Cult Of Games XLBS: Stop Using Fantasy As A Gateway: How To Recruit New Historical Wargamers!
May 24, 2026 by avernos
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Happy Sunday CoGs, OTTers and of course Backstagers!
Great topic guys. Interesting points raised. I’ll come at this from a non-historical, lifelong Sci-fi and fantasy gamer with a deep interest in history.
For me it’s a mindset and preference issue. I think the creative appeal is fundamentally different between historicals and fantasy/sci-fi gaming. In fantasy and sci-fi, creativity is often driven by invention and personal expression. You can decide your faction colours because they look cool, make your own lore, kitbash equipment, or convert models purely because you like the aesthetic or idea.
In historicals, the creativity seems more rooted in interpretation, research, and reconstruction. The creative satisfaction, from what I’ve gleaned (admittedly as something of an outsider so maybe I’m off) comes from understanding a period deeply enough to recreate it convincingly, or from exploring the details and nuances within real historical constraints. It feels less driven by this would be cool and more by this represents the reality of the period.
Neither approach is better or worse, but they scratch very different itches. That difference in mindset is probably a bigger barrier to entry than rules complexity or model availability.
So when asking “how do we recruit younger players into historicals?”, I don’t think it’s simply a marketing problem or a case of introducing the right game system. I think the genres appeal to people for fundamentally different reasons, and unless someone naturally enjoys the research and reconstruction side of the hobby, it may never appeal in the same way fantasy and sci-fi gaming does.
Most of this is when considering pure historicals, obviously you get a different vibe from alternative history and weird history offshoots that somewhat close that gap.
You’re thinking of the chimera, Gerry.
The Lardies said they got a lot of interest from the public when they ran their Chain of Command games in the museum in Arnhem. Of course, they had made terrain that was a replica of what was outside that building in 1944.
Above is a vood idea, Museums are quite open to having games on for events. We did one in Lichfield years ago for d-day.
Happy Sunday…….
Hello Sunday
00:00 Hunt the team!
04:30 Machine gun wizard!
08:00 Frog!
15:10 Book of feces?
29:00 Why would you even want to convince/convert people? If someone isn’t interested in the slightest from within themselves I’d say don’t bother.
43:00 Snag more normies via mace and whip
1:08:00 Fez on stage!
Now: bedtime!
Interesting discussion about the historical games. I have done loads of events over the years at museums and also putting games on in MK shopping centre as part of the Campaign we had loads of interest. Especially from the younger people.
Given that recently Barons war and pillage have taken off. I think that the Historical games are becoming more Popular.
As to clubs our club has a lot of Historical players, but we also enjoy playing Sci-fi and fantasy. Don’t pigeon hole and embrace the whole as a club.
An interesting topic.
I spend all my day job doing “histocial” so for my hobby is removing myself from that.
Saying that Ive been tempted by Pikemans Lament or jumping back to Flames of War (which a girlfriend convinced me to start when it first came out)
Thanks for the button! I’m finishing up the rest of the mooks as we speak — hopefully I’ll get the game to the table next weekend. I’ll do a quick battle report/review after I get a chance to play.
Good pick for indie of the week . I’ve got that Black Crab Chimera parade puppet, fantastic model for A War Transformed as you pointed out in the segment.
On the topic I don’t think there is a particular issue with the “greying” of the Historical community. I think wargamers are generally an eclectic lot and many will play all sorts of things through their hobby life. I play a pretty even mix of historical, fantasy and sci-fi. The only issue I see is from some exclusively within a single community who don’t recognise (or want to recognise) the value of what other communities in the hobby are doing. I think it is great that shows are a better reflection of the experience most get at their club. There you will see all sorts of stuff and different age groups play different things but everyone respects the effort and enthusiasm others put in.
Great GBs. Well done to the winners. I particularly enjoyed following along with the Dwarf Army build. I’m sorry I missed out on the mystery boxes.
Thanks for the Golden Button!
I’ve must add that not all of the terrain on the boards was made by me : it’s a club effort.
Re. Historical games.
I’m historical curious (dark ages and medieval) but I find myself at a club where GW rules. I’d have to summon up the courage to go to a different club to explore historical games, which I’m not sure I’ll ever do.
I personally have a different take on this, it’s more to do with the availability of plastic 28mm figures than if the game fits into a fantasy or historical genre. In terms or overall gameplay I see no difference between games like Saga/Pillage and Kill Team/Age of Sigmar. They are basically skirmish games with an RPG element where the limitation of the average gaming table vs the scale of the figures dictates the overall gameplay, A lot of “historical” games aren’t really historical where when players point out the inaccuracies in the game (for example Flames of War/Team Yankee’s “wall of tanks”) then the rebuttal is always going to be that things are that way because the game mechanics dictate things go that way (when previously nearly all armour heavy WWII/WWIII was in 6mm). Basically we’ve “enbigguned” our games to a point where they are almost unplayable.
It’s been interesting to see manufactures lately go back to all things smaller in scale (Warlord with their 12.5mm, Mantic with their 10mm and Wayland games going with 10mm for their Armoured Clash). I think the difference (and what’s missing) is easily available (in stores) rank and flank games (Probably Mantic are the only ones here with Kings of War). For me “historical” games are refighting historical battles using the orbats of the day, Bolt Action and Flames or War aren’t really “historical”, rather they are a generic game, (don’t forget Bolt Action was originally a port of 40K to something WWIIish) with an “historical” skin to things. Sure you CAN do refights at Skirmish level (look for example at the recent Butcher and Bolt), but the type of action is a bit restricted (I would say NO Tank belongs on a WW2 Skirmish table and certainly not an 88mm) if you want to try and keep things more historical.
But bringing players into a wargaming genre? that’s all about exposure and availability of figures. I think when I started the hobby (back in the early 80s) there weren’t that many fantasy/sci fi figures around. Indeed most of the time gamers were using historical ancient and dark age miniatures to proxy things in fantasy games (at least for the humans). Now it’s kind of reversed with the availability of historical minis being hard to obtain. But I feel for “historicals” to come back, we need to reverse the scale of minis (why hardly anyone does 15mm these days in the uk?), AND a reversal in wargaming rules from being “simple to play” to rules that attempt to cover all aspects of the period we are trying to recreate. The fact we are all walking around with computers in our pockets seems lost to gamers (I played some FANTASTIC computer moderated historical rules back in the 90s that allowed mechanics that you can’t get in pen and paper (or PDF) rulesets. The main one being the players don’t know the exact rules, so all they can do is try to use the historical tactics of the day and hope for the best, an anathema to competitive players I know 😀