Growing up, my childhood was full of men and women with still strong and in some cases very recent memories of their experiences with WW2 and The Vietnam War. Many of the men in my life bore the physical, mental, and spiritual scars of what they experienced in both those wars. Even those who didn't go to war themselves shared in that grief, loss, and shared nightmare. Sure, they dealt with it is their own ways, some healthier than others, but it was in the collective psyche of those generations and carried over into mine.
As I started to get into wargames, I realized that the interest in these periods was pervasive in nearly everything, along with Cold War themes of "the other", global anihilation, invasion (both overt and secret) and even the growing depersonalization of the world. My early experiences in miniatures were limited to science fiction and fantasy where these themes were often buried deeply under the popular IPs of the time - Lord of the Rings, D&D and Star Wars. Sure, we saw the holdovers from earlier days of scifi and fantasy with a lot of Frazetta fueled fantasy as well and Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and John Carter throwbacks.
It wasn't until I was a bit older and started to look at the wider world of miniatures games out there, both ahistorical and historical alike that I started to realize that the science fiction of the era was still firmly entrenched in the WW2 and Vietnam experiences. This was often spurred on by many of the authors of the time writing science fiction based on their own war experiences and making none-too-subtle analogies to them in their work which then translated over to what wargames players wanted to put on their tables. This led to nearly every science fiction army being a laser, hovertank, power armor version of real world forces from now ten, twenty, even forty years prior. I even saw this in the historical ranges where "modern" ranges were still producing 1970s-80s hardware and barely advancing into what was coming out in the 90s, even though we were seeing this hardware getting used more and more.
Flash forward to when I was an aspiring miniatures producer, myself. Now that I was in the driver's seat, I set out to try to break the mold of these old ways of thinking but despite my intentions, I ran smack into the wall of those same ways of thinking. Time and again I was confronted by customer feedback asking me where unit X or vehicle option Y was. Why didn't my advanced space dinosaurs who fought a fast-moving attack style warfare have mortars, rocket launcher, and heavy wepon emplacements? Nevermind that the army as envisioned had evrything it need to fight its style of warfare. Rocket launchers weren't needed when space dinos had portable plasma launchers that did the job just fine. Why mortars when you have drones that can rain down fire on entrenched enemies? I saw this sort of thinking over and over and it absolutely reduced my pool of customers.
So, here we are, the year 2025. We live in a world beyond the speculative timelines of most hard scifi with little to show for it but we have seen changes in warfare. Sure a lot of the familiar players are there. We still have tanks and mortars, silles and rockets. But we're starting to see a lot of info fighting and drone tech. Robots on are on the horizon and materials technology seems to be pushingthe envelop one again. We've seen small changes in military structure and use and the sorts of fights we have compared to what we've had before. Yes, much has stayed the same, but a lot has changed and I think we are starting to see it in the games and miniatures ranges that companies are putting out.
It is my hope that designers and customers will start to appreciate the possibility of thinking creatively and once again dreaming of what warfare might look like in a future we have yet to see. Maybe it really comes down to the potential customer base. Companies will only continue to make it, if customers buy it. Maybe we've rounded the bend. Maybe it's time to let new wars inspire the imagination fo wargamers.
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Interesting and thought provoking post, Eli. Made me think back to my rationale for mortars, HMG's, etc. and for me, I rationalised that whatever species or tech advances were made that allowed the infantry to carry more firepower would apply to everything. Therefore, the vehicles and defensive structures would be stronger and there would be a weapon more powerful than an individual could carry. Consequently the infantry or the generals would want to back that infantry up with heavier firepower to take on the equally upgraded vehicles and defences. A simplistic view of the attack-defence arms race, but it works for me !
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Martin.
Fair enough, though I think it is also possible to imagine a trajectory of military development that didn't max everything out due to specific preferred methods of fighting. Using the Chuhuac, for example, they like to keep it moving and as such haven't really invested in heavy armor. They have heavy hitting weapons on their lighter vehicles like the Vasseth light fighting vehicle, but they don't have anything in the realm of an MBT, at least not at the time of the current state of their miniatures range. This might change after they fought against something their weapons couldn't handle, but the minis line isn't there yet.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. We've entered an entirely new era of warfare. It's time for game designers like me and miniature manufactures to step up and explore it.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. I found it so wild that customers would not buy lines of science fiction miniatures that didn't have old tech options.
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