The club's shift in focus over the last year or so has had me pondering a phenomena I've observed. It's been a steady occurrence since we first started considering Flames of War as a new game to invest in, but as the focus shifted away from Games Workshop it became more prevalent. You see, as we have gotten past the GW bubble, we have actually gravitated more toward historical games than ever before.There will always be fantasy and sci-fi staples at the Wargate, but we've added a third category - Historical games. We might have been interested in history before, but since we've switched from GW publications to Wargames Illustrated for our hobby reading we've seen a much wider world of miniature gaming. Since the blunders GW is making in it's final days as 300lb industry gorilla are steadily stacking up, more and more hobbyists are seeking egress from the clutches of their IP.
For many, similar games to the ones they left behind hold the draw. Warmachine has called out to our local community as GW is slowly (but surely) rejected. For us though, the draw has been to Flames of War and other 'real world history' games such as Hail Caesar!, Dead Man's Hand, and Ronin. We even had to stop and take a serious look at all the options we had, researching miniature lines and rules for the American Civil War, Revolution, French & Indian War, Napoleon's campaigns, biblical history and a few others.
I'm fairly certain this is due to a 'detachment' from isolated intellectual properties that have to be explained to the casual onlooker. Similar though it is, D&D needs little explanation, as does Star Wars. People know what they are looking at when they see these things on the table, and seeing WWII equipment and soldiers brings an equal if not stronger familiarity. We have found this to be invaluable to our aging demographic, but mostly because they have moved past being only interested in robots and dragons. We have grown up, and are now interested in what inspired those things that inspired us when we were younger. We have 'grown' into this new love of history that matches up with our fervor for gaming. It's quite liberating, speaking as a hobbyist.
Currently, we've decided to focus on World War II's Eastern Front, or The Great Patriotic War as it's known in some parts. Specifically, Bolt Action and Flames of War. In addition, the Wild West has us building a collection for World of Darkness and Dead Man's Hand. However, we're slipping in a provision that will allow us to build armies of miniatures that will be used in many different ways for several different games.
Dungeons & Dragons at the Wargate will be receiving firearms. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Spelljammer and Mighty Fortress will be receiving the tech upgrades, with the availability of gunpowder weapons in each campaign setting in rising proportion in that order (i.e. Greyhawk has the least availability, Mighty Fortress has all the guns of the Age of Empire). This will encourage the building of some line infantry and other 'Renaissance' level technology without damaging the established campaign too much. We can then use these troops for other games that would utilize the same sort of troopers.
Going further back, it's even easier to diversify this way. Ranks of Wargames Factory Greek Hoplites represent Milenian troops from Mystara, while Warlord Games Romans represent Alphatians. You can see where we're going with this - once you add in the myriad campaign settings of D&D and the star systems of Star Wars you can use pretty much any miniature in ONE of our seasons each year. No more benching for years!
It's going to be a great year for modeling projects at the ol' 'gate. We'll have some pics and articles on miniatures, paired with how we intend to use those models in different game systems and settings. Saturday is now home to 'Project Afternoons', so lend a hand to building and painting models and terrain and help us crank out some awesome new units for all our games!