs a bunch of scales/sizes (my personal fav is 1/285 and 1/300 ww2 and modern). The terrain and minis will make it more than chess but some games do run very much like it.
Some people are doing mini games using an online interface but I really only want to play face-face. Thereâs a ton of stuff for it so not really giving you all the ins and outs.
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