Quote from: TristramEvans;799130Okay, you don't do that. So it's obviously not aimed at you.

Weird from a guy whose all about OD&D.

I'm okay that other people are whom it's aimed at.

But I don't see a lot of connection between playing a historical miniatures game and playing OD&D.  I play them specifically because I get different things out of them.  I get different things out of model railroading than I get from either of them.  I don't know why that should be weird.

I'm not a wargamer, but ... a possibly related thought?

When I make a character in a MMO, I often want to create a distinct look, 'personality,' and history of that character.

I then proceed to play the game ignoring all of it. I never RP, the most it impacts anything is maybe going for an item that works with my 'look.'

But having all those ideas around helps my enjoyment. It's almost 'implicit' roleplay.


I imagine that wargaming is like that in that you want the look, feel, and style that connects you to that period and those events. But... you don't roleplay or do any 'stories' beyond the actual rules. The style is spice, not the point.

Does that seem accurate, wargamers?

Quote from: Will;799355I'm not a wargamer, but ... a possibly related thought?

When I make a character in a MMO, I often want to create a distinct look, 'personality,' and history of that character.

I then proceed to play the game ignoring all of it. I never RP, the most it impacts anything is maybe going for an item that works with my 'look.'

But having all those ideas around helps my enjoyment. It's almost 'implicit' roleplay.


I imagine that wargaming is like that in that you want the look, feel, and style that connects you to that period and those events. But... you don't roleplay or do any 'stories' beyond the actual rules. The style is spice, not the point.

Does that seem accurate, wargamers?

I think you're on to something.

If I'm fighting a battle as the US in WWII I want Sherman tanks.  I may have to live with the fact that the Easy Eights are, in fact, the same model as the M4A1 75, but I don't want to be using Matildas or Mk. IIIs for my Shermans.  I'll applaud somebody who does even a halfassed job with card and knife to make a Priest model, but if a good Priest model is available that's better.

But once the game starts, I'm all about using my forces to achieve my objective.  That tank is "that tank there," not "Sgt. Rock of Easy Company".

Quote from: Old Geezer;799352But I don't see a lot of connection between playing a historical miniatures game and playing OD&D.

Thats whats weird, since OD&D was born out of the style of wargaming being talked about and OD&D itself originally identified as a fantasy wargame.

(shrug) anyways, not suggesting you should play this way or that immersion should have anything to do with your historical wargames. Personally, I like treading the line between wargame and RPG, which is why my preferred system is WFB 3rd Ed.

Quote from: S'mon;798953There can be a sense of in-world immersion in a minis battle even where there is no real player identification with a single characer in the battle. What seems to matter is the sense that there is a world outside the battle and the battle represents events in-world. So campaigns tend to be more immersive than one-off battles. Point-buy balance reduces immersion - this is true with RPG 'CR balanced encounters' too.

You know, I was coming here to say much the same thing.  For me, immersion in minis wargames is about running goals, tactics and troops, rather than rules and scenarios.

1) Campaigns is a good one.  Replenishment can be anywhere between very generous and utterly awful (no new troops at all, or only green units to replace shot-up veterans).  Suddenly the battle is no longer between the last three guys on the table...

With tougher replenishment rules, you find that in-game goals can become more fluid - fight or escape?  Breakthrough or attrition?  Force mauled - take to the battlefield, choose your defensive point, or offer token resistance at a chokepoint to inflict damage and slow the enemy?

2)  Casualties.  The little fellas are not just removed from the board when they're - someone has to get them out because they may have to fight in the next game.  You want to get them off the board!

3)  Imperfect command and control.  Your guys refuse to charge a machine-gun nest, or are pinned down and desperate - what are you going to do Lieutenant?

4)  Fog of War/no bird's eye view of the battlefield or scenario.  Where are their troops?  What reinforcements do they have?.  Plays best on the computer, or a double-blind game (sadly you need a referee and three boards...), but scouting and uncertainty become important.  You can also play multiplayer against a referee, or PBEM (Descent works a bit like this too).

A lot of modern games do try to include Command and Control and Fog of War effects.  But there's always more you can try.

• Play with the lights out and the occasional burst of torchlight to reveal enemy units.
• Have a supreme commander on each side play with a map away from the board, and the actual table commanders move on his orders and relay the situation back to him verbally.
• Have games on multiple boards affect each other.
• Or... have multiple players on each side, and give each player different goals/orders/victory conditions.  That can ruin any game from colonial expeditions to bug hunts.  Bonus points for a scenario in which they have to co-operate in order to have ANY chance of winning...

When you read about some of the things that Paddy Griffiths and some of the more experimental rules groups got up to... only using periscopes to view the games table, or playing out tank battles sitting inside a cardboard box with small vision slits cut out... there's a lot you can do.

Honourable game mentions:

Two Hour Wargames are run on reaction tables - you play as the leader, but your troops have their own idea about what's doable.

Science vs Pluck - British expedition to the Sudan against the Mahdi, playing out the entire campaign on a "rolling table" with multiple players against a gamesmaster.  The tribesmen are out there in their thousands and are experts at ambush...

Two Fat Lardies rulesets use "blind" unit markers on the table.  At the start of the game, all unit markers plus a couple of dummy markers move together on the turn of a single card.  As units are "spotted" by the enemy, figures are placed on the board or the unit is revealed as a dummy.  After that, the unit moves on its own card, not with the rest.  A very elegant mechanism for "friction" and fog of war on the tabletop.

Quote from: Will;799355I'm not a wargamer, but ... a possibly related thought?

When I make a character in a MMO, I often want to create a distinct look, 'personality,' and history of that character.

I then proceed to play the game ignoring all of it. I never RP, the most it impacts anything is maybe going for an item that works with my 'look.'

But having all those ideas around helps my enjoyment. It's almost 'implicit' roleplay.


I imagine that wargaming is like that in that you want the look, feel, and style that connects you to that period and those events. But... you don't roleplay or do any 'stories' beyond the actual rules. The style is spice, not the point.

Does that seem accurate, wargamers?

Hmm, there's a strand of wargaming that sees the minis and the table as bringing your own private world to life.  In that case, the rules themselves are, amongst other things, a vehicle to generate interaction and stories.  It's a more structured story than, say, the Bronte kids' "Gondol" stories, which were also inspired by toy soldiers.

So yes, your nicely painted models and beautiful table are critical to your enjoyment of the thing, but there's a whole slew of backstory and campaign development.  You see it in wargaming blogs - there's a continuum from sites that are purely for painting and building all the way through to those that are pure campaign writeups.  I think there's a good reason that GW can sell books full of fake-historical "fluff", heraldry and special characters.

I wouldn't say that the "living narrative" aspect is particularly dominant, or even common, but it has its claws in many of us.  Look at successful games like Mordheim and Necromunda and the depth of campaigns those can generate.

More recently, there's a delight of a game called Dux Britanniarum, which charts the rise and fall of petty warlords in the historical age of Arthur.  Again, the battlefield action is central, but the spoils of battle can be used to fortify your homeland, hire mercenaries and aim for the throne.  It's a game where you WANT to record the campaign as it progresses, with characters dying, new troops appearing, fortune and reversal from battle to battle.

Yknow, I didn't kill the thread on purpose...

Quote from: Momotaro;799459You know, I was coming here to say much the same thing.  For me, immersion in minis wargames is about running goals, tactics and troops, rather than rules and scenarios.

1) Campaigns is a good one.  Replenishment can be anywhere between very generous and utterly awful (no new troops at all, or only green units to replace shot-up veterans).  Suddenly the battle is no longer between the last three guys on the table...

With tougher replenishment rules, you find that in-game goals can become more fluid - fight or escape?  Breakthrough or attrition?  Force mauled - take to the battlefield, choose your defensive point, or offer token resistance at a chokepoint to inflict damage and slow the enemy?

2)  Casualties.  The little fellas are not just removed from the board when they're - someone has to get them out because they may have to fight in the next game.  You want to get them off the board!

3)  Imperfect command and control.  Your guys refuse to charge a machine-gun nest, or are pinned down and desperate - what are you going to do Lieutenant?

4)  Fog of War/no bird's eye view of the battlefield or scenario.  Where are their troops?  What reinforcements do they have?.  Plays best on the computer, or a double-blind game (sadly you need a referee and three boards...), but scouting and uncertainty become important.  You can also play multiplayer against a referee, or PBEM (Descent works a bit like this too).

Campaigns do indeed add a whole new level to wargames.  Anybody who wants to understand the gaming roots of D&D could do worse than to read Tony Bath's "Running a Wargames Campaign."

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;798788How well do the minis have to be painted to satisfy you? I'm not very good, I can only manage one or two solid colors, some unmodified basic skin color, and a metal texture over weapons. stuff like facial details or a wooden grip on a gun, forget about it.

Go micro-scale, and at usual viewing distance hardly anyone would notice if you did more! In most periods, that's also a more realistic approximation of what you would see as a general, as is the larger number of models per unit (and sometimes closer approach of ground scale to figure scale) that tiny pieces facilitate.

It may also make it affordable to have multiple depictions of a unit, more accurately representing various formations. One variation on that theme is diorama pieces with elements of both sides more appropriately arrayed for a given situation than more common fixed basing systems allow.

Quote from: Phillip;800458Go micro-scale, and at usual viewing distance hardly anyone would notice if you did more! In most periods, that's also a more realistic approximation of what you would see as a general, as is the larger number of models per unit (and sometimes closer approach of ground scale to figure scale) that tiny pieces facilitate.

It may also make it affordable to have multiple depictions of a unit, more accurately representing various formations. One variation on that theme is diorama pieces with elements of both sides more appropriately arrayed for a given situation than more common fixed basing systems allow.

I'm actually about to start a 15mm army of Ratmen (they are so crazy cheap my friends and I are seriously considering switching to 15mm for Warhammer), and I was wondering about painting. There seems to be precious few guides to painting 15mm models as opposed to 25/28mm. I was considering going with the Army Painter "Dipping" method.

Quote from: TristramEvans;800462I'm actually about to start a 15mm army of Ratmen (they are so crazy cheap my friends and I are seriously considering switching to 15mm for Warhammer), and I was wondering about painting. There seems to be precious few guides to painting 15mm models as opposed to 25/28mm. I was considering going with the Army Painter "Dipping" method.

As an aside in case it wasn't clear, by "micro-scale" I meant the neighborhood of 1/300, 1/285th, 6mm, etc., down to 2mm. The 10mm scale might be a splendid compromise if there's a suitable range for the subject.

Outside of fantasy, 15s have long been the predominant wargame figure scale. Here's a link to start:
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=251629

Try "painting 15mm" in Google.

(For cheap, I went for plastic 1/72 myself, but it's not so cheap on table space and the selection is pretty limited.)

New here in general. But this is a topic I can comment on a lot, given I worked in a GW store for a while, and I am developing a wargame, while having played a number of different games and read a few more.

Immersion can happen, but it really does need a campaign, and a certain type of player, who is not out to win at all costs, and instead sees each battle as part of some on going narrative.

Now I think there are certain minis games that do this better than others, because the narrative is built in. For example, Journey Wrath of Demons, and Hybrid, have missions, which the players take control of opposing sides in (or which they are playing against a form of AI), and so playing through all the missions builds a narrative.

Now, for how this fits with other games. Well for stuff that GW makes, your own conversions, colour schemes and even the way you model the bases, builds a tone and theme  for the army. They are all elements that say something about this army. Even not using certain units does the same.

In games like Warmachine and Hordes, this is a bit harder given Warcasters and Warlocks are all named characters. But themed forces, that get certain benefits are fun to play.

That brings me to the use of minis in rpgs. I really only got back into Warmachine and Hordes (and wargaming in general) after a 8 year break (having quit GW), thanks to the new edition of Iron Kingdoms. And there I have found having a selection of models, painted, with decent terrain (terraclips is great), has helped with immersion into the setting and the game. The models are not just generic fantasy figures. They are figures that are based directly on the setting. For my wife, this has helped, especially for combat scenes (the only time the models or terrain gets pulled out - IKRPG is not a dungeon crawl), because then she has a measure of where things are and what her character can do.

I would also posit that it is not just the game, but the individuals playing that game. I rarely don't want to be immersive, and if I get buy-in from the other players that's fantastic.

It's easier with some wargames than others, but in the right conditions (i.e. the right collection of other players, history, booze, whatever) I can even get immersive with something like Settlers of Catan.

I'm not me, I'm a representative of "Green", and our short history of oppression by 'Yellow' and 'Red' will shortly be avenged.

The buy in from all players is critical. To the point that you can enjoy your own misfortune. I have witnessed too many times grown men literally cry and storm off when their "unkillable" army featuring expensive Forgeworld tanks, gets annihilated in a round of shooting.

Quote from: dr_ether;804536The buy in from all players is critical. To the point that you can enjoy your own misfortune. I have witnessed too many times grown men literally cry and storm off when their "unkillable" army featuring expensive Forgeworld tanks, gets annihilated in a round of shooting.

Wow, wargamers vary.

I now play almost exclusively historical miniatures of the type with a referee.  And bad die rolls or losses are accepted with grace and a shrug.  Next time it will be your turn.

I find I don't mind losing as long as everyone is playing well.  My team losing because somebody does something stupid (usually disobeying orders and ignoring all advice as they do so) makes me want to scream "I WISH THIS WAS A REAL WAR SO I COULD HAVE YOU SHOT YOU STUPID BASTARD."