I wrote this post on a whim the other day as part of dealing with some negative feedback. As you know, sometimes writing out or talking through things can be very therapeutic and cathartic (I love that word!). So take this with a grain of salt as it was really just thoughts in my head flowing out onto the page.

Over the past few years, as we have been writing for the blog and doing our videos, I have encountered slight resistance to our work. I say “work” but this is a hobby and what we do is far from professional level. We are gamers at heart who simply like playing and talking about wargames. All kinds of wargames mind you and not just a certain type of niche wargames. We play hex and counter, Card Driven Games, Eurotrash, block wargames, card wargames and lots of others. In fact, we really have tried to build our experience pool with games and will generally try anything at least once. I am 51 and was born in 1973. In my family setting, we played games but mostly I was brought up on RPG’s like Dungeons & Dragons and other games but also with games like Axis & Allies. I feel cheated somehow because I didn’t have a father who loved wargames. My dad, God rest his soul, is a veteran and was enlisted in the Air Force for 7 years during the Korean War era where he worked as a machinist in an aircraft maintenance crew making and repairing parts for those planes. He never saw action nor was he ever stationed overseas. In fact, he hated to fly! He didn’t come home after work and play wargames with me like the classics from Avalon Hill. I wish that he had but sometimes you don’t miss what you don’t really know and I grew up just fine on the games that I was playing.

Fast forward to 2016, where Alexander and I, along with another friend Tim, decided to start a blog where we would talk about games. We started out talking about all type of games but Alexander and I both gravitated toward wargames and Tim lost interest and decided to move on. We still actually play games once in a while with Tim and our old group but those games are not wargames. I remember those times with great fondness as we were navigating the world of wargames. We started with some whoppers to be sure, with some of our first games being Empire of the Sun from GMT Games, Labyrinth from GMT Games and Churchill from GMT Games. But, with each new game we played, our desire to play more and discover more and learn more grew. We quickly got into tactical wargames such as Combat Commander, Old School Tactical, Conflict of Heroes to name a few and then expanded into larger more traditional hex and counter wargames. I still remember when we played At Any Cost from GMT Games, my mind was burning as we navigated the fairly complex and deep combat system. But all of that drove us to learn more and play more. We love wargaming.

But the thing that has always held us back has been the lack of a deep and abiding experience pool with more classic wargames. We just didn’t play them when we were kids like so many other wargamers did. And I truly apologize to you, our readers and viewers, for that fact. It has hampered our approach as well as our ability to properly compare classic systems to more modern takes on wargames. We are often asked the following questions, or some version of: How does this compare to the classic _______ (fill in the blank)? Does the activation mechanic work the same? Which do you prefer, this or that? I actually cringe when we are asked those questions because I honestly feel a sense of pain when I cannot answer them. That is something that we have tried desperately to correct by playing many of these classic games. We have explored several series from the likes of Multi-Man Publishing such as the Standard Combat Series, Battalion Combat Series, Operational Combat Series, etc. We have also played lots of great GMT Games series like the ’40X Series designed by Mark Simonitch. But still there are many that we have not got around to playing.

At this point in the post, you might be asking yourself what is the point here? Well, the point that I am trying to get out there for discussion is this. Even in the light of this admitted lack of deeper experience on our part, and the fact that we maybe didn’t grow up on some of the classics, I am trying to figure out why we get the occasional really negative comments about our thoughts, opinions and takes on wargames? Without being truly specific, and without giving away any names, I will give you a few examples.

Last year, we played the new Enemy Action: Kharkov from Compass Games. This is an established and beloved system designed by the great John Butterfield. I have played many games designed by John and absolutely adore his D-Day at Series form Decision Games as I have played Tarawa and Iwo Jima and also really enjoyed RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 from Decision Games. In our comments on the game, we both stated that we felt that the game is more suited to a solitaire experience due to its combat system where there are a lot of chits drawn to represent results from combat based on several factors including terrain, special events, unit makeup, etc. This process seemed burdensome and very slow for a 2-player game as we both felt that it was more suited as a solitaire game.

Man, after those posts went up, I got a few negative comments from various readers who felt many things about those comments. That I wasn’t a “real wargamer”, the gap between older grognards and the newer “wargamers” and my favorite that “John Butterfield simply deserves a better review…”

All because I didn’t love the game. Keep in mind that I was generally complimentary of the game and the activation system. But, the fact that I didn’t bow down in obeisance to a great designer and his game was I think the point that he was really trying to make. Oh and that I am not a wargamer.

Here is another more recent example as this past weekend I shared our Disappointing Wargames video that was shot in our car (we have this car video thing) on our way to the World Boardgaming Championships last July. We highlighted about 10 wargames that just didn’t hit with us when we played them. These included some lesser known titles, such as Free at Last! from The Dietz Foundation, Dawn of Battle from Worthington Publishing, as well as some more venerable and well liked titles such as MBT from GMT Games. Well, these comments hit another wargamer pretty hard and we got the following.

I think that my favorite comment was that he called us streamers. What does that even mean? We shoot videos and post them on YouTube. We don’t do live streams very often if at all. We also played the game he is referencing with just the basic rules to get a feeling for the system and whether it was a fit for us. And you know what, it wasn’t! I am not an expert on wargames. Never have claimed to be. Never even have thought I am. In fact, I suffer from major Imposter Syndrome every time we do these videos and reviews. I ask myself all the time. Who cares about my opinion or thoughts? What makes me qualified to even comment? Do I really know what I am talking about? But, we have played a lot of games and have started to understand some things about what we like and what works for us. We also have started to see where games fail more often than not in their clarity of rules, overuse of chrome, lack of proper and well laid out player aids, etc.

And this got me thinking. Thinking about why there is so much of this type of agitated and defensive response from wargamers when my comments and views don’t align with theirs. It is just odd. But, as I was thinking, it hit me. Wargamers are protective. They are protective of their history, or at least their view or opinion about that history. Protective of the hobby that they love, because they don’t want it to go away or change. And they feel ownership of the genre. They also are extremely nostalgic and sometimes think back to their younger years with great fondness as they learned their first Avalon Hill wargame classic. They played those games till the counters had the ink rubbed off. And they loved those games. But, sometimes memory fades and we begin to inject a more romantic or glossed over view of a subject or experience in our past. This leads to a heightened sensitivity to any comments or thoughts that put that in jeopardy. And I do get it. We all get defensive from time to time about any number of things. But, we all need to learn to better deal with those feelings and discuss them in a more rationale and thoughtful manner. Name calling, defamatory comments and discounting others opinions are not means of communication. They are childish. And do not have a place in any discussion. Period. I just wish that we would learn to disagree better. Maybe that we cannot disagree civilly is the reason that we have wars in our history. And yes, I see the irony that we then play those wars out on the table without understanding the heart of the disagreement. There are not enough wargamers as is and we need to embrace each other. I love to disagree and to discuss the reasons why you are wrong. That is what we do. That is what I partially do in my career. That is what I do as a parent a lot of the times. But the difference is that I always have a goal of maintaining a relationship with those I am having a disagreement with and am interested in trying to understand their side and clearly explain myself in the process.

Don’t get me wrong. I have had moments that I am not proud of in arguments. I am married. And have been for 28 years. We argue from time to time about things. And sometimes we lose our cool, I lose my cool. But, at the end of the day, we work it out, maintain our relationship, I end up apologizing because I am an apologizer and the marriage goes on. I want that to be the case here in wargaming as well. I want to be able to share my thoughts, with some well organized and reasoned out reasons, and be able to have a civil conversation without being belittled. Or told that I am not a wargamer. Or not the correct type of wargamer. Is that too much to ask?

I am not sure that is what I thought this post would turn into but there it is. If we all walk away from this post with a better view on disagreeing over wargames, I will have accomplished what I set out to do here. But, I will continue doing what we do, sharing our thoughts and opinions out there and having civil discussions with all of you.

Please let me know your thoughts on this topic.

-Grant