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I am a fairly new wargamer who enjoys playing smaller wargames. For my high school AP Research class I decided to research whether or not people prefer skirmish scale miniature wargames or not. I would really appreciate it if you could answer the survey I created in google forms. The survey should only take a few minutes and I would greatly appreciate it if you could answer it.


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The survey is linked here, https://forms.gle/dZcKYtJno7Reoffi8.

Edit: The survey is now closed, when my paper is coompleted, I will post it here.

Is there a reason that you omitted "Retired" as a choice in the question about profession?
My status of being retired =/= unemployed.

Quite the opposite. I prefer mass battles to skirmishes.

Of course, part of that may be because I actually HAVE the mass armies and want to use them. If I were starting out new today, I probably would not be keen to pay today's prices for a mass army's worth of minis...

ccs wrote:
Is there a reason that you omitted "Retired" as a choice in the question about profession?
My status of being retired =/= unemployed.

I'd answer with a pre-retirement status.
But the omission is glaring.
As is the lack of explanation or use of non-US terms for the options. What defines a 'trade' profession.
Ethnicity was very specific, too.

If the gender identity question allows an opt-out, why make it a required answer?

It really depends.

The skirmish games I adore (Necromunda and Mordheim) have a strong narrative core to them, and it’s seeing my Gang or Warband wax and wane as its fortunes fall and rise that keeps me coming back.

But, I also greatly enjoy rolling absolute buckets of dice and unleashing 28mm carnage.

I guess that when it’s just me and a dozen turbonutters, I want to feel invested in them. I don’t much fancy the Shatterpoint stuff, as my characters all seem to be Established Canon Characters. Their fate and fortune just isn’t in my hands.

I personally prefer larger scale wargames. They come with the huge advantage that my (at best) mediocre painting skills get hidden by the sheer size of the battle.

I definitely prefer skirmish games, though funny enough I think the main reason is just that the terrain tends to be more interesting. They also tend to have more dynamic scenario elements and interactive rules.

Funny enough, I really don't like when things go too RPG in nature. I like games like MCP/Shatterpoint/Infinity/Malifaux/etc where the gameplay is pretty tightly designed, just with a smaller model count. I tend to lose interest with more fully narrative games like Frostgrave or Necromunda.

I do really enjoy larger scale games though. I don't really care for rank and file at all, but 40k, Warmachine and the like are good times and I'm pretty much always happy to play them. I just tend to find more interesting game design in the skirmish games these days.

They scratch entirely different itches for me, so I can't say I like one more than the other.

However, I like my operational units to be 15 or less in any given game, whether that be model-vs-model or unit-vs-unit.

I started out with large battle wargames (WHFB, initially), but it was much easier to devote an entire Saturday off to get in two 2,000 point games back when I was in college. I appreciate the faster, more focused nature of skirmish gaming these days.

I also really appreciate how skirmish games' lower model counts allow you to build a broader collection (multiple warbands, various NPCs, terrain, etc) within a genre, as opposed to how mass battles focus you into going deeper into one main army plus maybe a side army or two.

I much prefer large scale games. Skirmish can be a fun change of pace, but my heart lies with bigger battles of 50-100 models a side on a big board with nice terrain.

I enjoy small model count games that feel epic in nature ie. Adeptus Titanicus.

ccs wrote:
Is there a reason that you omitted "Retired" as a choice in the question about profession?
My status of being retired =/= unemployed.

So sorry I didn't put retired as an option! I have never met some one who was retired and still or ever was interested in miniature wargames. At this point it is too late to change the questions. But I will definitely mention the fact that retired people play miniature wargames in my paper when discussing mistakes I made in the process.


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 Skinnereal wrote:

ccs wrote:
Is there a reason that you omitted "Retired" as a choice in the question about profession?
My status of being retired =/= unemployed.

I'd answer with a pre-retirement status.
But the omission is glaring.
As is the lack of explanation or use of non-US terms for the options. What defines a 'trade' profession.
Ethnicity was very specific, too.

If the gender identity question allows an opt-out (spelling mistake there), why make it a required answer?

When I created the survey I tried to use the standard format for the ethnicity and gender identity sections, and as far as I know it has become standard practice to include a "prefer no to answer" option. The question was still required because I didn't think it being a required question would upset anybody.

I thought it might be a template issue. Having to select that we are not answering is not the same as being able to just not answer. To those of us more used to answering with pen and paper, it is just easier to move on to the next question.

I play epic scale so that answers the question

I'd start with defining the term properly, because there's some nuance there. Are we just going by amount of models? Single models as opposed to units? For example, where does Adeptus Titanicus, Battlefleet Gothic, or Aeronautica Imperialis fall?

I generally dislike skirmish games these days, but I think it's less of a skirmish vs mass battle dichotomy, and more that skirmish games tend to bring certain mechanics and tropes that I'm not a fan of. Wounds that don't actually matter and then having a random chance of the model actually dieing being a big one (Trench Crusade, Necromunda).

I was disappointed when I realised that Trench Crusade was a skirmish game in that mode. It's a cool setting and trench warfare is an under utilized wargame setting, but it's not one that to me evokes the small warband feel. I think a squad based game would work much better in that setting.

But the buzz around it did show me a way of doing modular trenches that I actually like the look of so that's great.

I certainly find skirmish games more practical, but I do favour epic-scale games for proper wargaming.

I prefer large battles. I'm currently playing more skirmishes because life/time/availability.

Enjoying both. Battalion level and above for games of command and control, skirmish games for more intimate bullet-counting. Both feel better with a heavy dose of narrative and scenario-specific factors thrown in.

 Da Boss wrote:
I was disappointed when I realised that Trench Crusade was a skirmish game in that mode. It's a cool setting and trench warfare is an under utilized wargame setting, but it's not one that to me evokes the small warband feel. I think a squad based game would work much better in that setting.

A War Transformed?

I like...

Quick games.

That can be skirmish. That can be squad/company/battalion/brigade even division. The idea is I can set up, play and tear down in 2-3 hours. That could be Epic Armageddon or king of the battlefield at one end, down to crossfire at the other.

Increasingly I find there are more games but not too many more players. If you want to play anything that's not 2000 points of Warhammer 40,000, you're going to play a skirmish game.

In 28mil, I personally prefer up to Combat Patrol size games. For mass battles, Epic scale feels much more satisfactory to me than 28mil, which becomes a parking lot real fast as the points pile up