Younger wargamers?

[sebigboss79]

You want to have another route into the hobby. Indded tough as no other retailer has high street outlets. Independent retailers seldom ahve a huge variety. Besides GW just the usual suspects in forms of PP and BF.

But there are alternatives. I game (Urban War) in the local retailer and the game catches interest. I game 3mm scenarios and catch interest. I play with Pendrakens I catch interest.

Hence it is a matter of exposure on one hand and how that interest gets cultivated on the other. I let others generally join in my games giving them tactical advice of exactly WHY they should not move their CC specialist directly into LOS of enemy elite snipers etc.

I further believe it is the "older" players that should be looked at. Not only do they have the cash BUT also they do not randomly switch their interest to PC games, new women ... every other day. So you have a quite stable consumer base and can top up with younger gamers to make a quick sale.

[Luddite]

I suppose if there wwre some sort of 'national gaming guild' or something, dedicated to promoting wargaming, and with branches throughout the country capable of supporting after school clubs etc., we might have a chance.

Untill then (i.e. never), the young are stuck with GW's 'The Hobby'.

[Leon]

I'd really like to be able to bring in the younger players, but it requires a whole load of time and effort which we just don't have.  You also need the full package of rules / figures / scenery, and to an extent nice shiny packaging to catch their eye. 

I do wonder sometimes if there's anyway to tie in to local schools as part of the history curriculum.  As the eldest works his way through the school years, I'm keeping an eye on what subjects he's doing and whether there's anything we can help with.  A couple of weeks ago they were building papier-mache pyramids, so I gave him a few camels from the Sudan range to take into class!  I don't know how much the military aspect of history gets covered anymore though?  When I was at school, we seemed to cover the political aspects a whole lot more than anything else, especially with WW1 and Vietnam.

One of the other area's which always gives me hope is the popularity of things like Warcraft and Call of Duty.  Despite them being computer games, they are still bringing people into RPG and combat games.  If only 0.01% of those gamers took that interest into tabletop gaming, we'd probably double the number of wargamers in the UK overnight.

[ryman1]

I think it all comes down to exposure, when I was a boy the nearest thing I got to seeing historical models was the imperial war museum displays.
Like most kids I played with toy soldiers but saw them as just that - something to line up and knock down and but for a chance sighting of practical wargamer in a newsagents with a napoleonic cover (having just watched waterloo), I'd never had known there was a dedicated hobby.

At the same time I was well aware of D&D, some friends had the figures but it didn't interest me, games workshop was on the high street but again, no interest.
What I'm saying is - there is potentially a greater number of potential historical gamers/collectors amongst the kids of today than adults actually in the hobby now, they just need to know that historical gaming exists.

So, how to approach it and draw it new blood?, again it comes down to exposure; if each of us was willing to pin a notice for a local historical gaming club in the nearest library, or if manufacturers were willing to send a small selection of figures and perhaps a catalogue to any local schools they know of with an after school hobby club - who knows?, it might pique the interest of a kid who likes lining them up and knocking them down after watching gladiator/zulu etc, but can't stand the idea of eldars chasing ork boyz through a cavern of lost souls.

If there's one thing I think would make a marked difference, it has to be conventions, suppose south london warlords offered 10 free tickets to 10 local schools/cadet centres etc, that's 100 potential recruits, it's a case of catching them at the right time ( my brother went to a car show as a kid and now he's a mechanic and hooked on them).

That's my two pence worth, we just have to let them know we're here.

cheers

[Rob]

If there's one thing I think would make a marked difference, it has to be conventions, suppose south london warlords offered 10 free tickets to 10 local schools/cadet centres etc, that's 100 potential recruits, it's a case of catching them at the right time ( my brother went to a car show as a kid and now he's a mechanic and hooked on them).

A very good idea I think.

When I was looking at the possibilities of wargames in my teens I didn't consider things like painting and basing. I went to investigate the hobby at the "Worlds" which were then held in Notts and was completely blown away with the tables full of beautifully painted armies. An immediate convert.


Cheers Rob 

[Leon]

If there's one thing I think would make a marked difference, it has to be conventions, suppose south london warlords offered 10 free tickets to 10 local schools/cadet centres etc, that's 100 potential recruits, it's a case of catching them at the right time ( my brother went to a car show as a kid and now he's a mechanic and hooked on them).

That could be a really good idea actually.  I'd quite happily give out some free tickets for Smoggycon to schools if they were interested in coming along.  I might ask at the eldest's school and see if they'd be up for it.

[Nosher]

Trouble is we live in an era where instant gratfication is king.

Why spend a small fortune buying an army

Three months painting it

Two hours planning which rule set and scenario to play

Half an hour setting up a game

Four hours playing the game

Two hours debating why you lost again and what you'll do differently next time

Half an hour putting eveything away

Half an hour driving the twenty or so miles home from your 'local' club

Another hour with a beer pondering why you lost again and what you'll do differently next time

Five hours restless sleep worrying over how you might have misinterpreted the LOS rule

A week pondering if the army you spent 3 months painting is actually any good and fretting over why your opponents army looks better and he finished it in half the time

OR

Plug in and Play

[petercooman]

...

OR

Plug in and Play

Now i play video games too, not so much as wargaming but still like it. There is just one thing that makes me more satisfied when playing wargames than playing pc games, and that is the pride i can take when i can see my army on the table and know i have gone through most of the steps you just summed up, and it is an army I created, it is unique, two may look the same, but they are always different.

Problem with kids these days, they have so darn much, and they have to do soooo little to get it, that they don't realize the joy of building something yourself anymore.

Real life example, a collegue of mine showed me a video he made with his phone of his 3 year old making puzzles on an ipad. The lil lad put on the ipad , started puzzling, got bored, just put off the ipad..
I jokingly asked him if he could still make a normal puzze too. He thought i was being serious and sadly the answer was no. See what i mean? They are jused to just dragging their finger over the screen, and when it coms to matching the pieces putting them togheter and finishing soething they fail. They lost the sense of creating something from scratch.

Sadly it's the same in real life. Just look at the army and the news a while back about the medals given for remote drone control. My grandfather fought with the belgium "brigade piron" in the second world war, he never got any medals, and he didn't feel sorry he did. But he had to go into batte himself, carry his equipment, march , run, face enemy fire and see the horors of war up close. Now ty just have to fly a bot, and probably find it normal they get a medal for it. (not saying anything about the other branches of the military off course, i have the greatest of respect for the ones who put their life at risk)


(also if anybody is interested, heres a good site about the brigade piron, taht includes all the names of the soldiers.If you scroll  down, you will see "Cooman Lodewijk, who was my grandfather:  http://www.brigade-piron.be/noms_c_nl.html )

[Techno]

I think it's the 'creative' side that appeals to most folk that come into the hobby, as Peter indicates.
I've got a handful of video games for the PSP, which I quite enjoy playing from time to time....But they pall after a while (to me) and get rather boring, because I either get too competent at them and they're not a challenge any more....Or just the opposite. I'm totally hopeless at them and get completely frustrated.

It is such a shame that our younger 'devotees' only see GWs products as worth investigating...But that's down to the marketing I guess....Plus, I believe, peer pressure.
But the more folk the EE get interested in the hobby, the more will eventually leave the 'Dark Side' and see the Light.

One other point that I think someone mentioned earlier.
History lessons NEVER fired my enthusiasm for the subject when I was in my teens. (A very dry and uninteresting period ...for me.)...Now I want to know EVERYTHING.
Which is why I love this forum.

Cheers - Phil.

[Serotonin]

Im intent on warping my kids brains and making them wargamers, especially historical ones. My 6yr old has already painted a couple of figures and although we havent played a full wargame yet we made a rule set up to play with some Roman gladiators and he also likes playing Battlelore (a HYW/fantasy board wargame).

He's exposed to history through school, and so far Ive been impressed with how they teach it. Ive also been impressed with the TV (and book) series Horrible Histories which really seems to bring stories from hisotry to life often in a gruesome and amusing way. I laughed like a drain at their re-enactment of Agincourt which saw the French knights buried up to their necks in mud.

[Steve J]

Wonderfully summed up Nosher .

[Hertsblue]

Nosher,

You left out the three months to read, absorb and learn the rules. 

[Nosher]

Nosher,

You left out the three months to read, absorb and learn the rules. 

Unless you read Barkerese which takes a couple of lifetimes to digest

[Hertsblue]

Barkerese isn't so much a language, more of a code. If the Germans had used it instead of Enigma we'd have lost the war. 

[ronan]

(...)Two hours debating why you lost again and what you'll do differently next time
(...)

That's a really interesting part of our games !   

There are some young people here in our local club (Nantes). I'm not sure they spend a lot of time painting their armies, but they like the games. All these young people must stay in tune with their mates, so they don't have much time. Remember our "good old" times, no internet ( where we can find minis, army lists, rules, scenarios, and even opponents), no smartphone ( now we can join our friends and change the game in the last moment..)  And they have to meet girls ( remember ?  ;-) )
We'll see in a few years what will happen to them.
I'd like to know about older players, about 30 years old. Do you "paint and play" ?