Minimalist Gaming, or "If I Had Known Then What I Know Now..." part II

A while ago I wrote a 'letter to my younger self' on more Minimalist Gaming (i.e. more games for one's effort).

Now that was very much a letter to my past self that I thought that perhaps some other gamers would find a little helpful, or at least a little amusing. This post continues on from that, but it has more relevance to me and my gaming now.  I did some analysis of old wargames magazines - I have got plenty! (Incidentally, if anyone wants to sell me the old Minatures Wargames CDs covering issues 126-250, I would really really appreciate it...). I was looking at the following:

Which periods are most covered? and...

Which armies are most often featured? and...

Which scale of armies are most often featured? The latter is slightly harder to explain, but basically it would be the difference in WW2 terms between a Chain of Command army, a WRG/Flames of War army and a Spearhead/Rommel army. I know that these aren't perfect demarcations, but I hoped they would be serviceable enough and at least give a rough idea. For many gamers it wouldn't matter in terms of models, they would be using the same whatever, but a Spearhead army in 15mm I think would have proportionally loads more trucks than the same army for Chain of Command, whereas the figure count doesn't go up quite as much. For me, they are often different models, with 15mm or 28mm figures for the skirmishes, and 6mm for the bigger battles.

 

Why do this? I like playing written scenarios. Writing good ones can take a while, which I don't currently always have a lot of. Generic scenarios can be very good, but obviously can sometimes lack that bit of period flavour. On a higher level, playing other gamers' scenarios is part of a conversation I think, about how we as a hobby community conceptualize certain historical and tactical issues and events and convert them into game mechanics. Or more simply, how will the rules I prefer handle your specific period scenario?

The other element is that I like using painted armies of miniatures to play these games. I have some flexibility about proxying somewhat similar forces, as I realistically do not have the time, money or energy to create vast numbers of armies. On the other hand, I do have plenty of different armies and I still get some pleasure from collecting a new one, from time-to-time. This has some relatively hard limits however, and it is much harder now I am, to a degree, "painting for three": as a mainly solo player, I am committed to always having viable opponents for any army, and as a father of a young gamer and collector, I do most of the painting for him too. Defining the exact limits of my willingness to proxy any given force is pretty difficult, but the "I know it when I see it" heuristic mainly works.

By Conflict & Faction:

WW2: Germany by miles, then UK, USA, Soviet Union; Japan and Italy some way back.

Napoleonic: French by miles, followed by Britain & Allies, with Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain a bit further back.

Ancients: Rome by a country mile of course, with Greeks, Carthage, Gauls/Britons/Germans, Macedonians and Persians next. A lot depends here on how/if you group things together of course.

Colonial: Britain, and then everyone else! Zulus, Afghans and Mahdists are the most common.

ACW next.

Medieval: English against the French and Scots, with some interest in Mongols, Seljuq Turks and Crusaders too.

Early Medieval: Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans

War of the Three Kingdoms: ECW Royalist and Parliamentarian being the most common by miles.

WW1: Britain and Germany.

Modern: Both sides of the Vietnam conflict.

AWI: Both sides

Revolutionary Wars: France and Austria. If you use Napoleonics to fight the Revolutionary Wars, then Austria definitely becomes the third most useful wargames' army

Jacobite Rebellions: Both sides

Seven Years' War: France against Britain, everything else is much smaller

Old West: various factions, but Native Americans, US Army and Gunfighters seem the most common

Wars of the Roses: Both sides

War of the Spanish Succession: French against the Allies

War of 1812: Both sides

Thirty Years' War: Sweden against the Imperialists is by far the most common

No real surprises there, except that it shows the obvious Anglophone bias to wargaming (at least in Anglophone countries). Old West subjects showed up more often than I would have instinctively thought even given that bias. Indirectly, I think this is also reasonably strong evidence that Zulu! is to date the single most influential cultural artefact amongst Anglophone wargamers, otherwise the unreasonable popularity of 1879 is somewhat hard to explain...

Scale of Armies:

WW2 Germany (WRG i.e. Company-Battalion)

WW2 UK (WRG)

Napoleonic French (Polemos i.e. Division-Corps)

WW2 Germany (Spearhead i.e. Brigade+)

ACW Confederacy (roughly Brigade - reinforced Division)

ACW Union

ECW Royalist (everything bigger than say 500)

ECW Parliamentarian

*next in my list is UK (Sharpe Practice, but this is something of a coding thing useful mainly to me - think of it as British - Horse & Musket - skirmish)

Colonial UK (post 1700 British colonial, everything but very small skirmishes)

French (Sharpe Practice - comments as above, but more so)

ACW Union (HFG i.e. Army)

ACW Confederacy (HFG)

WW2 USA (WRG)

AWI Patriot (HFG - I think I was quite generous in coding this, I think this includes the Division-size actions, which are separate for Napoleonics)

WW2 UK (Spearhead)

Wars of the Roses English (DBA - pre-1700 it is just Army or skirmish force, DBA = Army)

AWI British (HFG)

WW2 Soviet Union (WRG)

WW2 Germany (Chain of Command i.e. reinforced platoon)

WW2 Soviet Union (Spearhead)

Norse Viking (DBA)

Old West Gunfighters

Polybian Roman (DBA)

Modern USA (Force on Force, so reinforced platoon; mainly Vietnam, but I just lumped all modern stuff in together)

Dark Age skirmish

Age of Sail UK

WW1 UK (Mud & Blood -  up to a reinforced company)

Napoleonic British (Polemos)

Early Imperial Roman (DBA)

100YW English (DBA)

Middle Anglo-Saxon (DBA)

WW1 Germany (Mud & Blood)

WW2 UK (CoC)

Marian Roman (DBA)

Viet Cong (FoF)

Anglo-Norman (DBA)

Napoleonic Austrian (Polemos)

Zulus (HFG)

Nothing wildly different to that expected from the earlier results. WW2 Germany (WRG) is by far the most common appearing army.

The so what? I think there is a 'so what' for me now and a 'so what' for me then, as a new wargamer. 

Assuming that playing lots of scenarios from wargaming magazines is a thing I want to do (it is!), the first question is always - how far are you willing to adapt and proxy? If you are willing to go far enough, then obviously none of this matters, just pick the army you find most visually appealing and go for it, and just convert scenarios until they work. After all, did Brigadier Young, in his seminal book on horse-&-musket wargaming Charge!, ignore the vast numbers of actual battles from 1600-1880 and converted a battle from the Burma campaign for his big set piece battle? However, if you wanted to do less conversion work - or more principedly, you wanted to experience the tactical richness inherent in modelling many different periods - then these lists might help a little. What might that look like?

An Army List of Army Lists:

 

WW2: Germany, plus an opponent.

Napoleonic & Revolutionary Wars: France, plus an opponent.

Ancients: A Roman Army, and as many opponents as you can be bothered to paint up. Carthaginians seem a decent choice, since you are kind of getting Gauls, Spaniards, Numidians etc, in for free.

Colonial: A British Army, and an opponent. I think the Mahdists are more flexible than Zulus and Afghans, but it doesn't really matter.

ACW: A Union and a Confederacy army.

Medieval: I think this is quite flexible, but an English Army and a French Army, with Scots and Welsh as needed, would cover a lot of it. 

Early Medieval: Anglo-Saxons, plus one or both of the Vikings and Normans.

War of the Three Kingdoms: A Royalist and a Parliamentary army.

WW1: Proxy with WW2.

Modern: The US. And on the other side I think either the NVA or the USSR, depending on the focus of one's interest (You might get away with proxying with WW2, depending upon how you feel about certain things)

AWI: Proxy with Napoleonics.

Jacobite Rebellions: Proxy with a mixture of Napoleonics or WotTK.

Seven Years' War: France against Britain, everything else is much smaller (Proxy with Napoleonics)

Old West: various factions, but Native Americans, US Army and Gunfighters seem the most common (Proxy the US Army with ACW)

Wars of the Roses: Both sides (Might get away with proxying with Medievals)

War of the Spanish Succession: French against the Allies (Proxy with Napoleonics or WotTK).

War of 1812: Both sides (Proxy with Napoleonics)

Thirty Years' War: Sweden against the Imperialists is by far the most common (Proxy with WotTK; but with more Cuirasiers!).

 

The list of individual forces mainly follows the logic of this, although naval forces for the Age of Sail get a specific bump here. Until you get to the bottom of the list, there is a reasonable emphasis on small forces too, although perhaps somewhat less for Ancients, ACW & War of the Three Kingdoms nearer the top of the list. Whether this is an issue at all depends somewhat on which models you use and how you base them i.e. whether you have separate 'battle' and 'skirmish' forces, or if it is all the same thing to you.

I think as a advice to myself for back then, it might serve as a menu for which order to tackle building armies: start with WW2 (Germany versus opponent), then Napoleonics (French versus opponent), then Ancients (Romans versus opponent), Colonials (British versus opponent)...and so on. 

 

Please remember this isn't advice to anyone else really, nor to someone who has a penchant for a particular period. If Samurai or the Taiping Rebellion or the Maori musket wars were just 'my thing', then of course I would go for it. A lot of this is predicated on my being interested in nearly everything!

A Very Qualified Defence of the Army List

In practice, I think that much of the stick that army lists have received over they years is somewhat justified: "their only proper use is in propping up a wonky table leg" (S. Asquith) has stuck with me over the years! They have often encouraged meta-gaming as a way of seeking decisive advantage in the actual game, have been somewhat abused by certain commercial interests at points, and perhaps worst of all, encouraged the use of deliberately ahistorical armies. I don't mean the Burgundian Ordonnance vs Han Chinese issue, but rather, that the Burgundian Ordonnance army itself might be wildly unhistorical. And I think this is where good army lists can help: by assisting gamers in working out what the minimum viable miniature army is (what covers most of the troop requirements, most of the time) and what the maximum possible army is (what you need to cover ~every scenario you might play at a certain level). These are requirements specific to gamers, since historians and historical enthusiasts just need to know what was there on a given day, they aren't collecting the army. But we gamers are. So an army list can be a really useful guide to what a wargamer could collect to maximize versatility in play, entirely rooted in history. Which feels like a good and useful aim.