The War that 'no-one' wargames..will that change?

[Freddy]

I am collecting and playing it in 1/35, have a thread here somewhere. And I also know some folks who play it in 28mm. The problem is that most wargamers concentrate on the western front where you can play trench raids max. On the Eastern and Balkans front there were large scale successful offensives. There were no Americans or British involved though.

WW1 will never be nearly as popular as ww2, Romans and Napoleonics, I agree on that. But that we can say about a lots of wars.

[carlos marighela]

I am collecting and playing it in 1/35, have a thread here somewhere. And I also know some folks who play it in 28mm. The problem is that most wargamers concentrate on the western front where you can play trench raids max. On the Eastern and Balkans front there were large scale successful offensives. There were no Americans or British involved though.

WW1 will never be nearly as popular as ww2, Romans and Napoleonics, I agree on that. But that we can say about a lots of wars.

Hardly much US involvment anywhere. Always late to the party. 

Balkans? I suppose it depends on your definition thereof but there was a large Anglo-French contingent in the Salonika Campaign, later that included a sizeable Serb contribution.

[Freddy]

Hardly much US involvment anywhere. Always late to the party. 

Balkans? I suppose it depends on your definition thereof but there was a large Anglo-French contingent in the Salonika Campaign, later that included a sizeable Serb contribution.

Indeed, English soldiers also appeared on the Italian front, but their wargamers still concentrate on their trench struggles in Flanders and maybe sometimes Gallipoli.

[traveller]

WW1 - I am all over it! The period of 1914-1920s has so much scope. I am currently building trenches like crazy Finally decided to go for the Blood and Valor ruleset

[Inkpaduta]

1. No Tanks like ones in WW2 and later.

2. Many think WW1 is just the Western Front and they don't want to do trench warfare.

3. Less American interest as US does come late to the show.

[SJWi]

Its a shame, but whilst I agree with Traveller I think Inkpaduta sume up most people's opinion.  I have 10mm WW1 Palestine, 28mm WW1 East Africa plus a load of 28mm Western Front Germans. I recall when Warhammer Historical brought out their "The Great War" and their was an explosion figures from "Great War Miniatures", Redoubt and Gripping Beast. Games were common on the show circuit but sadly no more. I was at the Partizan show last week and the only WW1 game was a "Wings of War" demo.  I guess it must also be a commercial turn-off for manufacturers. Hard to see a business case in producing new WW1 stuff.     

[carlos marighela]

Wargames Atlantic obviously thought otherwise, having produced Germans, French, Russians and British infantry boxes for the period, with allegedly more to come.

It's true there are no Tiger tanks but for those with more than a passing interest the tanks that appeared are genuinely interesting beasts and just the sort of thing the average spotty teen Warhammer fan might recognise and appreciate.

I would have thought that a bit of Gary Cooper in Sergeant York would be the requisite antidote to apathy from the tin tanks.

[SJWi]

Carlos, you are quite correct about Wargames Atlantic.  But I must admit I am always amazed at choice of some of their releases. That said I'm not complaining! 

[Will Bailie]

I think your concerns about new product are misplaced.  There's plenty of choice available already in established lines for an historical era we all seem to agree will never be as popular as WWII or Napoleonics, and there are companies producing new toys all the time.  In addition to Wargames Atlantic, Empress Miniatures is releasing new WWI miniatures, and there are multiple companies producing files to print 3D figures.  You can find a few of them in this article that Goonhammer published last summer:  https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-historicals-the-great-war-a-collectors-guide-to-28mm/

[George1863]

WW1 will have its day, it is surely coming. ACW was given a big push when I was a nipper by the centennial. Airfix responded first. The 1914-18 centennial has passed without a similar revival of interest in western Europe, I think largely bc historians tell us that the enormous slaughter achieved next to nothing. Apply that logic to most wars in the 18th Century and none of us would collect/game at all. It needs a 'go to' range, which will probably be smaller than 28mm, and far greater awareness that the entire thing was not dominated by trench, off-table howitzer and machine-gun. It is true that even so, artillery had become king by 1914: maybe it is just not so much fun to game an era where the liklihood of achieving tactical breakthrough is so slight, assuming rules aren't ridiculous.

I have a little side-project going in the Mexican Revolution which offers something like the balance of 3 arms (obv, infantry, cavalry, artillery). I started this bc of many of the reasons discussed above. I think if I was starting again, I would recruit for the first weeks of the invasion of Belgium, since you are really looking at a war of manoeuvre much like the initial advances of 1870. Maybe one day.   

[fred]

Trench raids and fights feel very appropriate for 28mm - you could actually play at something approaching true ground scale to figure scale with lots of modelling opportunities. Recently there have been several sets of rules the explore the more weird war approaches to this type of fighting.

For bigger battles, smaller scale figures make much more sense to me.

But for something to be the 'big thing' it seems wargamers need a company to get behind it to make a lot of noise in the media, whether that is GW, Warlord or Battlefront. There does seem to be a lot of jumping on the bandwagon with gamers - which I accept is magnified by what is posted online.

Personally I like 10mm

[Gribb]

WW1 will have its day, it is surely coming. ACW was given a big push when I was a nipper by the centennial. Airfix responded first. The 1914-18 centennial has passed without a similar revival of interest in western Europe, I think largely bc historians tell us that the enormous slaughter achieved next to nothing. Apply that logic to most wars in the 18th Century and none of us would collect/game at all. It needs a 'go to' range, which will probably be smaller than 28mm, and far greater awareness that the entire thing was not dominated by trench, off-table howitzer and machine-gun. It is true that even so, artillery had become king by 1914: maybe it is just not so much fun to game an era where the liklihood of achieving tactical breakthrough is so slight, assuming rules aren't ridiculous.

I have a little side-project going in the Mexican Revolution which offers something like the balance of 3 arms (obv, infantry, cavalry, artillery). I started this bc of many of the reasons discussed above. I think if I was starting again, I would recruit for the first weeks of the invasion of Belgium, since you are really looking at a war of manoeuvre much like the initial advances of 1870. Maybe one day.   

Some really good points.

The early battles were massive engagements, and even the smaller scales would struggle to depict them. 28mm will always be for small skirmishes and painting. Most of us I believe, besides those lucky enough to live in areas with active clubs, are as much in it for the latter.

[carlos marighela]

We live in an age where notable historical events get treated to book titles and Youtube videos, with 'X The Forgotten Battle'. It's not just a cynical marketing ploy, it's a reflection of the level of historical ignorance out there. I keenly look forward to Waterloo, The Forgotten Battle or World War 2, The Forgotten War.

Gaming it all whether it's the opening battles of 1914, Palestine or trench warfare on the Western Front all comes down to intelligent scenario design. Few people would argue against gaming Normandy or Kursk or Austerlitz for that matter, simply because the scale of the battles were so large. People will either choose larger scales and more abstract combat mechanics or focus on smaller scale elements of a battle or campaign. The same applies to the Great War. People forget that in even the largest engagements, there are sections and platoons at the point of the spear. There were notable breakthroughs in trench warfare, especially in 1918.

As for bigger games, we used to game using Over the Top. Each stand represented a platoon sized element and typically we used two 15mm figures per stand, or roughly 30 odd figures to a battalion. I've played the same system using individually based 28mm figures and if you wanted to adjust ground scales a bit there's no reason you couldn't do so using 2 X 28mm figures per stand. Gamers routinely do this with other eras.

[Funkmachine7]

It's not a 28mm war.
Not in the west, where the trench lines ran from coast to coast.

Sure you can put togeather some rules for raids but there small scale events that under sell the scale of events.

Trying to do anything bigger in 28mm runs in to the, well a shell lands an..., machinegun fire from off the board..., machineguns on the board on overwatch..., get thru all 6 layers of barbed wire..., oh look gas roll for every model to save..., you stood on a mine... ect.

Dull and repetitive, but the war was just like that in the west.

In the smaller scales your zoomed out enough, a 6mm game of trench warfare might be far more fun, at lest then you have enough scale to deal with the troop waves an the barages.

Move the setting away from the as seen on TV 1914-1918 spent in a trench
(Really you can get the idea that poor tommy atkins signed up at 14 an spent the whole war in one trench, there in the trench 24/7 hours 365 days a year from 1914 untill 1918 an it rains all the time as well.)

Set the game in the middle east an have dareing raids on turkish railway lines.
Or easten europe an the mobile war on the step.
Or at a Sea an have one huge battle an a few smaller ones...
Maybe the air, knights of the sky with the The Flying Circus, fighting man an machine with a brave handfull.

[Will Bailie]

I respectfully disagree. And also agree!

As you say, there's plenty of intriguing small scale action to be had with Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, and chasing around after Von Lettow-Vorbeck in East Africa, or joining von Richthofen's Flying Circus.  But there's lots of interesting small scale action on the Western Front.  Too Fat Lardies 'Steel Hearts and Iron Troops' traces the development of small unit tactics among British, French and German armies and provides a bunch of scenarios based on field training manuals and historical battles: https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/stout-hearts-iron-troopers/  Clarkie and his mates show the development of tactics and demonstrate how decision making was passed down to the platoon level by the later part of the war.

Skirmish Campaigns has a scenario book called Rommel's Route to Verdun based on Erwin Rommel's book Infantry Attacks, all based on platoon-level action. https://skirmishcampaigns.com/books/

And of course you are correct that you can game at smaller scales, at sea and in the air, and in Europe or Asia or Africa.  It's really a case of to each their own.