What is Wargaming?

The Theory

Wargaming is playing with toy soldiers! It is a tactical game. It involves devising a plan to beat an opponent and then using the best tactics to execute the plan but at the same time, your opponent is trying to do the same to you!

The pieces (in this case toy soldiers) have different abilities, much as they would if they were chess pieces. They move at different speeds, have different combat abilities, have different strengths and weaknesses. The objective is to manoeuvre in such a way that you can use your toys soldiers' strengths against your opponent's toy soldiers' weaknesses. Of course, at the same time, your opponent is trying to do the same to you!

Periods and Rules

Wargaming covers a huge variety of what gamers call ‘periods’.  The three most popular toy soldier sets of rules at the moment are a Flame of War (a World War II historical game produced by Battlefront), Warhammer 40K (a science fiction game produced by Games Workshop) and Warhammer Fantasy Battle (a fantasy game produced by Games Workshop).  In addition, there are rules to cater for interests in any period of history, from the dawn of civilisation to the present day. Each set of historical rules covers a particular period. For example, the most popular rules for the ancient and medieval periods are Wargames Research Group’s DBM rules, for the Renaissance period there is DBR and for Napoleonic there are a variety of rules.

Toy Soldiers and Model terrain

The toy soldiers themselves come in three main sizes, or scales. These are, in order of popularity and size, 25mm, 15mm and 6mm. The scale refers to the approximate size of a figure.

The game is played on a table top, usually 6' x 4', but at times larger. Terrain is put on the table. Woods, roads, towns, hills, rivers etc affect the abilities of the toy soldiers. Depending on what the terrain is, it might slow down movement, increase the ability to defend, reduce the ability to attack etc. And building the terrain is part of the fun of wargaming.

Dice

And the dice? What are they used for? The answer is that it depends! It varies according to what rules you are using. However, in all rules, dice are used to add an element of uncertainty-to force you to plan for things not going exactly as you expected. Typically, the rules give what is in effect an average result. The dice are used to modify that expected result-things will often go a little (occasionally a lot!) better or worse than you planned. Depending on the rules, dice are used to modify some, or all, of how much you can do in a turn, how far toy soldiers can move and combat results.

Have Fun

But why play with toy soldiers? At the end of the day, it is about having fun. The fun comes in all sorts of different ways. There is reading magazines and books, making models and painting, planning tactics, playing the game, developing into a more 'grown-up' activity something that you enjoyed as a kid and, probably most importantly, spending time with people who share a common interest.

Want to Know More?

Contact someone in our club, come to one of our meetings, visit a Convention, read some articles or find out about other Clubs.