I tend to steer clear of things in my living memory, so I'm not going to be playing the Falklands - I was in the RAF myself at the time and knew some guys who were there. That said I was happy to wargame the 6 Day War in the past and that was also in my lifetime!

Unlike fsn, I find I am more drawn to the British in WW2, having "less of a cultural and national connection to Russians" seems to make me less interested in gaming them!

An uncle in the Lancashire Fusiliers was captured at Dunkirk, but I'm more than happy to play 1940 games, other relatives served in Italy and later in Korea and I play both of them as well. Having the personal connection is what attracts me to the period/campaign.

As it seems with many others of you, there are so things I would steer clear of, as being in bad taste for a game. I did play in one game where one player was the Gestapo in France, but that was very "Allo, Allo" in style, so it didn't feel so bad.
I did know one guy who wanted to game insurgents in Iraq a couple of years back, which I objected to strongly. On the other hand I know a couple of squaddies who were painting Brits and Iraqis as soon as they were home from a tour, I guess it's a case of personal taste.

Related to this discussion, I've just put up a blog post defending wargamers and wargaming. It was prompted by someone commenting on a friend's Facebook page that they were a bit leery of historical wargames because real people died in real battles;
http://russellphillips.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/in-defence-of-wargamers/

I think the general public hold a lot of misconceptions about wargamers. Hopefully this will make a few realise that we're not a bunch of warmongering idiots.

Very well put, Russell. Agree totally.

Quote from: Russell Phillips on 16 May 2013, 08:01:12 AM
Hopefully this will make a few realise that we're not a bunch of warmongering idiots.

.. and any that disagree should be PUT TO THE SWORD!!!

If I might bring up a point here, which I hope folk won't feel is tasteless....It's meant as a serious question that I was discussing with Mart 'the vehicle' (Mart 678) a few days ago regarding wounded/dead figures.

A 'pose' that I was almost dreading to be asked to make for the Falkland's range was a wounded figure.....Or figures. (I wasn't anyway, so the 'problem' never arose.)
I'm sure it won't just be myself that would feel a casualty from a conflict of recent times just wouldn't be right to have portrayed as a model on a tabletop....To me it would be 'tasteless/offensive'.....But that's just my very personal point of view.

But then I realized that I had absolutely NO problem at all converting some dead/casualty figures from the 19th (?) Century......I didn't have any qualms about doing those at all !

Then I followed that with the thought that I wouldn't feel in the slightest bit guilty with doing 'the bad guys' from even more recent conflicts....But only them !!..NOT the good guys !!..... Very strange, or is it because I feel 'the bad guys' (In my opinion) deserve what they get.

What do other members feel is 'the cut off point' for having wounded models on the table ?.....Maybe you don't like using them ....full stop !!....

Cheers - Phil.

I don't use wounded figures at all on the table top. I just don't like the look of it, much prefering small die to record casualties.

I only a injured/dead figure on the odd diorama style bases

Quote from: Techno on 19 May 2013, 07:59:29 AM
To me it would be 'tasteless/offensive'.....But that's just my very personal point of view.

Fair enough but i think i'd look to the dying Gaul as the model for why wounded/dying figures aren't a problem.



It, and by association they, represent the nobility of personal sacrifice in the most ignoble thing we do as humans - war.

Quote
But then I realized that I had absolutely NO problem at all converting some dead/casualty figures from the 19th (?) Century......I didn't have any qualms about doing those at all !

We forgive as we forget?


As to Russell's 'In defence' article, i understand the sentiment.  For me however, its slightly pious and condescending to wargamers i think.  For me, i think wargaming is just like every other form of civilian engagement with war (movies, books, documentaries, etc.) - in that its almost entirely disassociated.  When i'm playing a WWII scenario, for me there's no solemnity, or 'honouring the fallen', or whatever.  Its an interesting and fun pastime that allows me to engage in artistic creation (modelling/painting), male social interaction (through a cipher), and intellectual exercise in strategy/tactics.

I can understand the need to defend the hobby against detractors, but i think its as separate from actual war as anything else. 

I do think however, that historical wargamers probably know a lot more about war than the average person as we conduct pseudo-academic studies in constructing our armies, games, battles, etc.  But most wargamers haven't served so don't really understand the military and conflict any more than other civilians. 


OT
For me personally, i can't think of much that's 'off limits' for the table top.

Quote from: Steve J on 19 May 2013, 08:25:09 AM
I don't use wounded figures at all on the table top. I just don't like the look of it, much prefering small die to record casualties.

Hear, hear!

I have enough to do painting living/unwounded figures without the added burden of casualties.

However, I can conceive of scenarios when the wounded become an integral part. One often reads of withdrawing units taking their casualties with them, or rescuing them. In Viet Nam the recovery of bodies was of great importance.

Generally however, I don't use casualty figures. They just make my table untidy. I know that's "unrealistic", but I agin' 'em.   

Quote from: Techno on 19 May 2013, 07:59:29 AM
But then I realized that I had absolutely NO problem at all converting some dead/casualty figures from the 19th (?) Century......I didn't have any qualms about doing those at all !

Yes its a strange way we think. 

Its perfectly ok to display an egyptiam mummy in a museum, or desecrate a grave from the middle ages, keep the bones of warriors in a lab for examination into the wounds suffered and how they died. 

But iits not ok to exhume the bones of a WW1 soldier and keep him in the lab to see what wounds he suffered and how he died  or display body parts in a museam - Look at all the controversy with Damian Hirst.

We are fickle creatures.

Quote from: Just a few Orcs on 19 May 2013, 09:42:48 PM

But iits not ok to exhume the bones of a WW1 soldier and keep him in the lab to see what wounds he suffered and how he died  or display body parts in a museam - Look at all the controversy with Damian Hirst.

You can get away with anything in the name of "art". Biggest confidence trick in human history. At least, the modern version is. Tracy Ermin's unmade bed? You're having a laugh! 

Quote from: Hertsblue on 20 May 2013, 08:27:26 AM
You can get away with anything in the name of "art"(...)

I think it's the same subject as our thread.    
"Where's the red line ?"

Quote from: Luddite on 19 May 2013, 09:39:24 AMAs to Russell's 'In defence' article, i understand the sentiment.  For me however, its slightly pious and condescending to wargamers i think.

I'm sorry you found it condescending, that certainly wasn't my intention.

Quote from: Luddite on 19 May 2013, 09:39:24 AMI do think however, that historical wargamers probably know a lot more about war than the average person as we conduct pseudo-academic studies in constructing our armies, games, battles, etc.  But most wargamers haven't served so don't really understand the military and conflict any more than other civilians.

I tend to agree, though I think we may disagree on details. I think the general public (or at least the media) sometimes forget that war leads to deaths. I think wargamers are less prone to forgetting that.

I guess the 'red line' here is death and the many and varied ways war has of bringing this about.

We live (in the UK) in a peculiar country where Christianity has given us a very twisted relationship to the dead.  Even those of us who've gone through the loss of a loved one, the relation to death and the funerary practices is oddly disassociated.  Our loved and lost are taken from us and handled by proxies (the government, the church, the funeral directors, etc.)

I think this and particularly the poisonous religious aspects make this subject in general a very difficult one.

To divert slightly, in a previous career I was an archaeologist with a special interest in Anglo-Saxon 'burials'.  In most cases we're excavating the remains ahead of construction work that will destroy the site.  I've had some particularly tetchy debates with Christians demanding all sorts for the excavation and treatment of the remains of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon bones and grave goods, and I've been abused and on one occasion physically attacked by these people.  I find it particularly odd coming from these, what shall I say, people (I wanted to say religious nutters) given the Christian practice of inhumation clearances from graveyards into an ossuary – something I've seen done with considerably less care than that taken during archaeological excavations.  This is further complicated when we know that pre-Christian societies (and possibly early Anglo-Saxons) lived with the bones and relics of their dead in their dwellings in what is likely to have been a far more emotionally healthy way than we do today.

The point I'm crudely trying to make is that our individual and cultural attitudes towards death are oddly problematic.

Translate that over into wargaming and I think it adds the further complication of our cultural disassociation and disengagement with the reality of warfare.  We live in a culture that sends our young men to fight, kill and die on foreign soil, but our media replaces images of the results with the 'burned out car'.

For me, wargaming has almost nothing to do with warfare and any attempt to link the two is largely false.  For me wargaming the 101st Airbourne's attack on Foy isn't linked in any meaningful way to the actual event, and I find a suggestion to the contrary baffling.  Pushing toy soldiers around a table has nothing to do with the sacrifices and traumas that real soldiers throughout history have faced.  

To borrow a well-worn phrase; 'war is hell'.

Wargaming isn't (although a string of '1's' can make it seem like it!).  

Wargaming is a fun pastime where we can indulge our creativity, socialise with like-minded chaps, and play games of strategy and tactics.  I've never once thought while advancing the Triari to plug the gap punched through my lines by a band of Gauls, 'how dreadful; this is such an homage to the suffering of these men.  I must roll these dice in the solemnity their sacrifices deserve'.  I'll be so bold as to suggest – neither have you.

So...where's the 'red line'?

There isn't one; or at least not a rational one.  Lets take a traditionally contentious scenario: The Escape from Sobibor.

Would you wargame the breakout of Jewish prisoners from a Nazi Deathcamp?  Probably not, but why not?  It'd have some really interesting challenges.

OK, what about The Escape from Colditz?  
Would you wargame the breakout of a bunch of jolly good British chaps from a Nazi POW camp?
I'll venture there are a fair few here who already have.

It's the same tactical scenario though, and I bet if I wrote it up as a sci-fi Firefly 'Escape from Robibos', with a group of Browncoats breaking out of an Alliance prison you wouldn't even question it.

For me, this is wargaming and any interesting tactical challenge is on the cards.  While researching a historical period or scenario, I may be given pause to consider the realities of what I'm reading, but ultimately when it hits the gaming table, its just a game.

It doesn't detract from, or honour the reality of the suffering and sacrifices of Varro's lost men, or the chaps left face down at Dunkirk, or the Brits/Argentinians killed on an icy windswept rock in the South Atlantic, or the Flower of French Nobility cut down at Crecy and Agincourt.  

So why would there ever be a 'red line'?


EDIT:  Just checked the 'latest posts'

[General Discussion] Re: ... but I won't do that! by Luddite Today at 11:45:08 AM
[Firelocks to Maxims (1680 - 1900)] Re: Inniskillings etc at the Boyne by Alan Today at 11:35:54 AM
[Photos] Re: SYW Piccy request by clibinarium Today at 10:56:36 AM


Given the devastation wrought on Ireland as a result, can you think of a more 'inappropriate' or contentious conflict to wargame?  Yet who here would or has would questioned it?

If this isn't a 'red line', what is!!