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I don't mean just GW stuff, but wargaming and roleplaying in general? Both are very popular in the US and UK, but what about other countries?

One interesting thing I discovered talking to an exchange student: Tabletop D&D has surged in small-town Rumania. According to him, D&D groups have sprung up in many villages, with people gathering from miles around to play.

This is not so odd if you think about it. Mankind's oldest form of entertainment was probably story-telling, and many nights wrapped in fur around the campfire were probably spent in this activity. Now, though roleplaying games with dice and rules are a recent phenomenon, they require no real technological base. A six sided die or two, some hand written rules, and maybe some chess pieces and a board to represent players and monsters, and you are pretty well ready to go adventuring in wondrous lands. All that is left from there is the exercise of imagination.

Wargames require only a little more than this: some toy soldiers and terrain, and I have seen people get away with such replacements as (again) chess pieces, painted wooden blocks, paper minis downloaded from the web, books lain on the table for terrain etc.

Please note that I am not insulting the Rumanians as being a bunch of primitive slobs. In fact, I think this is great, and a very inexpensive way for people to enjoy each other's company.

So, if you know of any interesting or novel gaming anecdotes from your own land or one you've visited, please share.

Pretty big in Canadia and Australia, mainly English speaking countries. Seems fairly poplar in italy, france and spain. Germany too, duno about scandinavia. I always wonder if Japanese are into this, or are they just totally obsessed with gundam and anime derived toys/models/games. Their language is so different I think it would be hard for them to play these kind of games.

Cave_Dweller wrote: I always wonder if Japanese are into this, or are they just totally obsessed with gundam and anime derived toys/models/games. Their language is so different I think it would be hard for them to play these kind of games.

Interesting idea. I'd have thought that concepts like, "I roll to stick my katana into that Oni over by the statue of Buddha.", would be fairly universal, and the Japanese did have a pretty serious warrior culture. Why would you think language would be a barrier? I'm genuinely curious.

Zinderneuf wrote:

Cave_Dweller wrote: I always wonder if Japanese are into this, or are they just totally obsessed with gundam and anime derived toys/models/games. Their language is so different I think it would be hard for them to play these kind of games.

Interesting idea. I'd have thought that concepts like, "I roll to stick my katana into that Oni over by the statue of Buddha.", would be fairly universal, and the Japanese did have a pretty serious warrior culture. Why would you think language would be a barrier? I'm genuinely curious.

It's the execution of how the katana sticking goes down. Sure they've got RPGs, but they're different than western ones. final fantasy vs elder scrolls, for example.

But on the topic of war gaming I just don't see Japanese playing 40k or any of these games. The rules are quite complex and most of the japanse ive ever met spoke poor english. Maybe I'm wrong and it's hugely popular. The boxes for the models do have Japanese instructions on them, after all.

Cave_Dweller wrote:

Zinderneuf wrote:

Cave_Dweller wrote: I always wonder if Japanese are into this, or are they just totally obsessed with gundam and anime derived toys/models/games. Their language is so different I think it would be hard for them to play these kind of games.

Interesting idea. I'd have thought that concepts like, "I roll to stick my katana into that Oni over by the statue of Buddha.", would be fairly universal, and the Japanese did have a pretty serious warrior culture. Why would you think language would be a barrier? I'm genuinely curious.

It's the execution of how the katana sticking goes down. Sure they've got RPGs, but they're different than western ones. final fantasy vs elder scrolls, for example.

But on the topic of war gaming I just don't see Japanese playing 40k or any of these games. The rules are quite complex and most of the japanse ive ever met spoke poor english. Maybe I'm wrong and it's hugely popular. The boxes for the models do have Japanese instructions on them, after all.

I wonder if we have any Japanese members? Or maybe some US troops stationed in Japan could tell us if they play with the locals?

On the GW site, I recall there being showcases of models that were painted by Japanese members, so I would say it does have something of a following.

Cave_Dweller wrote:

The rules are quite complex and most of the japanse ive ever met spoke poor english.

Wow. What a ridiculous observation. Don't get out of the cave much?

You do realize that there are just about 130 000 000 people living in Japan?

I cant imagine GW stuff is that popular in Japan else there would be more GW stores there.

I would say table top war gaming has been around in one form or another since the beginning of human time. I can see cave men sitting around the campfire with twigs going over how to approach, surround and take down animals for food. I can see Egyptians, greeks, romans, just about everyone doing this so solders learn and understand large and small unit tatics.

I can see children of noblemen playing with tin solders in 16-1700's learning how to think on the spot so they could become famous solders or mercs in the wars that where going on in Europe at the time.


I would say the historical side of ttwg is bigger then GW can ever be. More players, more companys producing models equal's more choice for the consumer.

tl;dr very popular =o]

In Russia: many of my friends play RPGs in one form or another; I would not say it is huge, but you can find a group quite easily if you want to. I would imagine the main difference is when you guys think of RPGs you probably think ADND and similar rulesets, while we mostly play just by storytelling, with little to no dice rolls involved. At least that's the style I see in my town, it may be different in other places.

Wargames are much less popular; people generally understand building and collecting scale models, but wargaming is rather recent thing. We do have companies like Zvezda carrying rather good historical miniature ranges; Zvezda also tried to go into 28mm, but that was an epic fail. Warhammer is the most popular non-historical wargame, though by that I mean we have like 3 specialized shops in Moscow and maybe 8 40k players in my town. There are (official) russian translations for all warhammer books, so I don't think it is any harder for people to understand the concepts. We also played Mordheim for several years.

Minor nit pick, its Romania OP.

I sell a good deal on ebay. I ship at least 2 packages a month to Japan. That's less than 1% but I do sell to Japanese.

Can´t imagine how it could possibly be:

1- It requires a sizeable amount of space. In short supply in Japan.
2- As nice as gw models might be, why would a japanese boy play with a foregneir inferior model kit, when they have some many awesome manufacturers and models right there for cheaper.

Im quite sure there has to be a 40k equibalent there, Japanese people have a very old very wonderfull warrior background/history. I just doubt its 40k/fantasy the one they play.

Someone on another board told me there are mini war gamers and 40K players but card games are king there.

Compared to other hobbies of the 16-30 year old male demographic, not very.

Well, let me tell you a strange story. I went to Qdoba a while back and went through the line. I just happened to be carrying the 40k Chaos Space Marine codex. The hispanic cook saw it, and proceeded to tell me he used to play 40k in Argentina and didn't know people played 40k in the city. Next thing I know, he's at the FLGS every Saturday.

xxvaderxx wrote:
Japanese people have a very old very wonderfull warrior background/history. I just doubt its 40k/fantasy the one they play.

And Americans have the Cowboy / Indian / U.S. Cavalry tradition of the Old West, Britain has the Colonial and Medieval tradition, Italy has the Roman Empire, but other nation's, fantasy and SF are popular in all of these places.

 Zinderneuf wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
Japanese people have a very old very wonderfull warrior background/history. I just doubt its 40k/fantasy the one they play.

And Americans have the Cowboy / Indian / U.S. Cavalry tradition of the Old West, Britain has the Colonial and Medieval tradition, Italy has the Roman Empire, but other nations, fantasy and SF are popular in all of these places.

Begone, vile necromancer!

M:tG is pretty big in Japan, and its rules are much more complex than most wargames. So no, language is not a barrier. If it's not popular there, it's not because of language. I'm sure some of them would find it insulting that one would think they can't grasp the rules because it's originally in English and it's complex.

 Cave_Dweller wrote:
Pretty big in Canadia and Australia, mainly English speaking countries. Seems fairly poplar in italy, france and spain. Germany too, duno about scandinavia. I always wonder if Japanese are into this, or are they just totally obsessed with gundam and anime derived toys/models/games. Their language is so different I think it would be hard for them to play these kind of games.

Ya know whay, it is possible to have stuff written in languages other than English....

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/home.jsp?setLocale=ja_JP&_requestid=2139840

I have no idea how popular 40k is in Japan, but popular enough to print books in Japanese and there is a few stockests and 2 GW stores.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/storelocator/list.jsp

 Zinderneuf wrote:

This is not so odd if you think about it. Mankind's oldest form of entertainment was probably story-telling, and many nights wrapped in fur around the campfire were probably spent in this activity. Now, though roleplaying games with dice and rules are a recent phenomenon, they require no real technological base. A six sided die or two, some hand written rules, and maybe some chess pieces and a board to represent players and monsters, and you are pretty well ready to go adventuring in wondrous lands. All that is left from there is the exercise of imagination.

You don't need any of that for most games. Many modern freeform RPGs require a few rules and that is it. Even story telling around a camp fire requires some rules, even if they are not written down or even spoken, if it is an interactive "RPG" type story telling rather than just sitting and listening. The rules that say "this is your part, this is what you can do. No you can't play a god that defeats everyone buy just thinking about it."

D&D is the GW of roleplay, but with much less of a market share.

 Zinderneuf wrote:

Wargames require only a little more than this: some toy soldiers and terrain, and I have seen people get away with such replacements as (again) chess pieces, painted wooden blocks, paper minis downloaded from the web, books lain on the table for terrain etc.

Chess IS a wargame. Wargames are probably modern compared to story biased roleplay games, but they are not new by any means.

wargaming outside of GW is pretty fething obscure in the UK. I would go so far as to say it was statistically insignificant.

 Testify wrote:
wargaming outside of GW is pretty fething obscure in the UK. I would go so far as to say it was statistically insignificant.

Cannot say i agree with that, for example the local club near me opens it doors to GW games once a week, think it might be twice now but for most the evenings its historical games that are played. From Field of Glory to force on force even some Bolt Action and Blitzkrieg commander now.

One thing i have noticed as well, i used to have to shop around to pick up a copy of Wargames Illustrated or Miniature Wargames, only the more specialist newsagents carried them but these days i can pick them up pretty much anywhere, and to my annoyance the local smiths often sells out quickly. This is a pretty good sign that the none GW industry is doing well and growing in the UK.

You also only have to look in the back of any of those magazines to see the sheer amount of wargaming events across the UK held all the time, events that have nothing to do with GW

Have also noticed more 'model' shops that are carrying 28mm plastics such as warlords stuff, as well as 15mm plastic soldier company goodies. And look at Plastic Soldier Company, a UK based place producing fantastic WW2 stuff for the war gaming market not the model makers. But we have seen this trend in 1/72 for a while, with armour fast etc producing cheap quick assembly models aimed at the war gaming market.

As someone who got fed up with the cost of GW sold his stuff and went onto to other games, i think the wargaming scene outside GW is not obscure and is growing in its significance.

When I was stationed in Korea we use to stop by a store outside of Osan AFB. We could pick up Battletech, GW and all sorts of RPGs. It was a shock to us when we rounded the corner and on the second floor there was posters in the window. Our KATUSAs use to play RPGs all the time to the point I had to take thier dice away when they doing PDF.

 Testify wrote:
wargaming outside of GW is pretty fething obscure in the UK. I would go so far as to say it was statistically insignificant.

Sarcasm. Surely?

Never heard about it while living in Portugal. Only started once I moved to the UK. Now everytime I try to find any organized play back home it seems most of it is done in very small contained groups

 scipio.au wrote:

 Testify wrote:
wargaming outside of GW is pretty fething obscure in the UK. I would go so far as to say it was statistically insignificant.

Sarcasm. Surely?

Yeah, considering the number of good sized historical miniatures figures manufacturers located in the UK (Essex, Irregular, Peter Pig, etc.) as well as the number of seminal historical wargamers (Bruce Quarrie, Donald Featherstone, etc.) that statement is either sarcastic or... well... a bit uninformed. :-O

Just saw this thread, thought I'd stand up for my country, Malaysia!

There a several notable wargaming outlets peppered throughout the capital city, but they are usually small, cozy and everyone knows each other.

Over here, the following is small but very niche. It will certainly grow in future, but there is lack of awareness over here. I only got into 40K after attending a Gamer's Convention

GW has only recently made its official presence felt here in China but there is huge potential. I can see how with the right marketing it could become huge. Currently in Shanghai we have, if I hazard a guess, about 100 players total. A lot of the newbloods I'm unfamiliar with but most of us vets all hang out at the same store.

 Piston Honda wrote:
Someone on another board told me there are mini war gamers and 40K players but card games are king there.

CCGs are pretty big here, mostly because of space issues. There are a ton of Japanese CCGs, all with their own followings and several with their own tie-in cartoons on Saturday/Sunday morning. There don't appear to be many (or any, really) miniatures gamers where I am, but there are a lot of active clubs in Kanto and Kansai.

Gundam and such are pretty popular with modelers, but I've never heard of them being used in a game.

The hobby has a small but vocal following. We have a lot of message boards and forums that make it appear larger than it is.

But look at something like GenCon, the biggest gaming convention in the US. Total attendance about 70-100K depending on the year over four days.

That isn't very spectacular in terms of the population. And GenCon pulls a LOT of gamers out of their caves for 4 days.

On the whole, I'd guess less than 1% of the world population are tabletop and RPG gamers.