"Miniature Wargamers - Old Men?" Topic

I've not had the opportunity to be a member of a wargaming group or club. I've just been a miniatures wargamer on my own with a few men who were interested in wargaming with my Napoleonic miniatures. So I have no idea what is the average age of Historical Miniature Wargamers. TMPrs are my first exposure to a number miniature wargamers outside of my narrow experience. In the short time I've been on
TMP, I've a notion that we miniature wargamers are a graying bunch that started before computers.

I'm 64 years old and started historical (Napoleonic) miniature wargaming in 1983. I enjoy playing with toy soldiers--just like when I was a boy.

1. When did you start miniature wargaming?
2. How old are you?
3. Are there many youngsters (less than 30 years old) coming into the miniature wargaming hobby?

Growing old is not an option.
Growing up is.

I started at age 10 with Airfix plastics in 1980ish then Napoleonettes, Minifig WoTR and French Foreign Legion, and the first big proper wargame armies with Essex 15mm ACW when they were released a few years later.

I didn't get into 25's at all until 2000.

Airfix, 58.

Started in 1979 – huge battles with Airfix Napoleonics in the garden. Made up our own rules and fought to the last little plastic figure.

I am now 44 and I realise the playing surface is definitely smaller. However my 15 year old son (and occasionally my 13 year old daughter) regularly games with me.

What's 'growing up'?

Played board games since I was 8 or 9 in 1974ish. Played around with microarmor in my early teens. Didn't really start getting into minis until about 7 or 8 years ago. Most of my regular group back home are in late 40s/early 50s, but we do have a couple of late teens/early 20s kids who play.

I'm 12….oh, you want chronological age.

Some TMPers are actually 17yo hotties who don't actually play wargames, but enjoy pretending to be grumpy old men.

Allen

I started with Warzone with a friend when I was in middle school. I've taken several leave of absences from wargaming since then. However, I have recently got back into Sci Fi and Modern 28mm. I am 26.

Like all right thinking UK based boys in the late seventies, I used air fix figures until I went to big school , where the cognoscenti introduced me to 25mm Minifigs . I have changed scale several times, but have always gone back to that scale and era. It is nothing to do with that being all I can see to paint these days !

I'm actually one of those 'hotties' Allen was talking about. I've never played wargames, but admired those who do for some time now. I hope one day to meet one ….

Avalon Hill games and Airfix. 39.

1. When did you start miniature wargaming?
2. How old are you?
3. Are there many youngsters (less than 30 years old) coming into the miniature wargaming hobby?

1. 1978
2. 46
3. How many is "many"? I think seems like fewer young men (women?) game now than in the past, but maybe that's just because I'm older now.

1. When did you start miniature wargaming?
2. How old are you?
3. Are there many youngsters (less than 30 years old) coming into the miniature wargaming hobby?

When I was about 15
35
Yes

Some time around 1976, started using own rules to play with Airfix HO/OO 8th Army vs. Afrika Korps and French Foreign Legion vs. Arabs, then a couple years later 15mm Mikes Models British Colonials and 100 Years War Medievals, then a long pause in hobby time… then, years later, back with 25mm-28mm figs.

I'm 45, so I guess I was 11 when I first started officially wargaming with miniatures.

Overall it may well be true about there not being many youngsters in the hobby but at my place they far outnumber the old men, since I'm the only old guy and all 3 of my kids -- 1 boy (13) and 2 girls (10 & 8) -- play both with and against me.

1. Started historicals in grad school (so about 6-7 years ago)
2. I just turned 31 this past saturday
3. Considering I was a youngster coming into the hobby, and I saw few others, I'd say not too many. I'm trying to recruit some now though.

1. 1978.

2. 46.

3. Not that many, and most of them aren't interested in historical stuff.

Some TMPers are actually 17yo hotties who don't actually play wargames, but enjoy pretending to be grumpy old men.

I really am 46, no one would call me a hottie, and I don't pretend to enjoy being grumpy. I actually, truly do enjoy being grumpy – no pretense needed! I'm looking forward to refining grumpiness to an art form as I grow older.

1. Roughly 1980.

2. 46.

3. I play with my 11 year old son sometimes. I know a few younger players but they only do Warhammer Fantasy.

1986, 39

and your question was being asked in exactly the same way then – nothing has changed, including the inability of the middle aged to grasp that young people are no different now from then.

the hobby has never been in better health, so quit worrying.

When I was 8 or 9
49
My club is all middle aged men

That seems to be the norm in UK historical gaming.

oh and the occasional hottie who turns up to cheer us on ;-)

1. Started wargaming properly around 1970-71; co-founded a club at school in 1972.
2. Started collecting Airfix around 6/7 years old; first sets were British Combat Group, German Army, Russian WW2.
3. Now 51.

1. On my 25th birthday
2. 37
3. The majority of players in this town are <40 years old.

(1) 50's with airfix. Then discovered some very nice 15/20mm ACW metal figs in a hobby shop in van Nuys. Soon after I found Scruby and the cancer grew !

(2) Almost 65

(3)Dunno ?

Most of the youngsters play fantasy and SciFi. Some of them will move on to historical when they get older.

The sky is not falling.

Derek is right. Most of the DBMM fellow players in my club are 40, but we share the hall with many youngsters playing WH 40k or fantasy. Sometimes one of them get tired of it and try historical wargames. There are three beginners now that started in this way.

1. When did you start miniature wargaming?
2. How old are you?
3. Are there many youngsters (less than 30 years old) coming into the miniature wargaming hobby?

1: 1978
2: 46
3: yes, just not always in the periods I play.

1973 with Airfix tanks then micro
49 years young.

More kids play warhammer and warhammer 40k than there are "other" wargamers. The target age is teenagers.

Early to mid 70's building and sort of playing miniature wargames. Then I met some real gaming friends and suddenly I was whole hog as they'd say.

I was 13-14 years old then.

1. 1977
2.43
3. My son ( 15) and some of his friends game!

started with DnD mid 80s got in to wargaming 89, now 40 but my gaming group consist of my sons friends + some younger brothers so 12 to 16, not much greying of the hobby here.

Robert

1. 15mm Ancients in 1973. AH boardgames in 1964.
2. 65
3. Yes, but they mainly play 40K or D&D(or a D&D clone).

First, initial 'playing with toy soldiers' was with acorns in the sandpit; that was about 1981. First set of figures was 1/76 Matchbox fellows, probably in 1982 or so. First set of rules was homemade, and probably around 1985.

Second, I'm now 35.

Third, I don't really know as I'm not a member of a club.

Cheers,
Aaron

1. 1967 (mirgrated from AH boardgames)
2. 55
3. The 'hotties' who show up to cheer us on at the club are usually some member's daughter.

airfix WW2 1970s.

Airfix plastic romans/britons AWI napoleonics n sexy German tanks(still love them) ;-)
50

I started around 1955, maybe 1954.
Made my own ships from hard wood and balsa wood. Balsa wood was a big discovery that enabled mass production for battles. I was never a collector of models, they were purely for doing battles. I was lucky to have real veterans who offered help then and later.
I'm 67.
I have remained a tall distinguished and handsome man who is an irresistible sexy hottie for the women who flock around me and continually telephone or knock on my door. Oh and I sometimes tell lies about it.

Didn't we have a survey on TMP members ages back in "the old days" before TMP moved to it's present format/upgrade?

Gracias,

Glenn

1974 – Airfix Naps
48

1. Early 70's with Airfix
2. 49
3. We have 5 to 8 high school students in our group of about
a dozen. They started with 40K but are pleasantly
surprising the older players by getting interested in
other miniature games. There is hope for the future of
the hobby!

Crept out of the cradle with paint brush, humbrol, and airfix in hand! Am 51 and don't see too many young'uns around
(except myself of course!)
- Mark

48
1970s WITH AIRFIX

Never stopped playing with soldiers really, got into serious wargaming in early 80s. Age 46.

Live in a small town in Northern Ireland but amazingly we have a thriving gaming community.

We have three historical permanent set-ups with two having quite big tables and about seven regular gamers aged from 44 through to mid 50s, very little replication in collections save for 28mm Napoleonics which compliment rather duplicate each other.

We also have two shops plus Ireland's biggest internet traders retail outlet in a commercial estate and a dedicated gaming centre in an old ice cream factory just outside town with superb facilities. This attracts gamers from every background and in large numbers across the entire age spectrum, sometimes 50 or more on a big day. There are numerous teenagers, but quite a few gamers there from early 20s up into 30s and 40s and a few historical players although the emphasis for the young seems to still be fantasy and a lot of 40K. The centre is open every night of the week except Sundays, and in the summer it was open every day in July and August for younger gamers on their summer break.

It's too early to say what cross over there will into historical gaming – if the centre keeps going which it certainly looks like doing, then a Sit Rep will be forthcoming in a few years.

For a community of about 20,000 that's pretty good I reckon, some gamers with great collections have sadly moved elsewhere over the years, but then again their is the option of Belfast which is only 35 minutes away and has other large gaming clubs.

If anyone from Northern Ireland reads this, here is the Centre's Facebook page:

link

45 with Airfix,
we have young kids playing wargames with the parents supervising at our club

What might be different is that we all started with Airfix. Airfix, along with being historical, wrapped themselves up in history and the wargame books of the time all supported self-reliance and research.

GW has replaced Airfix as the starter fix so young people don't naturally come to the hobby with an inherent appreciation for history. Also, GW kids come to the hobby believing that you play a single system and that you accept the rules as written.

Once upon a time, a child fell in love with history, miniatures, collections, and simulation all at once.

Raise a glass to Airfix.

Started in 1964 with Airfix and making my own ships out of balsa (snap Mal). Now just turned 60.

See plenty of youngsters at shows doing both historical and non-historical stuff – roughly similar mix of older blokes doing the same. At a recent show the two biggest sci-Fi games were put on by blokes all 50 plus and a Napoleonic game had 4 of the 6 players still of school age.

Don't belong to a club as such and our group who play at each other's homes are all 50+.

Started with Airfix in 1965 +/-, now 52.

Started with dime store soldiers, cowboys etc.
For the Civil War Centenial one of the national magazines produced a board game that my father cut out, mounted on wood and sealed(game board and counters) for my brother and me. American Heritage board game of same era and then Britains from Polks in NYC,AH games et al. Interest started to wane a bit and then Airfix, guys to go along with our model tanks and planes, never looked back. I'm 61.

STARTED GAMING WITH AIRFIX IN MID 70'S, NOW I'M 58. AT CONVENTIONS SEEM TO BE MILDLY GRUMPY MEN-- NOT MANY HOTTIES!

47 here…
For as long as I can remember it's always been "toy soldiers"…one of the earliest pictures of me (when I was four), was of me in the yard playing with Plastic Army Men, (WWII Germans at that!)..
When I was 9 or so, I discovered Airfix at K-mart in Richmond, and got two sets, The WWII US Marines and WWI Germans, (don't ask)…then from there it just went.
Discovered HG Wells "Little Wars" when I was 12, and a whole new world opened up that other people had set rules to play with…Out came the Airfix Figs and it's been downhill ever since…
One of the two things that has remained constant in my entire life, (military transfers, moves, marriage and divorce, etc)…my toy soldiers…

I think we are seeing a lot of youngers moving into the hobby, and even though I think we ballyhoo a lot on the "GW Hobby" the good thing is that it DOES bring in new blood…Now if many of the "older grumps" would stop with the Grognards attitude and try to be a little more open and friendlier towards new and younger gamers, that would help a lot also….

Started with Airfix about 1969 or 1970. Moved on to Avalon Hill games and metals in the very early 70's.

I am 49 years old…….I think. That's what my kids tell me anyway.

Don't game in a group, but all the ones at the shop are tweenies? Teens or twenty somethings that need showers.

Sometimes I'm a grumpy old man, mostly not.