Cult Of Games XLBS: What Is The Future Of Historical Wargaming?
October 11, 2026 by crew
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Happy Sunday Backstagers, OTTers and shoulder wiggle inducing CoGs!
@avernos Furry ferocity with a heroic halfling is great to see finally. Stuff sitting around should always find a use.
@johnlyons Your infatuation with mecha mommies is pure heresy for both 40k and the new Gundam game.
@brennon We always had hope for you not to be a degen from upcountry. What sad times we live in.
The divide of factual history from Hollywood is the exposure. The sense of possibly winning a battle is probably what draws a good number of players to play. Its a bit grim to walk solemnly into suicide solely for the ritual of reenactment. Granted, as I agree with the reenactment and acting crowd, somebody needs to play the losers of the battle. I just think that, like the Southpark Civil War battle, the sidestep you pointed out is a little bit more engaging and open for interaction with an audience that looks for agency.
@ horati0nosebl0wer
South Park is, and has always been South AMERICA.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
🤪
Historic wargaming. I get the impression that this conversation implies that Conan and Battletech , though great games are not historical……my heart is broken.
Seriously though. Admitedly not been dragged into true historical wargaming, too lazy to paint armies that large. But I love playing Flames of War and historical scenarios of Joan or Arc. I’ve often felt that these events really felt like historical wargaming because those present were interested in the subject and more history was shared and learnt inbetween rounds than actually played.
Once everyone present is expert, true historical gaming can only be taken so far as any rule system will have to cut corners on scale or reality so it will allways distil back to entertaining what if’s. The real question is what ingedients do you throw into your what if. Does a particular general magicaly get diarrhea just before the big battle and and roll his dice really badly or do your armies get handed alien tech to develop stompy robots.
For me historical on the table top is always contextual.
It may or may not happen actually means it’ll happen but at the same rate as Lloyd building Rome does…..
I’ve been looking for a good set of modern combat rules to play games in 20 and 28mm.
One of my concerns regarding historical is that it’s aging out, and I’m not talking about the player base but the manufacturers. Many historical miniature companies are small cottage industries run by gamers who coming close to retirement. Now some ranges out there will be picked up but some are going to go simply because there aren’t enough people/companies to pick up all of them.
Bolt Action is essentially Hollywood WW2 on the tabletop.
I couldn’t care about the miniatures, at the end of the day a US ranger is the same regardless of the company that manufactured it. But it’s the games I’m more concerned with, are people incapable of actually playing a realistic game anymore, do we really have to image our 25 mins are “part of a larger battle”?
Thats better clarification to your subject this weekend. The question might be “Is there a drive of historical interest for simulation with dice rolling on top or a game where you roll dice with historical window dressing?”.
It boils down to “edutainment”. See the big screen entertainment production, fall into “I’d like to know more” and then work on the curiosity from interest.
I always find wargaming in a historical setting much more enjoyable than wargaming a historixal battle. Historical settings allow me to be a general. I know what my army does and get to decide how to use it. Simlarly, most miniature wargames are tactical, not strategic games. Campaigns can link tactical engagements, but we all know they often ‘fail’ to go the distance,
That said, Tactical/Historical battles often tie my hands and lock me into a situation where I’m expected to replay history. My issue with that is that I often know what happened and would make the same errors or be able to re-enact the ‘surprise’ manouver unless my opponent plays along. A great example is Canne. If I’m the Romans and don’t do what Hannibal planned, what happens? The battle is almost always a massacre of the Hannibal’s army (the Romans has numbers, equipment, training etc, which is why the Carthaginian victory is so amazing). The same for the Battle of Kursk if I’m the Germans. If I’m playing a strategic game starting at the battle of Kursk, I don’t fight Kursk, because unlike Hitler, I’m not an idiot. If I was forced to fight it, my goals would probably be to do as much damage to the soviets for the lightest losses rather than attacking a well defended, numerically superior opponent.
Historical settings – Yes! Historical battles – No!
TOLLEN SONNTAG ALLEN!
00:00 Kangs of Waaaaagh. Where video?!
01:30 zoidpinhead making us all look very very lazy and bad XD
02:00 Oh noooooooooooooes!
04:30 censorship on the XLBS? Boooooh
08:30 All the bells and whistles
11:11 none will do it!
12:35 @amachan and I also got involved and I think @grayprimer also?
13:21 DA FUQ?! XD
16:13 almost missed the cue there
27:30 Ballbusters!
28:45 some very mental entries
29:00 Only I did the banana! XD
30:00 Doctor Jones! Little Indie!
47:00 BEN! You naughty naughty boy! I almost spilled my coffee!
1:09:00 I just don’t get the appeal of historical gaming. Maybe it’s just because “it’s all fixed and done”. And too many people shouting that you used the wrong green on the uniform, you have one button to many etc pp. If it’s made up you can’t tell me it’s wrong.
1:19:00 Racer go wuuuuuuuuuuuuush
What was this weeks question again?
Interesting discussion on historicals – well done to John for a well prepared conversation!
I’ll be interested in following the next chapter. I have yet to play an actual historical game. There are settings I am drawn to, but in the same way as history is ‘fixed’ because it actually happened, the outcome also actually happened. So I can’t see a reason for me (personal view) to reenact it. Gaming in the historical setting, but in a fictitious battle, seems much more appealing. The outcome is open, and me and my opponent are the fictitious generals seeing how we would approach a battle with the resources and constraints of that period. That feels more like a ‘game’ to me. I’ll be tuned in next week!
Personally initially I was drawn to an era largely by a TV show or film I saw as a kid, or by the next shiny, but now I’m more attracted by the rules I can play, so Lion Rampant, and pretty much the Rampant family of games.
Personal national history such as WOTR, ECW, etc has a big influence on what I’m drawn to, That being said ACW was piqued by Epic Battles, as has been AWI.
I also think that scale and game type are a big factor in the historical representation now, also influenced by what we see on film and TV the Epic sized films are gone, been 20+ years since films like Kingdom of Haven, Troy, Alexander, Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, Fury. There’s a reason that Zulu a film older than I am has stood the test of time, along with Waterloo, they literally don’t make them like that anymore. Its like the last real Epic battle in film I can think off is Battle of Scariff and thats not exactly historical, same with Avengers Assemble.
So Band of Brothers, platoon sized series with a few tanks, heck the Bolt Action starter was called Band of Brothers, The Last Kingdom with Warbands and we have Pillage, Ravenfeast, Midgard. the larger figures have got, the games get smaller, less figures and playable in 2×2 space.
I think also the gaming size folks have, Legion to fit on a 5×3 the kitchen table, the old 6×4 or bigger billiards tables are a different time.
So unless smaller scale = bigger games, I think we should expect to continue to see the Heroic 28mm or larger played on a coffee table type rules.
I don’t mind that as there options in the gaps, epic gaming is possible with 4×4 rules from League of Augsburg, Peter Pig and Grid based wargaming, Ton the Strongest, for King and Parliament, even hex and counter can still be a thing with miniatures.