[unofficial weekender] Spring is here!

Pledge :: reviewing reference materials and drafting blueprints for building a 28mm scale farm house of the ‘Egon Spangler house’ as seen in Ghostbusters Afterlife.  Planning to use this with the Ghostbuster RPG from Westend Games which was produced in 1986. (hopefully Halloween this year)  These plans could then be scaled up to ‘Dollhouse’ size later on.  I really don’t have a need for the larger scale except that I enjoyed building my daughter a Dollhouse, back in the day, and still want to build something original as “in not off the shelf” at that scale. I suppose it would look good on display, the first couple of weeks, at the locale Movie Theater if a new Ghostbusters movie gets made in the future. 🤔

Question of the week :: XLBS Stop Using Fantasy as a Gateway: How to Recruit New Historical Wargamers!

Question :: Do we really need to recruit NHW?

Answer :: the short answer, (for me), is YES. Anything that gets people to learn about history can help society to HOPEFULLY not make the same mistakes in the future.  (talking about the economics and/or politics that cause an event to take place)

Yah, we are talking about just a game, but many times I’ve dove into a game not knowing the history, (like ‘By Fire and Sword’), and then to be more plugged into the game I’ve read up on the history surrounding the event to know more about the whys and the where fors.  I am after all a ‘narrative player’.  In turn I see, (a bit of), what people in that area at that time were experiencing and why they possibly did what lead up to that event.

I could go on with more examples but I think everyone here understands what I’m talking about.   (I hope)

Besides, learning more of the history, (at the military level at least), should help to stop the ‘Captain Alphastrikes’ that take too many elite units of unrealistic proportions because they can’t help themselves and feel compelled to MinMax because………………..but i digress. 🫣

Pledge: Finish work on a monster and start another

Here goes for a big think on the topic

Historical wargaming recruitment, I don’t think there’s much that can be done to catch the fancy of people without their initial interest and some well painted minis on a board. I agree with the previous sentiments of of the built-in interest of old guys. I don’t see the little old ladies in droves clamoring on about the Opium War before breaking out their Boxer Rebellion models because they started down the rabbithole of reading all they could on fine china through to historic Asian pottery and associated culture. (just don’t mention the inherited collection of plates and vases in front of Nelly and Doris or you’ll have a real battle on your hands). Depending on where you’re located the immediacy of the history in game may not be as tangible. Most wargames being in Europe makes for little mental effort for Europeans to place one’s self in a different era where things seen in a museum actually were held by breathing people. I think Muskets and Bayonets and Black Powder do good to broaden the scope of playable geography but cultural attachment might be what makes the difference.

Playing historical games can be interesting but how granular the rules happen to be is a sticking point for most games. History also happens to be concrete as the unmalleable past. If you aren’t running a reenactment reliable to history then you are simulating a folktale in the mythical past. Anything that could’ve happened is the fantasy of an alternative timeline. This, I believe, is the fendamental seed of the arguement for chronological WYSIWYG.

Window dressing what was possible with the outfit of yesterday is just that. Team Yankee is a great example of just such a game. Turn up the fantastic/weird and you end up with Dust, Konflikt ’47, A War Transformed WWI on the Doggerland Front and even the far fetched Cohors Cthulhu. I think the balancing point for each gamer boils down to “this could’ve happened” versus “this could never happen” and how attached to examining an experience as personal or impersonal.

Pledge: Spend loads of money at UK Games Expo 🙂

Only historical games I have are Bolt Action, 0200 Hours and Flames of War.

Don’t really have an opinion on historical recruitment. Just play the games you like.

Found Rock Orchestra few months ago…

Men wearing hats? I think I need to put a stop to this nonsense post haste. It could get out of hand and be dangerous.

only the miniature games bubble asks themselves “how to get newbies play our games?” Board- and cardgames don’t seem to worry.

That’s because there are way more of them than there are of us 😀  As you are aware, the markets for board and card games are massive compared to miniature gaming.  GW dwarf any other company in our market – in fact they might well be bigger than the whole of the rest of the market for miniatures gaming rolled into one, and then multiplied several hundred times over.  For comparison Warlord feel like a big company in our market.  They employ just over 100 people and have a market value around £5 million. GW have around 3,000 staff globally and are valued around £3 billion.  So that’s big right?  Well maybe, as GW might be comparable to Asmodee in the board games sphere in terms of size and capital value.  However as we look further into the board and card games market Asmodee are dwarfed by Hasbro who own Wizards of the Coast amongst other brands.  All that money comes from the vast number of people who buy their stuff.  And lets not even start with comparisons to the console and computer games companies.
We are always going to be a small hobby in financial terms.  That means fewer players and that means more angst on the part of those of us who are here, wondering where some new players are coming from to keep funding our games companies and keep the spice flowing.  The Spice Must Flow!

@pagan8th  Have a great time at UKGE.  Your formula looks way better than mine would if I were there.  I usually want to make back in savings and discounts the money I spent getting there.  That’s easy enough at my local show with a £5 entry and a great bring and buy.  It was rather a challenge at Salute if I had to factor in the nearly £200 on entry, train fares and food for the day.  Never mind how much I’ve spent.  Look at how much I’ve saved!

@zoidpinhead it helps that I don’t live far from Birmingham. My train ticket costs £38 and admission £20. It would be cheaper for me to go there every day by train than to stop in a hotel, but I’ve only ever gone for the day. And stopping in a hotel adds another problem… hotel would want me out of the room early to get it ready for the next customer and that means going around the expo with everything I bought and my luggage because I don’t have a car.

I have been to the UK Games Expo bring an buy before, but the queue is so long that I just can’t be arsed to stand there for an hour or more to see what is available.