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 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like how nobody described 40k but probably everybody plays 40k

Sometimes "what makes a good wargame" is just being able to find other people to play it with.

That's a practical requirement rather than a philosophical statement about wargames, but it is the reason everyone seems to play 40k after all.

I think saying 'has played' might be more accurate. I don't play anymore and I don't think Easy E does anymore either (going by memory, could be embarrassingly wrong).

Finding people to play seems to be more of a function of technology these days. My local had a Facebook page that was pretty diverse, and now it has a Discord server that's even more diverse (at least in terms of games people want to talk about). It's easier to find people online.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like how nobody described 40k but probably everybody plays 40k

Sometimes "what makes a good wargame" is just being able to find other people to play it with.

That's a practical requirement rather than a philosophical statement about wargames, but it is the reason everyone seems to play 40k after all.

And roll credits. Perfectly stated.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like how nobody described 40k but probably everybody plays 40k

Sometimes "what makes a good wargame" is just being able to find other people to play it with.

That's a practical requirement rather than a philosophical statement about wargames, but it is the reason everyone seems to play 40k after all.

I’d go beyond that it’s just being able to find opponents. It’s the opportunity to find the right opponents for you.

If your local community is predominantly WAACaNooB, and don’t see you so much as someone in need of training as a series of quick and easy wins? You may not be hanging around very long. I mean, I wouldn’t in that situation. Others may have the opposite opinion, and fair enough.

If you can’t find anyone else to play on a more sporting level at least while you learn the ropes? What are the chances of you sticking around?

This is where X-Wing, GW and PP have a shoe-in. Their games are big enough that you may have more than one local gaming group, and as such a better chance at finding opponents you enjoy playing against. Some might really like their tournament play. Others might be more narrative heavy. Even within the same club you might find the variety to suit.

But when it’s a small number only playing a specific way? That is how people are going to see the game. From WAACaNooB to Complex And Incomprehensible Years Long Narrative, it can put people off. The game itself might be incredibly solid. But if you don’t have fun playing your opponents?

Cyel: Sorry, I don't quite get the joke. I don't know anything about the ASOIAF game. I used to be a huge fan of the series but I've really cooled on it over the long wait between books (only watched the first season of the show, thought it was pretty cool). My favourite version of that universe is what's presented in the Hedge Knight short stories.

I thought of something else, as I was writing my initial post I was mostly thinking about rules, but there's a couple of other things that are important to me.
1. Models - I want to be able to use any of the models I own, within reason, in the game. At least, I don't want to be limited to only one manufacturer's models. I think that mentality promoted by companies like Privateer Press and Games Workshop is anti-gamer and giving in to it is silly. There's loads of great minis out there and why not use as many as you can for your games? For sure you can use whatever you want in home games, but it's also true that the "official models" stance impacts game rules (no model, no rules) and game communities when people buy into it. So I prefer to play game systems that are open about allowing people to use whatever they want.
2. No churn - I don't really want my hobby to be researching, buying and reading rules supplements. I'm kinda past that stage in my hobby. I like painting, making terrain and playing. That means I'm generally happy with a core book and some army lists, and I don't want a threadmill of releases to keep up with that constantly alter the state of the game.
And related to that:
3. Setting, not story. If my game has background material, I vastly prefer the idea of a setting that is an open sandbox to play around in and alter and create stuff as you like, than an ongoing narrative where I follow along as a consumer of the narrative and the models represent the major characters in the narrative. The latter approach is fine, it's not anti-gamer or anything like that, but having played games with both approaches I find the former approach much more satisfying.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like how nobody described 40k but probably everybody plays 40k

I like short rules with lots of tactical depth and everything that's not about making tactically meaningful decisions filed off.

My holy trinity are X-wing, Monsterpocalypse, Deadzone (all first editions)

Warhammer Underworlds is pretty close for a GW game.

40K 3rd edition is an example of a good wargame. Modern 40K and really 6-9th now, have been some of the worst games ever made. So speaking for just me, it's USED to play 40K cause I don't right now.

Not counting RPGs I think my favorites are X-wing 2.0 (Still love 1.0 but there's so much more stuff in the game now. Though I miss my harpoons.) Gaslands (which is quickly becoming my absolute fav.), and then it's a toss up between Dropzone Commander and Frostgrave 1.0 (simply cause I don't have the 2.0 book yet.)

I think for me the best wargame I have played is 'King of the Battlefield'.

Why?

The rules mostly fit on 4 sides of A5. Despite this Ian managed to capture the way battles of the era played out fantastically. I can in an evening command a large army, be rewarded for using period tactics and come to a historically plausible result.

The simply rules don't get in the way of the tactics and the use of reserve lines (why did all those colourful armies form up in multiple lines?). I have genuine choices to make in selecting the quality of my troops and deciding how to best employ them.

In short over an evening I can have a tactically engaging game that rewards basic knowledge of the period, stops powergaming and feel skill was the biggest factor (outside terrible dice rolls) in what outcome occurred.

Having a good opponent......which is a rarity for the past 20 years....effing wargamers

Balance - I want to be able to pick a faction for its aesthetic. I hate when that decision turns all my games into losses.

Simplicity - 75% of my games over the last few years have been with new players or non-war gamers. Games like X Wing, Warcry, Bolt Action, and Underworlds are easy to teach. Tried to teach/play 40k and we had to quit because it took too long, they lost interest, and the rules aren’t intuitive.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like how nobody described 40k but probably everybody plays 40k

I like short rules with lots of tactical depth and everything that's not about making tactically meaningful decisions filed off.

My holy trinity are X-wing, Monsterpocalypse, Deadzone (all first editions)

Warhammer Underworlds is pretty close for a GW game.

Huh. I was extremely extensively into Monsterpocalypse 1E for a long time and I would NOT have ever described the rules of that game as "short". "tactical depth" yes, tons, but INSANELY complicated and bloated to all hell in that classic PP fashion of giving you tons and tons and tons of choices most of which are always or almost always bad ones.

Also, the joy of having such a limited strategic layer was almost entirely based on the blind-box system. Monpoc 1e games where either player had unlimited access to whatever buildings they wanted to use would be utterly miserable experiences.

Have you tried the 2nd edition?

It has to have rules and mechanics that help me feel like I'm commanding an army and not just playing a magic the gathering game with expensive miniatures.

It has to be about playing the game as opposed to trying to win in the listbuilding phase.

It has to be immersive to me / believable. If I have men hiding in cover, and you can target them freely because one of your guys can see one of my guys' toenail, that is a problem to me.

It has to be at least somewhat balanced. If there are lots of obvious takes and trash units that no one ever takes, its not good. And invalidating purchases on a regular basis is a hard no to me.

I don't care about popularity or finding people to play as long as I can play with one or two others. Because what is hugely popular is often also very sub standard rules-wise to me.

I agree that accessibility of opponents is a huge consideration.

As listed above, my tastes run to generic, fast-play rulesets and at times I've been fairly successful at finding opponents for such games in a major metropolitan area.

However, if I found my self in a more rural, or suburban area where 40k was the only option and I wanted to game, I'd probably break open my retirement account, buy all the necessary books and put my old 40k armies back on the table.

Almost any war game is better than no game.

I don’t agree that any wargame is better than no wargame. A good conversation is better than many wargames. Some Wargames get in the way of having a good time, having a fun social interaction, fully realizing the fruits of the hobby and painting tables as time well spent...

That’s assuming you are playing in good company. There’s no such thing as a good wargame when you’re stuck playing a donkey cave.

Oh, absolutely agree with that. There have been wargames that I've walked away from that I've genuinely disliked, either because of the game itself or certain players.

 Easy E wrote:
So like, this is just, like..... your opinion man!

What makes a good wargame?

I don't want to lead the question too much, so I will leave it open ended. I am of the opinion that I have no idea what other people want to play, but I know what I like to play. Therefore, this is an attempt to get a better feel for what things "other people" like to play and why.

I am not looking for game recommendations at all. I am looking for the elements of a game that you enjoy.

The story that it is telling must be compelling, and for any success and longevity of a game that story should appeal to a broad group.

The mechanics should be easy to grasp and not read like a divorce agreement or merger agreement. I guess I am looking for elegance. I care less about the process as I do about the effect.

The miniatures should be cool, or if it is a board game the pieces/map should be immersive.

 auticus wrote:
It has to have rules and mechanics that help me feel like I'm commanding an army and not just playing a magic the gathering game with expensive miniatures.

It has to be about playing the game as opposed to trying to win in the listbuilding phase.

It has to be immersive to me / believable. If I have men hiding in cover, and you can target them freely because one of your guys can see one of my guys' toenail, that is a problem to me.

It has to be at least somewhat balanced. If there are lots of obvious takes and trash units that no one ever takes, its not good. And invalidating purchases on a regular basis is a hard no to me.

I don't care about popularity or finding people to play as long as I can play with one or two others. Because what is hugely popular is often also very sub standard rules-wise to me.

Personally in the best case of listbuilding: it should enable me to get my strategy down on the table via handing me the tools i will need, that should come with tradeoffs associated to pts / ressource allocation. Alternatively it should allow me the option to make my army my army (more relevant in fantasy / Sci-Fi settings) .
Basically i should only really be able to lose a game in listbuilding if i set out with no strategy in mind which can be allright but it should never just make the game into a solveable in the listbuilding phase. At most it should present me with problems later down the line on the table wich i may be capable of resolve through creative play.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t agree that any wargame is better than no wargame. A good conversation is better than many wargames. Some Wargames get in the way of having a good time, having a fun social interaction, fully realizing the fruits of the hobby and painting tables as time well spent...

That’s assuming you are playing in good company. There’s no such thing as a good wargame when you’re stuck playing a donkey cave.

I disagree with your disagreement, if only because I really enjoy wargaming as a hobby. The sound of dice hitting the table and the urge to build narratives for my little men (even in my historical games I can make some stuff up to give battles a bit of flavor and meaning, like my platoon lieutenant graduated from uni ROTC or was a battlefield promotion in Italy that stuck, etc.).

A good conversation is as good or as bad as your conversation partner, just like wargaming. A bad conversation can be worse than a bad wargame, because at least the game offers a structure and I can bring uncomfortable topics back to the issue at hand.

Some wargames DO get in the way, as you say, but that's cause to try to modify those games and lobby for their improvement, not just give up on the hobby altogether.

I play 40k because I set aside time each week to play, and while I'd rather be playing other games, the playerbases are so low that between kids, wives, and work, my friends that play them aren't reliably available at the same time I am. For 40k? There's more players than there are places to play at the FLGS.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t agree that any wargame is better than no wargame. A good conversation is better than many wargames. Some Wargames get in the way of having a good time, having a fun social interaction, fully realizing the fruits of the hobby and painting tables as time well spent...

That’s assuming you are playing in good company. There’s no such thing as a good wargame when you’re stuck playing a donkey cave.

I agree with that. I suppose there was a bit hyperbole in my statement. There are certainly some games for which I would simply choose an activity other than wargaming and I have other hobbies to happily fill my time.

We both agree, good company is far more important than the activity of gaming, but over the years I've had generally quite good experiences easily finding friendly gamers across a variety of big-name and small-shop games so maybe it just hasn't been an issue for me.

All that said, my point was simply that broadly speaking if I wanted to be wargaming and 40k or infinity or AoS or Legion, etc.. (not games I'm particularly interested in) or some other big game were the only game in town I'd prefer them to not gaming at all. I'm a cheapskate gamer at heart but -setting that aside- with the exception of some prepainted games, I can't think of any big-name games that I couldn't enjoy playing.

Sometimes 'good enough' is good.

 Easy E wrote:
So like, this is just, like..... your opinion man!

What makes a good wargame?

I don't want to lead the question too much, so I will leave it open ended. I am of the opinion that I have no idea what other people want to play, but I know what I like to play. Therefore, this is an attempt to get a better feel for what things "other people" like to play and why.

I am not looking for game recommendations at all. I am looking for the elements of a game that you enjoy.

If we operate by abstract terms, "fun" is definitely the most important thing for me in a wargame. Fun, however, has different definitions for different people, and I always double-check with my opponent that we both agree on how we're going to achieve this ethereal state of "having fun". On the matter of general attitude it means that both sides agree on having a fun game without abusing clear rule holes and overpowered tactics that essentially negate any good things about chosen system. The system itself should also present itself as casual-friendly, WAAC "play like you've got a pair!" attitude written on the pages is enough for me to turn away and never look back.

A good wargame, in my opinion, should have these important traits - in no particular order of importance but complete abscence of one of each usually means it's not the game for me.

1. Be aesthetically pleasing, both in how models/gameplay look and what's the story behind everything is. I don't care for Malifaux' design and will never play it, regardless of how popular it is around me (and it is) or how good its mechanics are. Similarly, I don't see me collecting forces for Napoleonics regardless of how well known it is in historical wargaming circles or how good models are in technical sense, I just don't care. Mortal Gods, on the other hand, is perfect from visual standpoint, and I can forgive a lot of grievances I have towards this system, because I like how units in this game look and how engaging battlefield pictures can be.

2. Be a good breeding ground for interesting stories. The more random events and modifiers it has (not necessarily positive), the better; it's also good if they are somewhat evenly distributed across the random events table or any other tool the game uses to draw random events from (for example, I really like Joker card mechanic in Blood&Plunder and how many different modifiers it can apply on the battlefield if you draw it from the pile, but receiving "Angry locals" at the start of turn one and watching 1/4 of my force evaporate gave me mixed feelings).

3. No IGOUGO. Either card-based mechanics or alternate activations, I can swallow both. The only IGOUGO exception I really loved was Mordheim (probably my most favorite skirmish system, come to think of it), but that's generally because of huge variety in terms of fighting forces and scenarios, not necessarily rules themselves.

4. Rules shouldn't be bland and overly simple. I can digest both short rulesets and long (100+) rulesets equally if they have fun interactions and/or allow me to recreate interesting scenarios; I love special rules' flavour and unique objectives on the battlefield. What I detest, however, is a lot of calculating, applying bonuses and substracting damage all the time (note: I DO NOT dislike modifiers as a concept, I just dislike when there are dozens of them piling up atop of each other). I like Mortal Gods, B&P and Zona Alfa because their weapon/combat mechanics are simple and intuitive (despite somewhat lacking in one case or the other), but playing Ronin or mathematical exam which is Father Tilly Escalade on larger point costs quickly makes me lose my patience.

5. Bonus points if the game leans heavily towards maneuvering and principal contact with the enemy doesn't necessarily occure on the first turn. There is nothing more dumb than just standing and shooting or rushing through the battlefield and immediately wiping out half the enemy force. No alpha strikes, units should have breathing room and chance to withstand enemy attacks. Attacking enemy from behind or on unfavourable conditions should be important.

6. Additional bonus points if the ruleset in question was proofread at least a little bit. There's nothing more annoying than stopping midgame on a critical moment and looking through the rulebook in hopes of finding out what you should do when different rules are clearly in conflict with each other. Of course, sooner or later you and your opponent can come to an agreement and move along, but if there are too many gaping holes, errors and wonky RAW it makes me question what's the point of playing these rules at all if I constantly have to invent new interactions original authors didn't think about. Same with balancing. I've seen so many rulesets with completely inadequate point cost/stat balance (better weapon costing less than worse weapon and being more freely available - what?) I'm now completely sure 90% of rule makers never bother to doublecheck random numbers they wrote down when they first made up their units and arsenal.

I almost forgot. Community usually has nothing to do with wargame itself, but it can very easily be a dealbreaker if both me and them seek for different things. For example, I've played two games of Conquest: TLoK and really liked the system (miniatures and background not so much, but I could handle that - not bad enough for me to reconsider). However, local community's sport-like attitude and refusal to play anything but barren grey plastic was complete turnoff. I'm not interested in finding ways on how to break game's mechanics while shuffling unpainted and partially unassembled models around.

What I really love in wargames is simple mechanics that leads to advanced gameplay.

I like tactics and outcomes to roughly align with what I expect of the setting/situation.
I find that, in pursuit of this, more abstraction is often better. When you have very detailed rules each abstraction sticks out like a sore thumb.

For example, WW2.
Some wargames just say "all LMGs roll 3 dice" or similar. Okay, I get that. Each LMG had it's own pros and cons and I can see those averaging out.
Other wargames go a little deeper, they'll say "all LMGs roll 3 dice, except the MG42 which rolls 5 dice".
Okay, the MG42 had a higher rate of fire so I see where they're coming from. But hang on, it also used more ammunition, it used more crew to operate. Those aren't represented! Trying to be more realistic has caused all the necessary abstractions of a tabletop game to just look more glaring.

Simple mechanics are also easier to learn, easier to remember.
I like the resolution of actions to be quick and snappy. More time playing, less time resolving!

@kirotheavenger: Can you give an example of 'simple mechanics that leads to advanced gameplay?'

Nurglitch wrote:
@kirotheavenger: Can you give an example of 'simple mechanics that leads to advanced gameplay?'

Turnip 28's morale?

If you lose you automatically retreat, it's a simple morale system utilising "panic" markers to determine the distance + a D6 directly in opposite of the unit it lost too.
This can lead to morale juggling, it makes powder weaponry not always the best option despite being more damaging.

A good player can use it to jugle an opponents units and punish him, it also makes corner camping automatically dangerous. And makes initial movement into engagement range quite difficult. It also facilitates a use for light infantry.

Chain of Command has rules like that (belt fed LMG roll 8 dice, regular LMG roll 6) but the number of crewmen varies historically.

For example, a German LMG team may have 1 crew and a rifleman, because historically they had 3 men and one was just an ammo hauler.

Conversely, a Bren team has 2 men, no riflemen. So the crew is smaller, but the 3rd crewman can fire his rifle so he doesn't feel like an extra man for the German gun.

I don't consider this that unrealistic - and an interesting consequence is that they are more even on the move (4 dice to 3) which is an interesting mechanic. Moving with a belt-fed LMG loses you more than moving with a more portable LMG.

Again, advantages and disadvantages.

Blood Red Skies (WW2 dogfighting) has a mechanic where aircraft at higher Advantage (think a more abstract take on altitude) activate first in a round, before aircraft at lower advantage levels.
This creates a really interesting dynamic of playing for altitude.

To also tie this into the 'more abstraction for better realism' I mentioned;
Aeronautica tracks altitude directly, and in fact generally rewards flying low because it makes it awkward to lose altitude without damaging your aircraft. Aeronautica has added more realistic mechanics (actually tracking altitude), but it's led to less realistic gameplay imo.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:
3. No IGOUGO. Either card-based mechanics or alternate activations, I can swallow both. The only IGOUGO exception I really loved was Mordheim (probably my most favorite skirmish system, come to think of it), but that's generally because of huge variety in terms of fighting forces and scenarios, not necessarily rules themselves.

I'll make the case for IGOUGO if it's either restrained (by some sort of command points that limit how much of your force can go, or test-based activations that randomize which units will activate in a given turn) or gives the opponent some sort of reaction mechanic.

You're right in that full-on IGOUGO is outdated and only in games that have it due to legacy, like 40k or Kings of War.

Like all tools, IGOUGO has a place but it needs to be the right tool for the job.....

I wrote a lot more on this topic here for those interested in wargame design:

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/06/wargames-design-igougo-does-not.html

IGOUGO? Isn't that...taking turns?

IGOUGO is generally understood as the process of a turn being Player 1 activates all their units and does everything with them (move, shoot, fight), then Player 2 does everything with their units.

This is usually in contrast to alternating activation, where Player 1 would activate a number of units, do everything with them, then Player 2 would activate a number of units. They would go back and forth until all units have activated, and that would be the end of a turn.