Sorry, just not for me.

[d_Guy]

To pick up a bit on what DanJ has just posted. Is it as enjoyable to game in a period that you know only from a Classics Illustrated or a grade B movie? Even if you go on to much enjoyable research for many years, is it still the first imagines you had of the period that drives you and locks you. I seem to be making a gaming career out of Montrose's first four battles and the first year of the great rebellion (1641-2) in Ireland. I can play them in endless ways with endless rules and never get bored.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Love Sci Fi, enjoy non-gw fantasy, love ancients, love medieval, love renaissance and 18-19-20th centuries, colonials and continentals.
Love navel and naval! Aerial and spaceships

Don't play SS, rarely play German WW2 these days. 30 and 7 years war don't particularly interest me, but if someone else put a game on I would try it.
28mm zombie-cowboy-vampires are a definite no, as is most steampunk stuff, don't know why, just doesn't do it for me.

[fsn]

Where I would differ slightly from Mr Lemmey is that sometimes one feels the need to return to one's roots. I love my French, Italian and Russian WWII armies, but every now and again, I return to "Action on the St James Road" and Brits vs Jerries, 1944.

On the game vs collection point, there is a difference between playing a game and amassing an army. If someone else wants to paint up 4000 Mesoamericans, then I'd probably be quite happy to knock 'em down with 147 Spaniards, 23 horses and a dog named Eric. (Yes, I take  Mr Lemming's point, but why spoil a good story with the facts?) I wouldn't want to spend time and money amassing all those little feathery chaps. Started reading about them and got bored very quickly.

I find it incredibly tedious to read about when it's all "they have the wrong kind of God" and  "my king was the ..." *yawn*. I suppose it's my butterfly mind. Why wade through a whole family history when you can just get into the "they invaded them" bit? I'm not that interested in the wider history. I'm far more interested in tactics, equipment and organisation.

Maybe that's why I can't be bothered with most civil wars, and why I like the ACW, because the causes were simple as evidenced by this documentary:

[Subedai]

Having armies from right across history and beyond, there isn't really much that I won't or haven't played over the years. But there is a big difference between playing and collecting. There are historical periods that I am interested in and have armies for; there are periods that I have armies in but are not really that interested in or knowledgeable about (ACW being a case in point) and there are periods and armies that I have no interest in at all.

My interest but have either not much or nothing for includes the Renaissance in Europe inc. the 30YW; 7YW  and others from the  Lace Wars era.  This classification could also encompass Skirmish gaming, RPG's -I did those in the 80's and soon returned to historical but wouldn't rule it out.

My not interested in collecting at all list includes the AWI -too close to Napoleonics; SCW -too close to WW II.
Anything going on while I have been interested in wargaming and being able to justify my hobby so that starts really at the Falklands and and coming forward from there. In saying that, I have 2 modern armies but the justification for those is as a What If rather than what actually happened kind of attitude.

Not a great interest in European medieval despite all the panoply -I think it's all the armour that puts me off- except when it interacts with the Mongols.

The Crimean War and other Europen conflicts of the 19th century just don't float my boat all -like the AWI too similar to Napoleonics. The only one that has potential is the FPW and this comes under the category of armies that I have but not a great deal of knowledge about.

The Balkan Wars immediately preceding WW I and Korean War likewise -no real interest.

MickS

[Ithoriel]

I tend to shy away from wars that happened while I was alive ... not sure why ... so Korea onwards isn't something I've collected or played. I go straight from WW2 to sci-fi.

I'm happy to play pretty much any other periods but if I have an army for the period I want to use that not someone else's.

Personally I'm all for people playing what they like and ignoring the rest.

Though I hope people avoid the "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded" mentality.

[FierceKitty]

It's funny how some eras float your boat and others sink it without trace. I'm not particularly interested in wargaming WW1 onwards. I like the miniatures, particularly the vehicles, ships and aircraft ..... but with the longer ranges, need to dig in, concealed positions, off table artillery, air strikes etc., I just don't think it lends itself very well to tabletop wargaming with miniatures. Some WW2 games I've seen look more like 18th Century games with tanks the way the miniatures are lined up. Having said that, Chain of Command looks like a good skirmish level game and, possibly, out there is some higher level game that might grab my attention (Command Decision, Team Yankee?). Instead, I get my 'modern' kick out of computer games (e.g., Combat Mission).

[By the way, it's League of Augsburg] 

Verziehung!

[Orcs]

Interesting points.  Firstly as you are all probably aware I am a wargames "slapper". I will play any period, any scale, any level of conflict from small skirmish to a mass battle.

I try and avoid playing the French, as I am less than keen on some of our French cousins- although the waitress at the restaurant in St Aubin-Sur-mer in 2013 was alright      This has backfired on me as the rest of the club  will now always allocate me the French in a scenario if they possibly can.

I will try to avoid playing with rules lawyers, people you cannot trust to complete their move while you make the tea / get a beer from fridge, or those who you need to check what dice they have actually thrown.

That said I only collect periods that interest me.

Ancients

I like the chariot wars and have a 15mm Hebrew army, but no opponent. army.  I have 10mm  Early Imperial Romans, and Dacians
In general  I am put off by the sheer numbers of figures you need to paint to get a decent size army


Dark Ages

I have Byzantine, Viking  Arab as historic armies but they are normally used as proxies in Lord Of the Rings.  The historic period does not do a lot for me

Medieval

I like the colour of these and have a large 10mm force for wars of the roses

Renaissance- Italian Wars

This is really my favourite period due to the mix of weaponry and variety of armies - If only I could find a good set of rules.

The rest of the period does not really float my boat.

WSS

I like this due to the simplicity of the uniforms - but still cannot get the mojo to finish my British. Much to the disgust of Sunjester and last Hussar

Napoleonics
Like the idea of this period.  I have two reasonable size 1815 armies to paint (including French) in 15mm. Cannot get the mojo due to the uniforms. They are original Battle Honours and I have had them since 1986

ACW

I like this period and the original Fire and fury ruleset. I have both sides to paint in 10mm

Colonial

Only as a skirmish I have yet to find a set of rules that does mass battles giving both sides a chance. They either favour the natives or the Europeans.


WW1
I have several nicely painted 6mm armies - British, German, Russian and stuff to do Russian civil war.  But I cannot decide on what rules to use. An ongoing issue for the last 8 years or so.

WW2

My other favourite period. To stop me collecting everything I restrict what I do

I do early war in 10mm. Blitzkrieg in the west and up to siege of Moscow in the east. There will be at some point a Japanese army to take on the Russian

Western Desert up to El Alamein

In 20mm I do North West Europe

Modern

I play AK47 in 1950/60's Africa.

Nothing else  grabs me for this period. I keep thinking I might do a 1980s BOAR and Warsaw Pact in 6mm, but I have too much other stuff on .


As the above will keep me painting until I am 183 with what I already have I doubt I will be expanding into other periods ........ Unless of course there is a new rule set or nice shiny models. :-

[fred.]

For me the two biggies that hold no real interest for me are Ancients and Napoleonics. Not entirely sure why, they just haven't really caught any spark with me.  Naps not appealing is quite interesting as many years ago when I first was introduced to gaming by friends (who were brothers) and we played with various WWII stuff and some fantasy stuff. Their Dad was very much in to Napoleonic period - I can't remember if he was a gamer, or just a painter, but he had figures and many many books. And I played a couple of Napoleonic board war games. But as to actual figure based wargaming - its never happened. A couple of my gaming group are trying to get the rest to play some Blucher, but there is general ambivalence from the rest of us.

Also Naval and Air games don't appeal, whatever the era.

I'm with Peter that a good game matters too - I didn't play SciFi for years (despite reading loads of SciFi) but once I was introduced to Epic a couple of years ago, I have managed to accumulate 3 large armies in a very short period.

I do find historical games harder to play - mainly as everyone has a different view of how things worked (or what scale the game represents) which tends to bog things down in lots of 'well that wouldn't of happened' discussions.

[fred.]

Firstly as you are all probably aware I am a wargames "slapper".

Is the word wargames needed in that sentence?

although the waitress at the restaurant in St Aubin-Sur-mer in 2013 was alright 

[Orcs]

Interesting points.  Firstly as you are all probably aware I am a wargames "slapper".

Is the word wargames needed in that sentence?

In all honesty probably not

although the waitress at the restaurant in St Aubin-Sur-mer in 2013 was alright  

I suppose I should have qualified that while I try not to play the French in wargames I have nothing against playing with an attractive French lady.

   

[Sandinista]

There's no areas of the hobby I won't play, If someone has taken the time to research, paint and bring their armies to the club the least I can do is take part and do them justice. As others have said collecting is different, and that is just down to not spreading my meagre resources to thinly.
I never thought I would play late 17thC games, but when buying a few of the new LoA figures to use for Vienna 1683 I thought wow, these are great. Inspired me to read up on a new period, changed some of my preconceived ideas - a Dutch invasion no less and collect 1000's of figures!! I now have the largest single group of figures in my collection are also the newest part of my collection.

So for me it is never say never to a period 

Cheers
Ian

[fsn]

Good point. How do we get into new periods? By playing/researching etc other periods.

Even so, there are some that just won't spark for me, and the reasons why interests me.  For example, I have several books on the English Civil War. Every now and again, I look at them and then look at the Pendraken catalogue and say ... "no". Why is this? Part of it is the mix of musketeers and pikemen. To show that adequately, you need really big units. Eight pikemen and 16 musketeers just looks too "bitty" for me. Probably need units of 72ish to look the part, and then there's the cavalry, dragoons etc. Is that it? Are there too many "bits" to the armies of the periods? Not like the Napoleonic period! Simple, just with line, light & guard infantry; lt dragoons (of various types), hussars, lancers, dragoons, cuirassiers; battalion, foot, horse and rocket artillery! Oh! and Guerrillas. And Grenadiers. Carabiniers.  Siege guns ... and engineers.

Could say the same about Ancient Persians. Lots of different unit types, and irregular, so I'm not that fussed. Carthaginians now ... lots of different types and irregular ... bring it on! :-

Again, why do I look upon fantasy as something that youfs play, but do like SciFi? Both are imagination driven, yet I can't see me ever buying an Elf army. Is it a hangover from the D&D generation? I did play fantasy RPGs until I went to university. Never touched the stuff since. Why? I'm not beyond reading good fantasy fiction, though IMHO there's a lot of bad fantasy being spewed out nowadays. Having said that, I re-read some Michael Moorcock recently and was very disappointed.  :-

There are some common themes emerging. Firstly the clear difference between playing and collecting.

Ithoriel won't play periods in his lifetime, I won't play from the time I went to University. (Ithoriel - would you play Team Yankee?). I can still p lay Korea, and I hadn't been born yet.  

Subedai is not interested in collecting periods too close to those he's already playing, which I can identify with.This is though, counter-intuitive to a degree. You can play the SCW with Bf109's, T26s and L3/33's - just as you can early WWII. I recognise it, but don't necessarily understand it. I claim special exemption for the Korean War, because of the Centurion tank.

Fred's post is interesting. He was exposed to Napoleonics and yet the period didn't catch with him. But why? Interesting that the two periods he mentions fantasy and WWII are a whole lot less "formal" than Naps.

I suppose there are a number of reasons, but it's that visceral "no thank you" that interests me.


 

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

If I had the money and time (and storage!) I would play just about any period.

I think the only thing I have to date been resolute about not doing are Wierd WW2/Napoleonic etc. - mainly this is because there is so much to game in the historical versions.

Of course there are a 'low priority' periods. These are such either because I do not generally find them that engaging (Samurai) and/or building an army would not be time effective I.e. I would be unlikely to use it much (e.g.Colonial - though I do occasionally hanker after the Sudan).

Regards

Edward

[freddy326]

I can't do ancients, medieval, Napoleonics (played them when I was young, thin and had hair!) or pretty much anything after WWII. There are other periods that don't interest me, others that do and I have armies bought for, but just lost interest in painting them!

play RCW, 20C Polish - Russian, 20C Baltic - Russian but not WW1, play early WWII but not SCW! got loads of 6mm modern (CWC hint, hint) but only coz there was a huge box for sale at a car boot really, really cheap!

[Leman]

Anything post 1925 - don't know why but it holds absolutely no attraction - probably to do with mechanisation and lack of colour.

WWI trench warfare - and the point is?

Fantasy - nah

Naval - just not into ships.

Air warfare - just not into planes

Napoleonic - don't know why but could be to do with the sheer scale of the enterprise.

AWI - not enough cavalry - SYW so much more fun to game.

Biblical - no interest at all in this.

Science fiction - too busy watching it to play it.