Reply To: What is Wargaming?

[Sane Max]

I am firmly in the ‘an excuse to waste my time painting and collecting the things.’ camp. I wargame ‘cos I like Toy Soldiers. There can be no other resonable claim from me, as I am quite capable of using what is, when all is said and done, the same basic set of rules for ‘Assyrians v Israelites’ as I am for ‘NotTyrannids V Martians’

The whole ‘but it’s not proper like a kriegsspiel’ argument leaves me cold. If anything, kriegsspiel is the one with the wrong name. It wasn’t a game. It was an attempt to simulate real war as an exercise, and that is not, not what any wargamer I have ever, ever met is doing, however hard they try to claim otherwise.

If Moltke and Schlieffen had had a few beers during the game I might cut them some slack. Given that they took what they learned from their beard-stroking, medal caressing KriegPraxis and then tried to do the bloody impossible with the German Army, I am not giving the concept much credit. In all honesty Schlieffen went ‘Hmmm the silly game suggests it’s not possible to get this many soldiers using these roads to their destination in the time I need them to – sod it, I will just hope I roll a ‘6’.