War games, s'more games.
Now I usually discuss RPG's on here (ok this is only the fourth or fifth one i've done but... oh shut-up!) but today we are going to branch off and take a gander at a different sort of geek: The Table Top Wargamer. You see the world of geekdom is a large one, there are countries and empires of geekhood that we haven't even scratched the surface of: Collectable card games, and miniature games, video games, comic books, star trek, star wars and other fanboy stuff, and today's topic TABLETOP WARGAMES.
Table top war games were, for a very long time either realistic (when being played in the renasaince) or historical (more recent).
These games, for all of you who are not familiar with them, are replete with rules to represent battle. These rules are typically aided by little minatures, metalic or wood, that represent individuals, units or entire divisions of armies.
Yes we are such a violent race of people that even when we aren't fighting a war, we invent ways to represent one. But that is another story, not suitable for Geekdom Saturdays.
War games have been around since the dawn of time.
But they didn't get really cool until the early seventies. (There are hobbyists out there who might disagree but that's just my opinion.)
There are essentially three types of wargames.: Historical, Modern Day, and Fantastic (included scifi).
Historical wargames are, as the name implies, historical. These games usually reenact battles from different ages of history: roman, the crusades, napolean, and of course world war one and two.
Probably the most popular version of these games would be axis and allies. Granted, the minis aren't spectacular, but the rules are surprisely succinct compared to other historical wargames out there. (Some would dispute the claim that Axis and Allies is a tabletop wargame and is instead a straight boardgame, but I would dispute this by showing that your typical boardgame doesn't usually have a small pamplet or book for rules, and one doesn't need a board to play it, just defined areas for the different regions.)
Most historical games are played by fanatical hobbyists (most wargames are).
These folks take the time to paint the minatures and create (or recreate) terrain for the battles.
Yes this is a very invovled hobby, and surprisingly most of the guys that are involved in it are married and have some social life beyond the hobby.
Modern day wargamers are just that, from vietnam to present day iraq, these guys too, recreate battles or new ones. The figures are bedecked in modern military uniforms and gear. There is available from many different internet companies modern minitures, from single figs to vehicles. Do a little digging you can find several companies offering everything from Viet-Cong, U.S. 1st Infantry circa 2000, to Al Qaeda. Of course there is a dumbed down, popular version of a modern day war game that's been around for about fourty years: Risk. (I might be stretching it but I do consider Risk to be another popular version of a tabletop wargame).
Finally fantasy and science fiction wargames. These were inspired, initially by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and the concept was invented in the late sixties and developed into three things: fantasy tabletop wargames, science fiction wargames, and finally rpg's.
(You should have known it was coming back to rpg's silly).
There were many permutations of the fantasy and sci-fi tabletop wargames, but the most popular, at least for the time being, is Warhammer, and Warhammer 40K.
There is a current and new trend amoungst these versions of the wargame known as the collectable mini games. These are still tabletop wargames, but instead of little pakages of little disassembled figures and models made out of plastic or metal, theye come in boxes and are random. The complexity of the game is still there, but the information is easier to access. The leader in these games is Wizkids games, though Wizards of the Coast and Saber Tooth Games have their own lines of collectable mini games (I will go into this in detail another time).
There are races and factions to be had in all sci-fi and fantasy wargames, just like in the reallity based games, though the reality ones don't usually have green men or metalic undead type things.
RPG's are originally an off shoot of these games. Gary Gygax and David Arnson are the two men responsible for the infection of geekdom to the wider populous. David Arneson developed a scenario for his historical wargaming group called Blackmoor. The game was developed as a one shot for the players in which they all controlled a single unit instead of an army or platoon. This concept was run with by Gygax and developed first into a rules supplement called "Chainmail". Shortly there after Dungeons and Dragons was developed, as well as the idea of the dungeon crawl.*
So, for those of you who are interested here are a few links for you.
www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html
www.gamesinabox.com
http://www.games-workshop.com/
http://www.reapermini.com/
*The dungeon crawl is a rpg convention in which a party of adventurers explore a dungeon collecting treasure and killing off monsters. For those of you who didn't know.
posted by F.G. Shaw @ 12:05 AM
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