DISCUSSION

By Mark Backhouse

REDISCOVERING YOUR WARGAMES MOJO

GETTING BACK IN
THE SADDLE
The wargaming blues seems to be something that many gamers suffer with from time
to time. A lack of motivation to paint or to game and a waning interest in the hobby
in general is something I read regularly on gaming blogs. For years I had always
been a real enthusiast. I gamed once a week at the club every Thursday and tried
to squeeze in a few more games here and there on weekends and holidays. I had a
good-sized group of close gaming friends and every year there would be a new drive
to game a particular period or rule set. We would all get enthusiastic about it and
read and watch everything available on that topic, paint boxes of figures and game
regularly. I used to shake my head at the lack of commitment from other gamers
in my club and think what they were missing out on. I was committed to gaming…

T hen things changed in the space of a year.

Home life changed. Work became harder and
harder. I found it tricky to get to the club regu-
larly. Work then took up a month of Thursday
evenings and therefore I got no games in. My games
started to drop off. At about the same time some of
my regular opponents started to drop away too. Ill-
bits of painting, I ran the odd game (quite possibly a
lot more gaming than some of our readers do who still
class themselves as committed gamers). I can’t say that
I’m fully back into the hobby again but there are a few
things which have helped me to reignite that spark.

ness and new jobs suddenly changed my gaming cir-
cle and those fanatical acolytes suddenly were not
around for regular games. When I turned up to the
club I found I didn’t have games; when I missed a
few weeks because of other commitments, I arrived
to find I’d missed the boat on new projects, or people
had booked up the next few weeks ahead. When I
found I had less games I started turning up less often.
The impact became cyclical – the more I stayed away
the less bothered I became about turning up. The re-
sult was a six month dry spell.
ACHIEVABLE PROJECTS
I’ve gone back to some projects that might not be
classed as proper wargaming by some people.
These are small on numbers of figures and allow for
quicker, simpler games with minimal effort. I hadn’t
brought or painted a fantasy figure in years but
somehow painting a Blood Bowl team or ten seemed
to be a good solution. Twelve or so figures seemed
eminently manageable. Colourful and detailed, I was
no longer having to push my way through several
hundred figures to get an army completed. Crucially
I got to play with them quickly as well.

Time has passed and work continues to be hard. The
yearning to paint and game never completely disap-
peared but faded as a priority to a secondary concern.
Many people leave it for much longer, years or decades
in fact, before they return to the hobby. I kept up a few
I also managed to get a set of Tusk rules to play with
my boys. Tusk is a prehistoric hunting game that is
very simple and good fun. It needs a dozen or so
hunters and some mammoths or other prey. It can
be set up in ten minutes and requires half an hour

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 Go real small! 2mm ECW in play.
to play. Even I can manage to squeeze that in to my
busier schedule. I suspect the growth in other smaller
style skirmish games like this is a result of the short-
age of space, money and painting time many of us
feel. Both of these games have fun rules that don’t re-
quire a huge amount of looking up. They are also light
enough that other wavering gaming friends might just
give them a go even if it isn’t their ‘usual thing’.
SHARING THE ENTHUSIASM
Sharing with other people what I’ve been doing has
also been useful. I had a Twitter account that was so
inactive I might as well have closed it down. How-
ever, recently I’ve found it really helpful for sharing
good ideas and linking up with other gamers from
further afield who have the same rather specialised
interests. Not many people are into 17th Century
2mm games, but my chats with Sidney Roundwood
have, I hope, stirred up both of our enthusiasm in
the same way as regular club meetings might have
done. As I posted up pictures it produced feedback
and encouragement. I’d like to claim that I’m not vain
enough to find this important. It’s just not true. Every
piece of encouragement helped. It gave me a buzz. It
made me want to paint more. In six weeks I had got
the Siege of Portsmouth game ready. Communicating
regularly with club members is also important. Its too
easy to miss out on games because you have not been
able to make it to the club. Planning ahead and being
pro-active will help. This links in with the next point,
which is that I also went small.
GO SMALL
I’ve already waxed lyrical about the benefits of
smaller scale figures, especially 6mm figures. Some
of my ideas were simply too big in the larger scales.
The fiscal limitations were there, but the time issue
was even more inhibiting. 2mm figures might be far
too small for many. I’m not suggesting they are the
holy grail for gamers, but they allowed me to paint
wss87.indd 25
Go skirmish! TUSK being played.
large forces in 1:1 scale and get a sense of comple-
tion in a short period of time. While some people
might say ‘I can’t see them!’, they have allowed me
to game grand sized battles in smaller spaces with
less investment of time. I’d defy anyone to look at my
Siege of Portsmouth game and say it didn’t look visu-
ally impressive. I think as long as the rules are good,
the terrain has had time spent on it and the models
have been well painted, wargaming is fantastic in
any scale. The next project might well be 28 legions
slogging it out at Philippi… a dream of mine that
cannot easily be done even in 6mm!
THE INTERNET – GOOD AND BAD
The internet can be a great thing in terms of commu-
nication with other gamers but I’ve also found it to be
a massive drain on time. Over the next year I’ve prom-
ised myself to spend less time flicking through blogs
and more time actually doing the things I like best
which are painting, modelling, researching and gam-
ing. This will be a tricky one. I’m addicted to check-
ing the wargaming forums several times a day, most
often as a lurker. From the regular appearances of vari-
ous wargaming personalities I see that I am not alone
in this. Other gamers suffering from wargaming blues
might have other distractions and priorities that prevent
them from investing the time they need to gaming. I
find the more you put in, the more you get out of it.
I’m not claiming to be fully back in the saddle again
with wargaming. I’m not a trained psychologist or
self-help expert. You’ll probably get an inkling of my
enthusiasm for the hobby over the next year or two
by the number of articles I send to Guy at WSS. I
wonder if I can keep my renaissance of the hobby
going following these ideas? WS&S
Lack of inspiration - something we all struggle with
from time to time. For more ideas, check out this video
on the WS&S YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/2d9luei
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