I'm in agreement with several folks who have mentioned they'll play a game that someone has gone to the trouble of organizing/researching.  I've discovered some interesting periods and battles at conventions this way.

In regards to my own projects it all fascinates me at first. The periods I end up deciding not to pursue mostly involves indecision after researching the period.  An example would be WWII naval, occasionally I think a huge surface battle would be cool with battleships and cruisers in battle-line pounding each other away.  And then I start researching it and remember WWII is a carrier war with mostly airplanes vs ships, or subs vs ships and it suddenly loses it's luster to me.  Sure, there is always "what if" scenarios, but when I do play historical periods I feel a need to be as accurate to the period as I can.  This is partly why I do enjoy Fantasy and Sci-Fi wargaming because there's no need for historical accuracy unless you try to tie it to a literary source.  Maybe Fantasy gaming seems childish to some, but I enjoy my youthful 40's and refuse to grow-up until I hit 90... maybe... I'm not going to make a judgement call on that yet.  My passion IS historical periods though and I have Naps, Dark Age, WWII, AWI, ACW and Mexican Revolution in my collection of toys.

The only thing I refuse to play is the Gulf War since I was there.  I don't mind other people playing it.  Just for me to play something when I was there just feels silly to me.  I can't see myself as that little figure charging a bunker tossing grenades when it was more like, "How did I get sand in my goggles again? or "What the hell is my gas mask tangled on now?"

Rod

If someone says "I just don't like such-and-such," I would like to know why. Re. fantasy wargaming here are my reasons:

1. I find it childish.

2. I have a large lead mountain which I do not wish to add to.

3. The related rules literature etc. seems to glorify the most horrific spilling of blood and infliction of injuries in a manner which I find appalling, which also encourages me to steer clear of people who love that sort of thing.

4. The whole genre just seems entirely pointless to me.

Now those are the reasons I don't like fantasy. If you do like it, good luck to you as you are certainly well catered for.

Things that "aren't for me".  Not much in truth.  I'll have a pop at any of the vast variety of periods, genres, scales, rules, etc that populates our frankly weird hobby.  
Stayng away from the minefield of "rules i like/dislike"...some gaming period i've personally found perhaps less interesting include:

Napoleonics
I know.  Wierd right?  I mean its the perfect period, from skirmishing to epic battles - heaps of natty uniforms etc.  for some reason, after decades of gaming i've only played a bit of the old Napoleonics and it just hasn't gripped me.  For me, it sort of feels "impersonal" somehow.  I just couldn't get engaged with it.

ECW
This is such an amazingly interesting part of our history, i should be enthralled by it.  But somehow, the battles just seem so predicable and formulaic, and i don't know why.  So far, this promising period hasn't gripped my gaming interest.

WOTR
I've done quite a bit of this, but I think i might be done now.  I've found the battles, like ECW, predictable.

WWI
Hands up, i haven't done any WWI but the reason why may be why its not for me - its the problem of, well, how do you do a battle?  Unless you head for the desert (or maybe Africa) the "grand scale" engagments just seem to me to be a tedious grind in game play terms - one side is is static defence, the other on an attack to obliteration.  This doesn't seem too interesting to me.  I think it does have massive potential at skirmish scale, with trench raiding games, but my interest then wanes as i think of the enormous challenge faced by the required terrain building.  How DO you make acceptable looking trenches?!  So for me, WWI always seems to have promise, but not enough to overcome what i see as the effort needed.

Steppe Warfare
I've done a lot of ancients and medieval and have a veteran Mongol army, well used in many systems.  The problem is, its always underperforming and that's because i've not seen a way that steppe warfare can be properly contained on a wargames table.  Ultimately the horse archers hit the edge of the table and are usually then "lost" negating their core battlefield role (shoot and scoot).  For me, i've not found a way to do this period justice.  If its Ancients, my diadochi army is going to see the table before the Mongols...

Actually i guess my last few there are less "not for me" and more, "i'd love to but can't find a way to make it work that's interesting to me".   :-

On that score, i guess...

The Boer War
Actually i'd love to do this, and even assembled the forces using Pendrakens excellent range.  But i just couldn't find a way of fighting the battles in a pleasing way.  How do you do Colenso for example?  You'd never put the Boer figures on the table!  Most British soldiers never saw a Boer.  So, not for me in the sense that I couldn't convert my enthusiasm into a viable game.  Again, perhaps upscaling the figs and downscaling the action to "skirmish" (say the action around Long's Guns at Colenso) would make for a doable game?

In that vein...

Vietnam
I like "toys on the table", and so any game where one of the forces is basically hidden and off the table is something that doesn't attract my interest.  I do like assymetric battles though so...(i think thats where, for all its quirks, Force on Force did it right as the toys are usually on the table).

Everything else is on my "yeah! Lets do that!" list.

MAybe we could do a "yeah, that's for me" thread?  

Quote from: Luddite on 16 March 2017, 02:17:09 PM
Steppe Warfare
I've done a lot of ancients and medieval and have a veteran Mongol army, well used in many systems.  The problem is, its always underperforming and that's because i've not seen a way that steppe warfare can be properly contained on a wargames table.  Ultimately the horse archers hit the edge of the table and are usually then "lost" negating their core battlefield role (shoot and scoot).  For me, i've not found a way to do this period justice.  If its Ancients, my diadochi army is going to see the table before the Mongols...

At the risk of derailing the thread ... in the past I've had some fun games with "rolling terrain" involving terrain squares. If the skirmishing cavalry were about to move off table, the opposite edge tiles were removed and a new row added. Mainly done for a Crusades campaign I was involved in.

Worth a thought.

While I'm not into the whole fantasy battles thing anymore (when I was I did wash though  ), I still play fantasy board games, mostly Blood bowl and my God it's good fun. My brother (my opponent) has dubious personal traits but i blame that on his years as pro player of Magic (he of the lightning helix fame - won him $16,000 dollars that move!)

My interest starts with the TYW and ends with FPW. Haven't done anything before or after this time scale as there is loads for me to do in that time. Have started to look at slightly modern but in the fantasy form of VBCW, so I guess that would cover them as well! Interesting thread and good to see how others take on different periods of wargaming.

@Luddite

QuoteECW
This is such an amazingly interesting part of our history, i should be enthralled by it.  But somehow, the battles just seem so predicable and formulaic, and i don't know why.  So far, this promising period hasn't gripped my gaming interest.

I have very similar feelings about the ACW and am surrounded by the area in which a large part of it was fought. I would like to be more interested and prehapes  the day will come.

My well-know passion is the BCW on the Celtic Fringe. I tend to agree about the formulaic nature of many of the best know battles of the main event (Horse on the wings, Foot in the center, Guns forward in the gaps, and Dragoons lining the hedges). Out here on the fringe there is much more scope.
To be fair I have heard it said that nothing of value can be gained from Montrose's campaign (for example) - no cavalry - no artillary - quick battles followed by Medieval ieval slaughter!

Still I extend a joyous and hopeful invitation to "come to the Fringe"   

To add some more 'positive negatives'.

Having said I'm not interested in ancients or fantasy or SF - actually that's not true. I just think their strengths lie elsewhere than at the tabletop wargame grand tactical level.

I think the really interesting action for ancients / medievals is not the conventional battlefield stuff, it is either the unique strategems and ruses that give some of these battles their distinctive character, or the campaign level - diplomacy between despots, assassinations, building pyramids of skulls etc etc. I'm currently running my third ancient/fantasy campaign. The first two each lasted four years with a dozen-plus players, and this one will do too. It's a very different kind of fun from the tabletop wargame but it's definitely fun.

And then at the other end of the scale:

Quote from: DFlynSqrl on 16 March 2017, 01:59:54 PM
I can't see myself as that little figure charging a bunker tossing grenades when it was more like, "How did I get sand in my goggles again? or "What the hell is my gas mask tangled on now?"

I think that's partly why I'm not really into skirmish games: most of them are set at that personal level but don't have that personal feel. That's where fantasy or SF come into their own for me, in the form of RPGs. I know many of you will respond the same way as the late great Iain M. Banks did when I mentioned them to him - "to me, RPG means rocket-propelled grenade" - but I am not averse to skipping a shower*, donning my anorak*, saying something crass to demonstrate my poor social skills* and enjoying some fantasy role-playing (RuneQuest II being my preferred flavor). A great mix of high drama and low comedy as characters swing on chandeliers only to land in cesspits, etc etc etc.

Roll on puberty*.


*For the avoidance of doubt: all this meant self-deprecatingly/ironically, not insulting anyone else.

Right then, I've done some editing/deleting of posts here to clean up any potentially insulting/derogatory comments, so can we keep things polite going forward please?  If you don't like a genre/period then explain why you don't play those games, rather than why you don't like those gamers.  'I don't like tricorns' or 'I like more colour on the table' or 'The tactics of the period were too limited' or 'I've never found a set of rules that really works for me'.  That kind of thing please.

Thank you Leon. Sorry.

May I pick up on what Luddite wrote? ECW battles seem "predicable and formulaic". Made me think about another period that I want to like and yet can't get excited about and that's the Franco-Prussian War. Granted I've not done a lot of reading about it, but it seems to me to be a Germanic canter towards Paris. I know, the war lasted many months, but there is an inevitability to German victory that puts me off. To quote Wikipedia "the German forces were superior in numbers, had better training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology, particularly railroads and artillery." Contrast that to 1940, when the French should have done better, and with better tactics *ahem* do.

Possibly this one-sidedness is why I don't game 1945. Children with Panzerfausts against T34's isn't for me. Possibly also why I can't get excited about the Romans/Gauls and many of the Colonial Wars. Yes, I know about Isandlwana and Teutoburg Forest, but there's a certain inevitability about it all.

I'm also interested in the concept of the "level" of game. I game WWII on a 1:1 level ("Grand skirmish"?) up to company strength, but I couldn't see me doing the same sort of thing for say, Napoleonics or Ancients.  Similarly, I'm not attracted to WWII at the division level, but that's the "right" level for Napoleonics. I've done Medieval and Dark Age at skirmish and bigger levels, both very enjoyably.

Tend to agree with a lot fsn's last post, except perhaps for the ECW, for which I have a soft spot.

Colonial and Early Romans are too one-sided for me although I do have a large Trajanic force in 15mm to battle the Dacians, who seem to be the only "barbarians" who have much of a chance of doing any damage to the legions unless you look at Parthians and Sassanids. The problem here is that, as someone has mentioned, the armies are unbalanced with masses of horse against foot.

ACW and late 19th century also don't do it for me, not quite sure why, although I think a lack of colour plays a part and that also goes for WWI. although I have a small force of Germans and Russians for the Tannenberg campaign.

It seems that in common with others on this board my likes and dislikes are a tad schizophrenic  

You make and important point, fsn - my "level" of interest varies from time to time and place to place. FPW works best for me at brigade/division  level, "ECW" at battalion/company/swarm level, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy at 1:1 or small unit level.

Of course now I have to rabbit on:
What you say about FPW seems very true but the French had a better, longer ranged rifle and working "machine guns" (which they, evidently couldn't figure out how to deploy) so the gaming possibilities for competitive contests abound, particularly if the Prussian Artillery is a bit off. I got hooked on the FPW by reading Zola again.

I offer to you  the same invite that I did to Luddite regarding the "ECW" - come out to the Celtic Fringe! 

I thought I would like Pikemen's Lament (yes, I know  ) but didn't although theoretically it should do exactly what I want to do in the period.
I Like Ganesha Games rules family much better. Point is even if you like the level the rules seem equally important.

Oops! Posted over top of you, Malbork - Yup same softness for ECW

Quote from: d_Guy on 17 March 2017, 04:17:34 PM
"ECW" at battalion/company/swarm level

What? How does that work? Tell me more!

Just to point our, that was Luddite's comment on the ECW. My beef with the whole pike and shotte era is the number of different unit types you have to field. Then again I've never considered it at such a low level. I am intrigued.     

Sorry - I though you were agreeing with the concept "predictable and formulaic" as it applied to ECW (which I tend to agree with, as well - particularly for the large set-piece battles - Edgehill, Marston Moor, Naseby, etc - Although I like them too).

With a few exceptions the battles fought in Ireland and Scotland were much smaller affairs (often with company sized units playing significant roles). I like stuff out on the "fringe"  because often as not the armies are ad hoc with hugely variable troop and weapon quality/variety. Pike and shotte is still the core component and everybody tried to use the "set-piece" formations, it's just that often it couldn't be executed properly or the forces available simply didn't  fit!

I very much like Baroque for the larger actions (about 5,000  up to 12,000 total combatants) because I enjoy  the way it plays and I think it is very scalable (others might disagree).

For smaller actions (and they are myriad - real and imaged - less then 1,500 combatants maybe) - I use a homebrewed system based on Ganesha's "Flashing Steel". These  can be raids, sieges, assaults on everthing from stronghold walls to street barricades to a tavern.
Much of this deals with militia and civilians. The story telling possibilities are endless.

Finally, I know you enjoy AFV's (an understatement I think) so I assume you have artillary, air, and infantry support. A much more complicated mixed force structure than ECW (I think anyway).

Quote from: d_Guy on 17 March 2017, 04:17:34 PM
What you say about FPW seems very true but the French had a better, longer ranged rifle and working "machine guns" (which they, evidently couldn't figure out how to deploy)

The mitrailleuse?  Aye, although it was more of a volley gun than a machine wasn't it?  I've always thought of it more an a sort of massive shotgun,  Hehe...

You're right about them misusing it though.  Apparently is was deployed in the rear with the artillery...err...

As to the viability of FPW, although the war itself appears to have been a bit of a walkover, wasn't that more to do with the Prussian officer class actually being trained?  I'm fairly sure if i'm commanding them, the Prussians are on a sticky wicket from the off...


I'm certainly intrigued to give it a go.  I have the Prussians done - just The France to finish painting.
I think if you set the victory conditions around "how long can the French hold on for", it could make for some very viable battles.  Puts the pressure on the Prussians to have to take ground against the wall of superior French musketry.

Is it true to characterise it as "the Chassepot vs. the Krupp steel artillery"?