Historicals: A problem for the ages?

I have read several times about how historical games have an age problem. The people who play them are old. Which means, when they pass on to their eternal reward, there is no one else to play historicals.

I’m not so sure this is a problem. When I was younger, I had no interest in WW1, WW2, or any other world war before then. I had no interest in history. My kids have no interest in history. Not that they aren’t inundated with it every day, at dinner time, at breakfast, at lunch. When ever they say something stupid, in person or via text message.

Now that I am older, I have almost no interest in fantasy games. This is not completely true, I love Silver Bayonet, which is of course fantasy Napoleonics. Come on my French are wearing tricornes. What reasonable human being would put tricorns on Napoleon’s Grande Armee??? Only in a fantasy game would someone put a tricorn on the Grande Armee. Clearly I am not a reasonable human. I’m a gamer, and a mediocre painter. I love painting, and I’m working on trying to improve bit by bit.

I was introduced to wargaming way back in 4th/5th edition Warhammer Fantasy. A part of me will always love Orcs riding boars attacking elves riding deer. I still paint quite a number of fantasy minis. I have something like 3,000 points of orcs and goblins ready to do battle on any day.

But my first love now is World War 1. I love reading about it, I love learning about it. I love pushing my little toy soldiers around, and when they die, I think what a terrible loss of life that was caused by all these wars. I don’t love war, in fact, I hate it. I think it is the single most terrible thing that humans as a whole have always done. Russia lost like 10% of their population in WW1, no wonder the Bolsheviks were able to take over. France, Germany, and British lost huge numbers of young men.

I think that as gamers age, they have more time and energy to spend on research and learning. I think that average age of the historical gamer is a good thing. As people grow older, they will come to enjoy the hobby more, and have more time to actually devote to it. They are also more able to understand the triumph and tragedy of not only their own toy soldiers, but the brave men and women in uniform who have sacrificed their lives for some pretty insane things over the course of history.

I don’t think historical wargaming is going anywhere anytime soon. I just think the old gray hairs will be replaced by different old gray hairs.