Journey v. Destination: Commentary

Curious to see the Paradox of Modern Wargaming post return to the Top 10 posts widget after having fallen off the leaderboard, I returned to the post for a refresher.

As a corollary to the tortoise and hare fable, I argue that modern miniature wargaming is caught in a paradox.  That is, wargamers invest huge amounts of time in painting, research, and terrain building, yet increasingly favor fast-play rules and shorter games that can play to conclusion in an hour or two.  The contrast between the long “journey” of preparation with the brief “destination” of modern game duration prompts a question.  That is, does an emphasis on speed and efficiency at the gaming table undermine the depth, narrative, and sense of accomplishment that typically justified all that effort?  Of course, this is a simplification, and both have a place in the hobby.

With more than two score of readers weighing in on the topic, I try to distill this collective wisdom, experience, and insight into a handful of common themes from the many, generous responses.  Taking up a tally sheet, I scored the responses.  A synopsis follows: 

Painting v. Gaming

I’ve noticed a bifurcation in how wargamers approach the hobby. Some clearly see painting as a means to an end. These gamers paint so they can play. They describe themselves as warGAMERS, not painters. Others admit that painting figures and building terrain are satisfying in their own right.  Even if an army never hits the table, there is still get plenty of joy from this facet of the hobby.  I reckon blogging feeds into that too.  Being able to share progress, swap tips, and show off completed projects gives painting its own reward separate from gaming.

Game Length and Complexity
The comments about game length are interesting.  Many of us remember those day‑long (or even multi‑day) games of the old days.  I have had many.  Now, most gamers seem to prefer games that wrap up in two to four hours.  Long enough to tell a story but not so long that they feel like slogging through mud. The sweet spot seems to be rules that flow naturally and don’t bury players under numerous tables and exhausting detail.  A few people pointed out how older “proper” rule sets rarely reached a satisfying finish, while modern abstract systems often feel just as plausible and more fun.  I tend to agree.

Skirmish, Scale, and “Realism”
The boom in skirmish and “big skirmish” games has been fascinating to watch develop.  These results are backed by results from the Great Wargaming Survey.  Some historical periods (Western gunfights, pulp, sci‑fi, modern small‑unit actions) fit this format perfectly. Others, like pike‑and‑shot, maybe not so much. On this topic, there is debate. Personally, I like the idea that “realism” doesn’t have to mean a simulation.  I do enjoy simulations, though.  If the outcomes are believable and the game captures the right flavor of a period, that’s good enough for me.

Time, Focus, and the Modern Hobby
The whole “declining attention span” theory gets thrown around a lot, but some (like Stew, Norm, and JWH) don’t buy it.  As several commenters pointed out, it’s more about life and time than attention.  Most of us, having gamed for decades, simply don’t have the same long afternoons we once did.  Well, until retirement, that is!  Shorter games fit better with real life.  I suspect those players craving detailed simulations may now find that level of detail in computer wargames.  On the tabletop, people seem more interested in enjoying each other’s company and finishing games with a sense of closure.

Variety, Choice, and the Future

If the hobby suffers from anything these days, it’s too much choice.  Every month brings new rules, new scales, and new shiny projects to distract us.  Yet, no one seems particularly worried about the future.  A few long‑time gamers said it flat‑out.  If we are enjoying ourselves now, that is what matters.  Whether historical miniature wargaming thrives beyond our generation isn’t the main concern.  Playing with the right people and finding pleasure and satisfaction in the process, whatever form that takes, is key.

Perhaps there is no paradox in this context at all but a nuanced and individual approach to wargaming.

Thanks to all for contributing your insights to my little study.

Farming with Matt

photo courtesy wargamesinthedungeon

Picking up the long-running AWI campaign finds the campaign in 1777 and at the Battle of Freeman's Farm.  Long-running campaign, indeed!  Looking back into the archives, I discover that Matt and I have been fighting our way through the AWI since 2021!  Incredible, and we are only up to 1777!

Wednesday's action saw the combatants meeting on the fields of Freeman's Farm.  As always, I commanded the American Army and Matt took the helm of the British Army.  This is a large battle and Matt laid out a beautiful spread across the breadth and length of his 8'x5' table.  

The Americans had great difficulty coming up for battle and a huge traffic jam developed.  Not what you want to see when facing those menacing Redcoats!  Well, unless you are the British!

American traffic jam!
photo courtesy wargamesinthedungeon

Choosing to bring the American Army on behind Freeman's Farm, it was a mad dash to thwart the British attempt to turn the American Left.  Poor's Brigade (Gosh, how appropriately named!) made it just in time to line the fence before crashing British volleys rang out.  Taking fire from multiple directions, scores of Americans were cut down before Poor had seen enough and began to be retire.  Retire?  That suggests an orderly withdrawal.  There was no orderly retrograde.  One unit was destroyed triggering a calamity of morale checks.  Several regiments fled on the spot.  Much of Poor's Brigade was skedaddling to the rear!

Poor comes up...
photo courtesy wargamesinthedungeon

and goes back!
photo courtesy wargamesinthedungeon

How did the battle ultimately turn out for the Americans?  This is a tale best told by the victors!  One for the history books, no doubt.  Farming with Matt?  Well, many Americans were planted on this bloody field.

Great game and great fun!  Thanks, Matt, for a most enjoyable session!

See Matt's battle account at Freeman's Farm 1777.  

A Trio of Recent Games

Since hosting my last game on 17 NOV in a two-player remote game of Zallaqah (see Zallaqah Round 3), my gaming table has been dormant.  Well, the armies of Zallaqah are still positioned for battle but no renewed fighting yet.

Instead, I have had the pleasure of playing in three games in the intervening three weeks.  Two of the games were played remotely in two-player games and the third was a F2F game with five players.

To recap:

23 NOV AWI Campaign Continues

In our multi-year campaign of fighting our way through the AWI in miniature using Rebels & Patriots and Matt's superb 28mm collection, Matt presented the Battle of the Clouds as our next action.  This is an action to which I had no knowledge.  Evidently this skirmish and running battle occurred following the Battle of Brandywine.  The American goal is to get their supply train across the table and exit intact at Point A in photo below.  The British goal is to prevent such exit.  Oh, and a huge deluge is expected!

Positions at start

The Americans suffer through a series of failed activations before finally seeing some steady movement of the wagon train.  One wagon makes it off moments before British light infantry overrun the American artillery piece that deployed to protect the exit point.  Good progress continues until the rain begins to fall.  Then, wagon progress slows as the roads become clogged with mud.  Washington moves his column up to slow the British advance to buy time for the wagon train.  Casualties pile up on both sides of the ledger as musketry rings out.  Then, the heavens open up and rain falls in buckets.  With powder wet, the complexion of the battle shifts to one of hand-to-hand fighting.  Washington holds off the Redcoats until the final wagon exits the table.  A Rebel victory...or was it?  Matt could have attacked the final wagon before it left the table to secure victory.  Instead, he focused his energy on attacking Washington.  He wanted the glory of taking Washington dead or alive!  I suspect he went easy on me.  See Matt's battle account at Battle of the Clouds.    

Washington and his boys get off to a slow start...

but in the end, make good their escape!

28 NOV Age of Sail

Next up was a nifty age of sail game with Peter and another one of his products of rules' tinkering.  Rules are entitled, Decks of Glory and are played on a hex grid with his homemade sailing ships.  Marvelous little models.

The rules were easy to pick up and all random decision points are resolved with a card deck.  Play was fast.  We got in three different scenarios in our remote gaming session.  The first scenario saw a one-on-one single ship, introductory engagement.  I came out on top in that one.  For scenario two, I commanded a single ship trying to escape a three-ship squadron.  I was caught and surrounded before exiting the board and struck my colors.  In Game #3, we fought a three-on-three squadron action.  I managed to come out on top here again.  Fun games and two out of three ain't bad!  Hope to give these a try again.  See Peter's battle account at Remote Napoleonic Naval Game.

Action is getting hot!

06 DEC Madhist Wars

Finishing off the last of the three games, Saturday saw me join five guys for a five-player battle in the Sudan using Battles for Empires II.  I was one of two British players facing off against three Madhist players.  Terry umpired.  Outnumbered by more than two-to-one to begin, the brunt of the native attacks fell upon my wing.  No sooner had an enemy unit or two been scattered but more popped up to fill in the gaps.  Dead Madhists were continually recycled back into the game.  This was about a four-hour battle ending in a British victory.  A slim victory, I reckon, since my wing was almost completely destroyed in the action.

Madhists look on.

Lining the ridge, my command shifts reserves
 quickly to my exposed left flank.

The enemy approaches...

and closes in ferocious fighting.

This was Game #3 for me with Battle for Empire rules.  I now have a copy that I can read through and reference for any future action to which I may be invited.  Bloody rules.  Very bloody.

This week, a double header with Matt is on the docket as we return to AWI.  Should be fun.

Horses for Courses

The horses in this case are Christian heavy cavalry. The courses are the battlefields of Spain.

Now, few are likely surprised that a battery of Reconquista games would not spark thoughts of fielding more units for the 28mm Reconquista project.  That is too easy.  Of course it did.  As I formulated a plan of action to bring Zallaqah to the table, I pawed through The Lead Pile to see what could be dug up.  I knew I still had some leftovers from earlier excavations.  How many?  Quite a handful, I thought.  Well, 15 heavy cavalry were dug out and brought to the surface for inspection. 

A few more heavy Christian cavalry remain to bring to the surface for a later dig.  Perhaps enough for another command stand or two?

All of these cavalry are the HUGE Black Tree Design figures bought many, many years ago when BTD service was reliable and prices cheap.  Ah, for the good old days!  How many years ago?  Receipts show that my last orders placed were in 2017.  That was a long time ago.

Anyway, on to the parade of three heavy cavalry units of five figures each.  Maybe they will see action in an upcoming game?

A couple of handfuls of BTD Christian infantry were extracted from the strata so these 24 fellas might show up sometime soon. 

How Did You Become Aware of the 2025 Survey?

For Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy's Great Wargaming Survey (GWS) in 2024 and 2025, the drop-off in responses was significant.  When asked what have contributed to these results, I often hear that gamers did not see any promotion of GWS2025 and missed filling it in.  Now, there are likely other forces at play, but I was curious where gamers actually saw a GWS promotion.  To get some data on the topic, a question was added in 2025 to examine the reach of GWS promotions.

While the question allowed free text responses, a standard pick list was available too.  Now, a number of respondents opted for free text entry even when one of the standard choices was a suitable option.  To aggregate as many of the responses as possible, responses were parsed and recategorized into one of the existing standard responses.  One respondent even wrote in that "he saw it on Jon's blog!"  That person gets a Gold Star from me.  When all of the responses were recoded and tallied, the distribution of responses show that the top four media sources were:

1. Wargaming website (17.1%)
2. Facebook (15.9%)
3. YouTube (12.3%)
4. WSS (12.2%)

Almost 60% of respondents saw the survey promo in one of these top four sources.

Interesting distribution and, perhaps, a reasonable gauge on where gamers consume hobby information.  While many of these sources are somewhat foreign to me, clearly this is not the case for the larger survey population.  Given my lack of familiarity with some of these media sources, I decided to examine these media distributions by Age Group.  Could my age group offer insight and help explain why there are large, missing chunks in my media exposure?  It is not me, it’s my age.

What stands out from the graph above is that media source tends to be age driven.  It could be my age!  The younger age cohorts predominately rely on YouTube for finding survey promos.  As age increases, respondents tend to increasingly turn to Wargaming websites and WSS.  Probably no surprise here but, perhaps, something to consider for marketing.

What if these data are cross-tabulated by Primary Interest rather than by Age Group?  Will a different picture emerge? 

While not surprising that respondents having Historical (16.2%) and Mixed (12.3%) primary interests see promos in WSS, Fantasy/Sci-Fi (2.7%) barely produces a signal.  For the Fantasy/Sci-Fi group, Friends (9.1%) and Discord (15.4%) are outsized drivers compared to the Historical/Mixed groups.  Hmm.  Why do primarily non-historical gamers rely on word-of-mouth from friends more than the other two groups?

These results suggest that one must know and tap into each audience's preferred media to pinpoint the promo campaign that targets any particular audience.

Where did you see the promo?

Zallaqah: Round 3

With two, multiplayer remote games of the Zallaqah battle in the books (see Zallaqah 1086 and Zallaqah, Again), I was curious if the four-hour play time could be reduced.  I also wanted to try my hand at playing the game.  Luckily for me, Richard kindly obliged.

At game time on 17 NOV (I know, this has taken quite a while to write up!), I offered Richard first pick of which army to command.  Richard chose to take on the role of Alfonso VI in command of the Christian Army.  I was Yusuf ibn Tashfin, commander of the combined Muslim Army.  As a reminder, starting army dispositions are as shown in the following two photos of the battlefield. 

Christian Army

Muslim Army

Richard starts the battle with the bang!  Activating the Right Wing first, Christian light cavalry charges pell-mell up the slopes and into enemy horse archers.  Well, I though this a pell-mell attack but Richard had other ideas!  The horse archers fail to evade and are driven back through a second body of horse archers.  Continuing on, the Christian cavalry hit the second body of enemy cavalry.  They too are carried away by this sudden attack.  When these multiple attacks and pursuits end, one Muslim cavalry unit is scattered and a second clings to life at the table's edge.  What a tremendous start!  I was awestruck by the devastation this one, seemingly harmless cavalry unit made.  Yusuf's left flank seems in tatters before he can even muster a response.  Oh my.

Armies prepare for battle.

Christian light cavalry attacks...

driving the horse archers from the field!

Al-var Fanez is not finished yet!

One of the Caballeros Villanos on the right end of the Christian cavalry battle line charges forward.  The Badajoz skirmishers covering the tercio are driven away before the heavy cavalry crashes into the Muslim tercio.  The tercio's archers let loose a volley but that does not stop the hard charging horsemen.  Not having the discipline of the Almoravid infantry far back in their rear, the Badajoz spearmen are driven back in search of support.  Fanez' horsemen pull up and do not pursue. 

Christian heavy cavalry crashes into the Badajoz tercio.

Muslims fall back finding support among their own cavalry.

On the Christian left, Alfonso sends two bodies of heavy cavalry forward.  The skirmishers to their front stand little chance and are quickly scattered.  Into the Granada tercio come Alfonso's heavy cavalry.  Two heavy cavalry units against the tercio is too much.  The Granadinos collapse suffering heavy casualties as they fall back in disorder.  The Spanish do not pursue.    

Mass cavalry charge into the enemy.

The enemy is driven back with great loss.

Seeing the Taifa collapsing on the right, Yusuf orders his medium cavalry forward in an attempt to stabilize the situation.  Medium horse charges forward into the Caballeros Villanos on the left of the Christian battle line.  These horsemen are repulsed and gallop toward the rear.  Next Yusuf sends in the camelry.  They, too, suffer a similar fate and are repulsed.  What?  Seeing enemy cavalry turn tail and run, Alfonso's heavies follow up.  One Almoravid body of horse is caught in the rear and destroyed.  Others continue their flight away from battle.  The Muslim right cavalry wing disintegrates.  The battle has only begun and already the situation looks perilous for Yusuf. 

Yusuf sends in cavalry with a one, two punch.

Both punches fail to land.

Destruction of the Almoravid Right.

Sometimes, the best defense is a good offensive.  Yusuf snaps into action on the left-center.  With both flanks in jeopardy, the Sevilla tercio moves up to contest this central part of the battlefield.  In the tercio's way is a body of heavy cavalry.  Shooting arrows as the tercio advances, the cavalry is forced back under the threat of the tercio's long spears.  Now disordered and unprepared, the Christian cavalry is hit by Alfonso's medium cavalry.  Having suffered casualties in earlier efforts, these horsemen are scattered.  Wheeling to the right, Yusuf's cavalry takes up a position to threaten a second, forward Christian cavalry unit.  The camelry turns to dispatch that pesky light cavalry that caused so much mischief.  Yusuf regains some ground on this front,   

Yusuf delivers another one, two punch...

This time with success!

Caught in flank and destroyed!

With two bodies of Christian cavalry deployed possibly too far forward from the main battle line and being peppered by enemy archery, Christian heavy cavalry chose to fall back.  While the Caballeros simply fall back in disorder, the red knights turn around and retreat back between two skirmishers for cover.  Seeing an opportunity opening up to catch the knights from the rear, the men from Sevilla quicken their pace in an attempt to catch the enemy before the knights can rally.  Allah is watching over the Sevillians this day.  They muster enough courage and speed to come to grips with the red knights.  The red knights are driven from the field!  To stabilize the right, Fanez orders his cavalry forward and into Yusuf's medium cavalry.  This attempt is a complete failure, and these Christian horsemen are destroyed in the ensuing melee.  

Christian cavalry come under fire.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

Sevillians attack...

driving the red knights from the field!

Christian horsemen attack and fail!

By now, Yusuf has managed to get his elite Black Guard up into the main battle line.  Alfonso's heavy infantry are yet to reach the enemy.  Having lost three heavy cavalry units, Alfonso's army looks vulnerable, but Alfonso still has three heavy cavalry to wield in breaking the enemy line.

Alfonso wastes no time!  The black knights are sent forward into the Granada tercio.  Having already seen many of their comrades cut down in earlier cavalry attacks, the survivors are cut down where they stand.  Possibly not wanting to face a fresh enemy tercio, the black knights fail to pursue. 

Now, the white knights charge into action.  Their target, a body of massed archers, gets off a volley before contact.  The knights suffer some casualties and are disordered but plow on!  The archers fall back between two tercios with the knights hot on their heels.  Even with support from the adjoining tercio, the archers are overrun, and their supports fall back.  With their battle lust up, the white knights cutdown stragglers in pursuit.        

Black knights attack the Granadinos!

White knights attack!

Archers driven back...

and hit again!

White knights pursue into the enemy rear.

At this point in battle, both army breakpoint clocks are grinding down toward their breaking points.  Time to engage the infantry to settle the matter!

The Badajoz tercio moves forward to come alongside the Sevilla tercio and offer mutual support.  No sooner has this tercio moved up, they are attacked!  Into the tercio charges Fanez' heavy infantry.  The initial impact drives the tercio back.  Following up on this success, the two blocks of infantry battle it out until one side is forced to retire.  Which block retires?  Fanez'!

Infantry battle...

with casualties mounting.

Upon seeing Fanez' infantry falling back to his right, Alfonso, himself, leads his heavy infantry up into battle.  The target, this time, is the Sevilla tercio.  This hard-fought struggle continues with the Sevillians finally giving way after heavy losses.  Alfonso pursues.  With the balance teetering on a knife edge, the next unit lost with bring defeat to that army.  After a few more hard-hitting rounds, the last of the Sevillians are destroyed.  Yusuf's Army breaks!  

Alfonso leads an attack!

With Alfonso leading the way, the enemy is driven back...

and finally destroyed!

While Yusuf's Army breaks first, the Breakpoint Clock shows how close this contest was.  With only a single point separating the two clocks, I declare the battle a draw.  Richard kindly agrees!

Yusuf's Army breaks but it is close!

Another game coming right down to the wire!  The decision was in the hands of the last die roll of the last combat of the day!  Excellent stuff, hard-fought until the very end.  As for game duration, we managed to fight to a conclusion in about two hours.  Half the time of the other contests.

On the Butcher's Bill, The Dead Pile tells the story.  Notice that all of the Christian losses came from Fanez' wing.  Alfonso lost nothing!

Butcher's Bill

Great game, Richard! Very enjoyable and entertaining contest.  Thank you!

To read Richard's excellent account of this battle, please visit his blog post at Battle of Zallaqah 1086 -AAR.