I have discovered I do not like what is called a "tactical-level solitaire tabletop wargame," that are basically story based solitaire wargames. The two I own are The Hunters and Picket Duty. This type of game typically receives raving reviews. The games B-17 and The Hunters are excellent examples of games in the genre that are very popular and have high reviews. For the games they are, they have their appeal. Why would someone not recommend them? That is what I'm going to explain.
At first when I played The Hunters, I enjoyed the game and saw how the game played out. That was fine. I then played Picket Duty and discovered as a player, I really did not make many choices. It seemed like I was just going through each turn sequence and rolling dice on different charts. I basically lost interest in Picket Duty. I then watched a review of Devil Boats and heard how many charts and dice rolls took place. The comment was made that there was little player choices. I guess I had my eureka moment; I do not like games that have almost no player decisions. These games basically just follow a flow chart model with tables with results that are decided upon based on dice rolls. I think as a wargamer I want my decisions to positively or negatively impact the game/battles/campaign. The players pride themselves on the cool stories that come out of the game. I'd argue that I'd rather the cool stories come out out of player decisions with some randomness rather than mainly tables and dice rolls.
Maybe in submarines, destroyers, PT Boats, and bombers you really don't have many choices you can make, and you really just have to sit back and see what happens. I think they would be a lot more fun if the player was able to make more decisions.
For now, I can't recommend this genre of board games.
Games mentioned in this blog post:
The Hunters: German U-Boats at War, 1939
Picket Duty: Kamikaze Attacks against U.S. Destroyers - Okinawa, 1945
I recently dove into wargaming the naval aspect of the Boshin War. Boshin War?
This war took place in Japan 1868-69. The war was fought between supporters of the Imperial Court and supporters of the Shogunate. The Imperial Court won the war, unifying Japan under the Imperial Court. The Emperor moved from Kyoto to Edo. Edo was renamed to Tokyo. This war was in the middle of Japan's modernization.
Spithead Miniatures let it be known in 2020 that they would be producing ships for this period and noted that William Warner had produced a book on the subject. I am definitely interested in the post Age of Sail to pre-dreadnought period. I have ran American Civil War, Russo-Japanese, Sino-Japanese games and the Battle of Riachuelo in South America. No problem signing me up for Boshin War.
Here are some Boshin War hobby resources:
Warships of the Late Tokugawa Conflicts: Japan (1853-1870) by William Eugene Warner
Knowing that I would be buying miniatures for the war, I needed to read up on the conflict. This book is published by Amazon and printed to order. The book was ordered, printed and arrived in three days...impressive. There are 213 pages full of great background history on the naval aspects of the war with lots of maps and photos. All major warships are covered with sketches and profiles. Information about the weapons and flags are provided as well.
The book is not perfect. Almost every page has grammatic, punctuation, or spelling errors. An example of how bad it is, there are two full paragraphs that are repeated in one chapter. The volume of errors in the book is pretty bad. I have encountered this before with other authors who choose not to use an editor. I wish all self published authors used editors. I hope the facts in the book are correct as I really don't have another source.
Even with all the errors, I recommend this book. The content is perfect for those interested in wargaming the naval aspect of the war.
My overview of the book.
Spithead Miniatures - Boshin War miniatures
Spithead just manufactured the 1:1200 miniatures for the conflict. The hulls are resin and the masts are pewter. There are seven Shogunate and seven Imperial ships available. A flag sheet is provided.
The post about the miniatures is available on Facebook: Facebook Link
Ironclad 2: Boshin War game
This is a PC game available on Steam. The game allows you to play either side with the objective to capture key harbours. At the end of the game based on what key harbours, points are totaled and then it is determined if you won the war. You spend money on infantry and warships to try to blockade, engage warships, siege or assault a harbour. The game is mainly designed as a warship simulation. The campaign portion of the game is just to give context and variability to naval battles.
The ship models look really good, but are not completely accurate to the real ship. The look the period, but based on what I've seen from Warner's book and the Spithead miniatures, they need rework. The naval battles will run for a long time, but are probably accurate due to the small number of guns on each ship. The developer initially came out with the original Ironclads game c.2008. The Boshin War game came out in 2017. They have released many Ironclad games based on wars in the period. I have played the original game and this one.
The game lacks tutorials and you should read the manual before playing. I stumbled through the game and the manual. I finally figured it out and it played okay. The highlight of the game is looking at the ship models in battle. It is unfortunate there are no islands or coastline in the battles, as historically this was almost always present, as well as coastal guns. There are a few bugs while playing the game, but nothing causing the game to crash. The naval battles are long and not very exciting, but I think it gives a good impression on what the battles were like.
For a $10 game, I think it is worth it for those that want to try out naval battles in the Boshin War.
The Boshin War: Civil War in Japan, 1868-69 by David Manley
This is a simple campaign system for generating naval battles using miniatures. Ship data is provided for ships in the campaign. David is one of the foremost naval wargame rules writers in the hobby, and supports all naval wargaming eras and has not overlooked the Boshin War. I suspect he generated this system for his own interest and shared it with the rest of us in the hobby. This is much appreciated as it will give good tabletop game variation. There are a total of 13 pages of rules which makes it a easy campaign system to play out. Since there are not many ships on either side in this war, it makes sense to keep the campaign system simple.
I look forward to using this system. It is available from Wargame Vault.
We enjoy painting up miniatures for wargames using a set of rules with dice and tape measures. What are some hobbies inside the miniature wargaming hobby that could be classified as a sub-hobby? Below are my list of sub-hobbies that I have come across.
Collecting Miniatures
I am not familiar with this, but I guess there are gamers out there that are interested in purchasing all the miniatures from a manufacturer for a specific army. I suspect this is more the case for non-historical miniatures. I have recently been seeing gamers really focus on purchasing the latest from Warlord Games. This could also include collecting a full Army such as all Napoleonic British Regiments from any manufacturer. Maybe even if they never fought in a battle.
Sculpt Miniatures/Terrain
This is another interest that I am not familiar with. There are dedicated sculptors out there that do this as a career. I'm sure there are those that do it as a hobby, but I have yet to meet on. I have not cast my own miniatures or terrain. I guess this could be a good way to save on buying miniatures or terrain.
Building Terrain
It is common in the hobby for people to build all sorts of different terrain for their battles. Now thanks to the internet, there are all sorts of resources out there to learn how to build terrain. Some have turned it into a business providing terrain for those that want to expand what they have and/or feel they lack the skills to do it themselves. Some really enjoy making their own terrain. I have realized that you need space to store all the resources to build terrain. I might have a square foot or two more room for terrain supplies.
Painting (Personal or Commissions)
I think this is the most common/popular thing that people focus on in the hobby. They enjoy painting quality miniatures and showing them off on the game table, conventions, magazines or online. There are those in the hobby where painting quality miniatures comes before gaming with those miniatures. Potentially these miniatures may never end up in a game.
Collecting Rules
Some gamers enjoy collecting rules for a specific period. Over the years there can be a lot of rules written for certain periods (i.e. Napoleonic). It can be interesting to see all the different mechanics in the rules and see how they compare to each other. The collection may be unintentional, as the gamer hopes the latest rules released are better than older rules. If you focus on a specific period it almost makes sense to have a good collection of rules.
Writing Rules
A portion of the hobby enjoy writing rules for their periods of interest. Some focus their hobby exclusively on writing rules. A rules writer that comes to mind is David Manley who has written a good collection of naval wargaming rules. Local to me, I know a handful of gamers who write rules. I leave the rules writing to the experts and am very thankful for their contribution to the hobby.
Research Game Scenarios
I'm not sure how common this is in the hobby. Do most people just throw down games based on a point system, take a scenario from a book, or just use what miniatures/terrain they currently have? A researched game scenario may involve going through various books and maps to build a historic based scenario in conjunction with a specific ruleset. It can involve many playtests to work out an enjoyable game. If a ruleset has not been initially chosen, researching/purchasing of various rulesets may be needed for the scenario before one is finalized to be used. Some gamers really enjoy learning the history of a specific battle or period and hopefully can generate fun scenarios.
Club or Convention Volunteering
A great way to be more involved with fellow gamers is volunteering at a gaming club or convention. Most volunteering does not involve much of your time and gets you more "plugged in" to the local gaming community. Clubs and conventions are always looking for volunteers.
3D Printing
This is a new option in the hobby to explore making your own miniatures or terrain. This can be very interesting for those that like gadgets, computers and learning new software. This is certainly not for everyone but I'm sure it can be very enjoyable. I have thought about it, but I really don't have the space to put it and I'm still happy with dealing with the vendors to buy what I need.
Online Videos
I have found this to be a common outlet for gamers these days. There are no shortage of YouTube channels dedicated to wargaming, mainly painting miniatures. Most are pointing their cameras to their painting desk and showing off what they are working on, rules, or unboxing a game or box of miniatures. There is a lot of content being created and gamers seem to enjoy making the videos. I've made a few so far and enjoy trying to make something different. It does take some time to make a video that is heavily edited. I guess the videos are basically just showing off your hobby. Some people have and continue to share some very useful hobby tips.
Podcasts
In this day and age, Podcasting is an old media, but still a good way to have a conversation with fellow gamers. Listeners tend to enjoy listening to podcasts while painting. I have not had good success with finding good podcasts and I think I'm more of a visual guy. A regular podcast schedule, of say a weekly upload, appears to be the format podcasters use. Another reason I seem to not like podcasts is their discussions are all over the gaming genders. I have no interest in hearing about upcoming 40k releases or fantasy rules for example. I think podcasting can be a great outlet for those that like to talk about aspects of the hobby they are interested in and you can pull others in to have a fun discussion.
Writing Articles / Blog
Writing about the hobby is another outlet to share with others a specific topic. Any aspect of the hobby can be shared. The good thing about writing is you can work on it over a longer time to build the article, making edits to improve it, and then release it when finished. A blog allows for multiple media materials for the blog post (videos, photos, graphs, etc.). If you are not comfortable talking or showing your face on video or on a podcast, writing is a great outlet to share your hobby. It is very easy to write articles and share them, like on this blog-publishing service.
Reading
This could be a sub-hobby to wargaming. An example could be an interest in wargaming English Civil War (ECW), and then a want to read up on the war/period. This could involve reading multiple books on the topic. This is beyond what is needed to paint up the miniatures and play ECW games. I will say, those that specialize in a period are probably very well read in that period.
What sub-hobbies are you involved in the Miniature Wargaming hobby? Here are what I think mine are:
Building Terrain
I try to make the terrain look like the historic battlefield. This has involved making custom buildings for example.
Painting
I have never paid someone to paint my miniatures (yet). I enjoy painting to a level that works for me.
Research Game Scenarios
I enjoy this a lot. I try to dive as much as I can into learning about a battle to build the historic scenario to an accurate level that works for me.
Club or Convention Volunteering
I continue to volunteer at my club (i.e. Secretary) and local conventions.
Writing Articles / Blog
I edit a club monthly newsletter and have this blog.
Reading
The variety of books I have read since joining the hobby is substantial to me. I probably would not have read such a variety had I not joined the hobby. Potentially I may not have read as many books period. Who knows, maybe I would have just stuck to Fantasy and WWII.
Compared to the 1980s, there are a lot more sub-hobbies available for Gamers to get into.
I'm sure I missed a few sub-hobbies. Let me know if you can think of some more.
