maddogdrivethru.net

Thought this might be of interest:

Alan Emrich;
The Fall and Rise of Wargaming;
FIRE&MOVEMENT; Number 67;
August 1990;
P 57

http://www.wargameacademy.org/ARTICLES/ ... m67p27.pdf

Not sure how it is elsewhere, but over here, Games Workshop is a truly top notch gateway drug for would-be wargamers.

I'm actually in a wargame club, and while I think I'm actually fairly young compared to the average 45+ year old gamer there - plenty of retired majors and the like to my surprise! - there are also a half dozen or so teenagers and younger people, all of whom primarily play Games Workshop stuff.

And they play the other wargames too, depending on who is running what.

Stuff like Bolt Action features a lot in the local games shop too, and that's mostly a university student thing.

So I'm not sure I would paint the hobby in such a dire light as all that.

Tabletop minis games are certainly an attraction for the younger generations. I imagine some of them get burned out on constant video gaming, as I've regularly done in recent years. Looking around for a related, but different, hobby to fill the burnout holes.

There has not only been a resurgence in boardgaming in general, but also a boost in tabletop wargaming companies' sales. Yes, even ye olde map & counter wargames.

For example, GMT has been swamped with orders and new game pre-orders (P500) for years. They have new and ready-to-go game designs, with over 500 pre-orders apiece, sitting on wait lists for well over a year before going to the printer and getting distribution. They've been having a hell of a time getting their warehouse & distribution capabilities upgraded to accommodate the increasing demand, so the production is getting delayed. Because they can't keep up in the shipping end. After new titles are finally done & available, they often sell out after a handful of months, another P500 reprint pre-order goes back up, and the wait starts anew for those who missed the print run.

It's not uncommon for designer board & war games to require multiple print runs just to keep them stocked in stores nowadays. When I came back to the hobby a few years ago, after sliding away from it back in the 90s, I was surprised at how many titles were quickly going out of print. It is still happening, but some of the manufacturers have wizened up and increased their print runs & frequency to meet demand. Not all, mind you, so something that just came out may be out of stock a couple months later.

All this yammering was to point out that tabletop gaming has had a recent renaissance. Which includes wargaming to a lesser extent. It jumped so quickly that the industry is still adapting to the spikes in demand. Co-operative/Solitaire tabletop games are huge right now.

I guess people are feeling the urge to 'unplug' and stop staring at their tvs and monitors more often lately.

Including you Nef.............your killing me

I've turned on my gaming computer at least 8 times in the past two weeks, thinking I may fire up a PC game of some sort. It didn't take. Didn't start a single game of any kind before shutting it off later in the evening. Long gaming apathy spell.

Try jousting. The real variety.

It's also easy as hell to get into. The armor costs 50k$, you need to own a horse and be proficient riding it. Don't forget a set of lances either and yes, it's good to have a stables and a track to practice wielding the lance since it's really hard to wield it since you literally can't see shit wearing the tournament armor as it's designed to protect you, not to allow great field of vision.