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I don't understand the obsession that wargamers seem to have with Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've read nearly all of it, and he hasn't said anything revelatory. It's filled with such obvious bullcrap, such as: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" and "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak". It all seems about as obvious as "Don't stab your eyes out with scissors." I truly don't understand why it is considered so wonderful. I think most people have these things figured out by the time they're ten years old. Am I missing something?

Because people like to add a famous name to their quotes and make it sound more impressive. The Art of War may or many not have any relevance to real-world war anymore, but it certainly doesn't have anything to do with a dice game.

I'm an avid follower of Sun Tzu in my professional life and have read it dozens of times. Because my gaming group is so casual, there hasn't really been the need to apply it to wargaming.

Concepts such as the moral law don't really apply to plastic soldiers. There are other principles that he discusses that do, however. Method and discipline (the structure of an army), the laying of plans (understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both armies), types of terrain, and the principles of deception that you mentioned are certainly valid and useful on the tabletop. If you're going to take away anything from Sun Tzu, it's that to win, you must know yourself and know your enemy. I know it's obvious, but it's also true and much easier said than done.

It's in the business world that Sun Tzu is extremely useful and an absolute joy to implement on a day-to-day basis (along with Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of the Five Rings). I won't go into further detail here, though, because this is a wargaming forum.

You do realise that this was written 400BC?
What appears obvious in this day and age was cutting edge stuff back then. The book is interesting in that there are still any bits of it relevant to warfare/martial arts today!
The ten commandments are a pretty basic and sensible set of rules too but somehow we still haven't all managed to absorb them fully.

It's also a bit of unofficial required reading for many businessmen out there, who to varying degrees apply the Art of War to the business world.

It's also possible that people are using it to add an air of gravitas to their pew pew.

I haven't read it for a while, but isn't most of it irrelevant by the time battle actually starts? Since it's all about choosing the battle conditions to best suit yourself.

Whilst a lot of it is obvious to most of us, some people need it spelled out to them, plus it was written 2500 years ago.

Darthslowe wrote:
I don't understand the obsession that wargamers seem to have with Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've read nearly all of it, and he hasn't said anything revelatory. It's filled with such obvious bullcrap, such as: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" and "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak". It all seems about as obvious as "Don't stab your eyes out with scissors." I truly don't understand why it is considered so wonderful. I think most people have these things figured out by the time they're ten years old. Am I missing something?

You forget that in 400BC, most of what Sun Tzu said was cutting edge thoughts and ideas. You also forget it was written in 400BC and because it was so cutting edge it has been adapted into nearly every corner of life. For example, "Weak when strong, strong when weak" was a cutting edge thing in the time because the general idea for armies then was to show off their marshal strength to prevent enemies from attacking them as they were too strong, or relying on their lack of strength to avoid attack. A strong nation like Rome had its military might to break anyone, and it'd be foolish to attack them at the height of their powers, whereas the Vietcong used guerilla tactics and lured US soldiers into ambushes and traps; appearing weak to unnerved their enemies when in fact they had the upper hand.


This is used into many walks of life, for example, a common interrogation tactic is to ask the suspect a bunch of questions that you know the answer to, but they don't know that they know. My teachers used to do it all the time.
"Did you see who did it? Did you hear anything? Do you know who did it? So did you do it? Are you sure? 100%? Well we have this CCTV footage of you with the murder weapon and killing the person and admitting it and yoour friend says you admitted it to him as well."
You appear weak to lull a false sense of security, then spring the trap.


Or, you could picture the Battle of the Wall, if you watch Game of Thrones (if you haven't seen S4E9 spoilers)




The Art of War is so ingrained in society because it was adopted by such a wide array of people. Hell, the moral basis for TAoW is probably the cornerstone of the Geneva convention's limits on warfare.




As for wargaming, well, its a simulated battle. Its somewhat applicable. For example, "know your enemy" could be as simple as knowing your opponent's rules and stats, and knowing they don't have any Str 5 or higher melee, so sending in your T8 Wraithlord is a great idea because they can't hurt it, or that his Meganobs are a beatstick to end all beatsticks but move a maximum of 6" a turn so you can kite them to the cows come home. Or knowing that he likes to use exclusively Blood Angel assault marine army and 90% of his shooting is 12" so you drop down IG with FRFSRF and tanks galore.

Darthslowe wrote:
I don't understand the obsession that wargamers seem to have with Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've read nearly all of it, and he hasn't said anything revelatory. It's filled with such obvious bullcrap, such as: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" and "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak". It all seems about as obvious as "Don't stab your eyes out with scissors." I truly don't understand why it is considered so wonderful. I think most people have these things figured out by the time they're ten years old. Am I missing something?

I think part of the "missing something" is as a gamer you are already predisposed to thinking in the style advocated by Sun Tzu so it seems kind of obvious to you, the mileage other people may get from it may vary vastly especially if they haven't tried thinking out stuff before doing it before.

1. Warfare itself was extremely different when The Art of War was written. It was based around conscript armies that could only be fielded in certain parts of the year (because so many people were required for farming), and military actions were generally slow and static. Even the concept of professional discipline in the ranks was revolutionary at the time.

2. The concepts are easy to recognize, but a lot more difficult to put into practice. How often have you really deceived an opponent in a game of 40K? Are you actually able to recognize and attack the opponent's strategy? How many times have you been able to put your greatest strength against his greatest weakness? Do you have 2nd and 3rd tier backup plans, or are you just reacting once your original plan fails? If most players honestly assess their battles, the answers are probably not often. That's why the book is still relevant and not just a collection of platitudes.

I prefer Clausewitz.

I just write "Nuts" on a paper and hand it to my opponent

 Chute82 wrote:
I just write "Nuts" on a paper and hand it to my opponent

Sun Tzu's "The Art of Politely Requesting Snacks"

Darthslowe wrote:
I don't understand the obsession that wargamers seem to have with Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've read nearly all of it, and he hasn't said anything revelatory. It's filled with such obvious bullcrap, such as: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" and "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak". It all seems about as obvious as "Don't stab your eyes out with scissors." I truly don't understand why it is considered so wonderful. I think most people have these things figured out by the time they're ten years old. Am I missing something?

That's because the advice within it has become so widespread and common that now it's just considered common sense. Also, you have to remember that no matter how obvious something may seem, everyone was ignorant to it once. Maybe you learned this stuff was common sense at 12 years old, but its still something you had to learn.

It's like someone saying Aliens is a stale concept filled with tropes. It's the movie that invented many of the tropes we know of today in Sci Fi "space marine" type movies, of course it's going to seem stale to someone who's been exposed to tons of movies that have aped it's concept before seeing the original.

It's also why you tend to see a lot of younger people indifferent to movies like Star Wars or Indiana Jones. It's been referenced to the point where you've practically seen it even if you haven't watched the movie.


Add in that wargamers tend to love to read and especially love reading military texts, and it's no surprise that people love to quote Sun Tzu.

The important part of Art of War is it makes you look smarter when you have a Sun Tzu quote on your Dakka signature.

Makes you look edumacted.

Because the Art of War is a really vague book that's easily applied to almost anything.

Darthslowe wrote:
I don't understand the obsession that wargamers seem to have with Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I've read nearly all of it, and he hasn't said anything revelatory. It's filled with such obvious bullcrap, such as: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak" and "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak". It all seems about as obvious as "Don't stab your eyes out with scissors." I truly don't understand why it is considered so wonderful. I think most people have these things figured out by the time they're ten years old. Am I missing something?

Well, I'd point out that it's one of the oldest surviving strategic texts, so a lot of the obvious stuff is only obvious to us now. So, there's some merit to that.

Honestly though, I think it's a book that's in the public domain and can be read quickly. It's short, it's translated into modern language, and there's a ton of commentary available. I think the ease of reading, coupled with the fairly simple analogy to modern lift, allows for any reasonably educated person to get something out of it. And that's good! Not everything needs to be Claustwicz or something equally impenetrable.

Strategy, the movement of troops between battles and logistics are just outside the scope of most miniature wargames.

 toasteroven wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
I just write "Nuts" on a paper and hand it to my opponent

Sun Tzu's "The Art of Politely Requesting Snacks"

Ummm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McAuliffe

To the OP

Because Clausewitz is a pain to read and Mahan isn't thought of to normally apply for land combat...

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
It's also possible that people are using it to add an air of gravitas to their pew pew.

It's too late at night for me to be laughing this hard, stop it! It does kinda seem that way at times though, like "I've read this book, behold my masterful tactics and overwhelming military mind!" Meanwhile I'm on the other side of the table thinking about all the guardsmen I still need to convert.

Jerram wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
I just write "Nuts" on a paper and hand it to my opponent

Sun Tzu's "The Art of Politely Requesting Snacks"

Ummm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McAuliffe

Bah! Curse you, references to WWII generals that I don't get! Curse you.

(I stand by my lame joke though)