Giving up Historical Wargaming: I’m a bad person, and I never knew it….

Lots of people pick Germans because we want to ensure we have an historically accurate game. In Bolt Action most people pick British or Americans as their first army, so picking Germans is a hedge against having to resort to odd tabletop clashes (Brits vs. Brits). Same logic goes for the Japanese or Italians.

Its not fantasy where every race can fight each other. In historical you really have to have match the forces with the period you're playing.

Also the Germans have by far the best vehicles in that period. At least to look at. That swayed me heavily back in BA 1st edition to pick them as my first army.

Great Arnhem Para story! Thank you for recognising the tactics of those who would control and manipulate our passionate historical interests given half the chance, they are generally less well-read on authoritarian measures than many in the hobby, and perhaps have become blinded by their own rose-tinted glasses - they have become what they claim to despise.

Thank you

Midwinter is a twat he left his fiancée for some rando he hired to work for the channel, "supposedly" ,Ignore everything that man says

I'm screwed I just ordered the ss charlemagne
ITS SO OVER FOR ME.

"We wouldn't want to play the nazis, or at least a nazi allied army..."
Yeah, we'll just play these Soviet allies instead.

He's just a cringy, moralizing bar-stuard, who cheated on his girlfriend as she was carrying his kids... Now he's hooked up with some lass who's some ex-GW staffer, on a gimmicky channel.

Ignore it. I do and I'm Oldhammer.

Great video Dom. H.G. Wells, who in a commercial sense deserves large credit for the creation of our hobby, was an outspoken pacifist. The wars fought with miniature soldiers do not kill or enslave anyone (shut up, wallet!), and can be used to educate people about the consequences of conflict as well. Moreover it develops craftsmanship and a love of history. I was a soldier, and I have no use for war, but gaming gives me both pleasure and perspective, as well as comradeship. I barely have enough time to paint outside of my busy professional life, and I certainly will not waste any of that time on haters. Cheers to you and your boots, good sir!!

Personally i think it's just games, there's usually a good guy and a bad guy in the game. Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, allies and axis, napoleonic French vs British. I have about as much emotional connection to each faction as i do to white or black in chess.

Funny how its always the German army and not the soviet or Japanese army that people say you're evil for playing

If you can't admit Germans always had the snappiest uniforms and that the evil moustache man's art had merit then you just simply don't appreciate history as far as I'm concerned. Besides that, who doesn't love ostensibly useless superweapons? Great army for practically useless mad-genius tech.

Ah, get a grip...

Woke has finally arrived on the wargaming scene.
It’s been going on for awhile now with board games especially Kickstarter and Gamefound.

People just can’t leave anything alone.

Too many precious people who need to lighten up.

Can someone tell me what this video is. Wouldn’t mind checking it out.

Fact: National Socialists, the German WWII political party, were politically between the Communists and the Socialists.
The haters saying this are the actual Fascists and deserve to be cancelled before they enslave the world, driving it into the new dark ages.

If "they" are able to make you forget the past, they then can manipulate you to repat it in their name. Keeping history alive is how we thwart their intentions.

It's just a game at the end of the day.

The way I see it, playing a historical wargame makes you trivialize actual war to about the same degree that reading a crime novel makes you trivialize actual murder. Engaging with the dark chapters of history, even if done in a playful or entertaining way, does not mean that one is in any way condoning the real atrocities of the past.

Horse POO POO.. The Stahlhelm Guard in GW, is A Nazi looking as it gets. It's hobby centric bias... Games Workshop is not the only game in town.👍👍 They're too lazy to look at history and all it's scenarios.

The big boom in figures wargaming stared in the late 50s to early 60s. Many of the main characters, (at least in the UK) like Brigadier Peter Young (commandos) and Don Featherstone (North Africa) had actually fought the Germans, and were presumably not keen on the N*** chaps. I don't expect that they always played on the allied side in wargames.

I'm sorry, but you are as overly dramatic as the channel you react to, and i would call myself clearly a pro Miniature Wargamer, no matter if historical or fictional context.


For people that aren't part of this hobby world it may seem strange to collect, build, paint and play WW2 German Forces. And as you pointed out, every historical era has this questionable part in it, but without a doubt ideologies of ww2 are still around these days.

The funny thing is that most of these peolpes that point this out in case of historical Wargaming didn't realise that this period is also part of Computergames they sometimes play themself.
Or that parts of the 3rd Reich style or ideology is reused in Scifi Context like Star Wars or Warhammer 40k.

It doesn't make sense to over dramatize this topic or point a finger at MWM. To be true, i do belief that some Miniature Wargamers that belief in this ideology exist, but i wouldn't reduce it just to historical content. In spain was a case were a WH40k gamer showed up with a shirt with nutsi symbolic on it! Same in Austria, where a gamer publicly showed his support of the 3rd Reich.
I'm sure that the same thing can happen in historical gaming...or any Boardgame...Poker...anything.
Name a game that isn't played by as...oles, there is none!

And that is the important context we should point out!
I started collecting WW2 Cobi Toys with my Son and my Nephew, mostly to make them play with real world toys, not to teach them history.
That was just a side effect i liked. I would have also supported other real life toy collecting like Lego, Barbie, Matchbox, just to make them play in real life.

Now we play Killteam, Warhammer and started our own, homebrewed Ww2 game...and it is mostly about the time we spend together, not the context the game is based on!

In my humble opinion I think I could write an essay on this but in a nutshell wargaming is about many things: EG exploring decision making, testing a hypothesis or tactics in a safe to fail environment, improving tactical thinking , analysis and reflection, research and also studying military history through the lens of wargaming itself. It studies both sides and their tactics, doctrine and so much more. It also uses umpires to adjudicate. It does not advance an ideology or condone one. Perhaps if some of these channels actually read about wargaming or dare I say read the history they would understand why military staff colleges are keen to advance this (MOD handbook) then I think they would quickly see why wargames are considered so important because it has been proven that the process can saves lives. However, Games of War (often labeled within the rubric of wargames) can on the other hand be misleading to an uniformed eye because these advance factions or list building and are encouraged through prescriptive systems which are commercially driven.. in this domain this may be perceived as glorifying war or particular beliefs. However, it was from the amateur realm that professional wargaming approaches developed in modern times. I am a wargamer and proud of this fact. I like GOW too because many facets I am developing have been inspired from them. Only a fool will not study his enemy In detail and the video I think you are referring to , has no detail at all.

On the one hand, the Midwinter Minis video is just a shallow, clickbait-ey discussion of this topic from someone who obviously hasn't done too much historical wargaming. On the other hand, I wish it was possible for us gamers to have a serious, sensible discussion about how to deal with the most problematic aspects of the historical conflicts we game rather than saying "all war is bad, we shouldn't judge bad people by the standards of our times, let's not bring politics into this, just let me play with my miniatures".

Hopefully middleclass minis learned they really should research the historical side of historical wargames before they make another video on the subject.

Hi Dom I have been told that because I am a born again Christian I am going against what the Bible says about war and turning the other check, I enjoy painting miniatures of any century and time , war is what happens when people refuse to be like other people and dare to be different. My family lost members in the death camps of ww2 so do I hate Germans because of this fact no of course not , will I stop painting figures because they represent a war no I won't, we enjoy this hobby because it is just that a hobby.😊

I don't play historicals (yet, been looking at Ravenfeast), but do play stuff like Mordheim. Religious fanatics scare me in real life, but in game I really like the Witch Hunters. It's just a game, and some things are fun in games, not in life.

Nice. What else can I say!

😆

Ah, I play French in Bolt Action! So I must be safe!.. Ah wait, they shipped in people from morocco and senegal as cheap meat shields... Guess I can never play Bolt Action again.

I'll just stick with Warhammer 40k then! I play Ultra Marines, the poster boys! They can't be bad, can they?.. Well they are imperialistic child soldiers, genetically modified to do nothing but kill. Hm, maybe I can't play them anymore..

Ah, I'll just play chess! No history there, right?.. Besides the resemblence of a monarchy, sending poor farmers head first into death. The most important piece on the table being your king, while everyone else just being a tool... No chess for me anymore..

Let's just play Uno! Honestly, how evil can Uno be!? There's no evil in a classic cardgame that's produced and sold by a multi-billion dollar company without morals...

Ugh, I'll just stare at the wall then.

I’ve watched this video again from beginning to end. You must have been honoured to be able to speak to and listen to that Para.
They were amazing men.
The next generation showed that 38 years later that they were still the best Assault troops in the world.
I wish I’d seen that game.
Great video Dom.

"Eww, you play the Germans in a WWII game!? You must be an actual Nazi!!!"
Says the galaxy brained Twitter addict with a hammer and sickle in their bio.

The real paradigm here is although "the person" mentioned downcast the german or "nazi" player, what about the armies he is supporting with the game he plays? Do the Dark Eldar not take slaves and revel in torture? Does chaos murder on a world-wide scale just because? Does the Imperium value life at all, for the ends justify the means? One might say, "but that is fiction." The same argument he uses could be used for all of the armies for that particular game and any other. He likes Orks from what I have seen. So, he must have tendencies towards anarchy, violence, and wasting ammo...

The channel you are talking about are a bunch of stupid children who lost a lot of followers due to this. Shame, because some of their tutorials were useful and informative. Their kind of zero sum idiotic identity politics has no place in the hobby.

I've been a history fan for as long as I can remember. I just recently got into the entire Wargaming stuff, but naturally I am more drawn towards the historical side of things. Everybody who assumes you're a nazi for playing WWII Germany is absolutly detached from reality. Yes: Wars always have and forever will be people doing unspeakable atrocities to each other and it's disgusting but it's the reality of war. Also let's be honest to ourselves: we all love to play the "bad guys" from time to time (also every US military WWII player needs a German to fight, just like every British Red coat enthusiast needs some French guy to go to war with)

We live in a world of hate . We wish to whitewash are past. Yes, there's bad times and bad people and bad things. But if we forget those then we're doomed to repeat them. Just because someone plays a game does not make that person evil. Hateful nasty. So before passing judgment onto others. How about being nice to each other? I think that's too hard for most people nowadays

I’m a black man and I play with the Germans in wargaming it’s hey game people calm down

That was a good video to watch! A few things to add...it is called warGAMING, so we should treat it as a GAME! Also, people play GAMES like Grand Theft Auto, where they deal drugs, kill prostitutes, etc...should they be classed as criminals?? Or when they play First Person Shooting games and they get to play as the terrorists...are they terrorists in real life?? Or pirate games and so on....Get a life people and think before you accuse someone...!

😂 I don't play bolt action because of people with attitudes like that. I liked the German style. And no nation is innocent when it comes to war.

A very good video, and very well put 👍 (from an owner of numerous WW11 Bolt Action forces, including the SS and Japanese who is not a nazi but a chap with a huge interest in military history and miniature sculptures).

Can I have your figures then?

Spartans also left babies outside to die and Romans were massive enslaves of others. Bad guys (but utterly irrelevant to wargamers).

I personally think its absolutely ridiculous when the fantasy armies often painted are also violent, oppressive, xenophobic and annihilate entire species.

God I play Chaos Space Marines in that specific game....does that mean I want to see the downfall of humanity and hold court with Demons??

P.S the comment shared regarding the old gentleman, that was touching and a very strong point in favour of keeping the memory of human heroics alive.

It’s strange how people focus on NAZI Germany, but the Soviet Union (20 million of Stalin’s people killed by Stalin’s regime) the systemised murder of Polish military, political and intellectuals in 1939 and Imperial Japanese of WW2 and war in China? No one appears to have major issues with those. Obviously as Dom said there are many, many historical roads down which some people may think we should not travel.
Personally, like most right minded people/gamers, I will play any army, it’s a game, with toys soldiers. It’s meant to be enjoyable.
It is not a political or ideological statement

All wargamers I have met have been very much anti-war. To learn about war in histroy is to hate it.
And if you bin your "baddies", who will the "goodies" fight????
It's a GAME!

(I wonder what an Orc army says about the owner...?)

Again a total BS interpretation of the original post by the unnamed video channel. They asked the question, is historical wargaming unpopular because of the stigma of playing the Germans and the negativity that might project. But it is obviously worth more viewing and commentary to you to make this cynical video bashing them.

From my point of view the original video was made by a naïve pair who have no real understanding of the nature of historical wargaming nor its true breadth. I mean lets face it, as wide a theatre of war gaming WW2 is, it is merely a sliver of the actual fair available to the historical gamer and in each case, whether you are the goodies or the badies the nature of the game in the end is for fun.

So I say to you, pull your head in and revise your view of the world. Instead of a negative production trolling other videos why don't you produce one that asks why some one would be so naïve and ask such a narrow focussed and silly question?

Awesome

Guy really stepped in it with this one 😂

Caesar was only a short amount of time in the Roman Empire plus they had Slaves

I ❤ playing the Jerry’s cool uniforms, cool weapons, awesome vehicles, 😂😂😂 I like playing the losers the ACW Confederates 😂😂😂