GWS 2024: Do miniature wargamers play boardgames?

By Jon Freitag

We're already nearly a month into the new year proper, but for the purpose of analysis of the Great Wargaming Survey, it's still new, and time for a new analysis. On deck in this installment is a look at one of the new questions added into the 2024 survey. What is the new question?

Do you play board wargames, including hex-and-counter or block wargames?

I have received comments regarding including this question in past years, so it very good to see that the topic of board wargame participation got the nod for inclusion into the 2024 survey. Many of these comments came from wargamers who dabble in both tabletop miniatures games and board wargames and cross-over between the two mediums regularly. Without giving some light to this section of the hobby, board wargamers felt that their interests were being either overlooked or discounted. For many, this is an important component of wargaming, and it's time to give board wargaming some visibility in the survey! For this question, boardgames include hex-and-counter and block wargames.

While I enjoy both wargaming mediums, many wargamers choose to follow only one path and stick to their lane. For those wargamers responding to the survey with a "Yes" (Boardgame_IND="Yes" in graphics below) to the question, I label this group as cross-over wargamers with the assumption that both tabletop miniatures and boardgames are played. What does the survey show?

When the survey results are tallied, nearly 61% of respondents stated that they play board wargames. Now, even though the GWS is miniatures-wargaming centric, the survey does not exclude those respondents that are purely board wargamers with no cross-over interest in miniatures wargaming. Is a roughly 60/40 split a reasonable or surprising result? From personal experience, I expected cross-over to be a little more. From the social media (wargaming blogs predominately) I follow, I expected fewer cross-over wargamers.

As seen in many of the past analyses, results are broken down by a few, select demographic attributes. Group Size, and Age Group, Primary Interest, and Location are four of the attributes under examination. Finally, Time Spent, while not a demographic attribute, hints at the time allocated between miniatures wargaming and board wargaming.

Why look at Group Size? While I enjoy solo wargaming both with miniatures and board wargames, I know some wargamers struggle playing hex-and-counter wargames as a solitary exercise. I read accounts of players getting out the game, taking hours to set it up, maybe playing a turn or two, and then packing everything back up, unsatisfied by the experience. Well, from years of personal experience and reading about others' wargaming journeys, my hunch was that hex-and-counter wargaming might be less accessible to solo wargamers than for larger groups.

Survey results suggest that my hunch may be correct. That is, 52% of solo wargamers play boardgames while 60% or more of larger groups play boardgames.

What if the question is broken out by respondent Age Group? Are age group differences present in the analysis? Yes. What the survey suggests is that cross-over wargaming sees the highest participation in the 41-70 age groups with a peak in the 51-60 cohort. Is this blip up in boardgame cross-over due to family and work constraints and commitments? Personally, while I still bring hex-and-counter wargames to the table, the percentage of actual playing time for board wargames has decreased with age.

When survey respondents are grouped by Primary Interest (entirely historical, entirely fantasy/sci-fi, or somewhere in the middle), do differences emerge with respect to boardgame participation?

Yes! Wargamers in the Fantasy/Sci-fi group tend to play boardgames less than historical gamers and much less than gamers in the "Mixed" grouping. Seeing that the Mixed group plays more frequently than either the Fantasy/Sci-Fi or Historicals is not surprising since that group's hobby interests tend to be broader than either of the two specialist groups.

Do differences exist between cross-over wargaming based upon player location? To explore the answer to this question, look at UK/Ireland and USA/Canada. Between these two groups, a large difference presents itself in the cross-over group. For the UK/Ireland group, 55% of respondents play board wargames. For the USA/Canada group, 66% of respondents play boardgames. Why the wide chasm between these two groups of wargamers? Is board wargaming a more North American centered facet of wargaming than in the UK/Ireland? The survey suggests that this might be the case.

The last attribute to consider consists of a follow-up question. That is:

If you do play board wargames, do you spend more or less time with tabletop miniature wargaming than with board wargames?

Survey results show that nearly three out of four respondents spend more or much more time with tabletop miniatures wargaming than with board wargaming. Only about 14% of respondents spend less or much less time gaming with miniatures than with board wargames. Given the nature of the pool of likely respondents, this result is not surprising. Is it?

To summarize the findings of the survey:

• About 60% play board wargames.
• Middle-age wargamers tend to play more board wargames than other cohorts.
• Fantasy/Sci-Fi wargamers tend to play fewer boardgames than other groups.
• USA/Canada wargamers play more board wargames than any wargamers based anywhere else.
• 75% of wargamers spend more or much more time playing tabletop miniatures wargames than board wargames. 

Interesting takeaways from the survey. Where do you fit into this mix? Do you play board wargames and if so, does miniatures wargaming consume a larger proportion of playing time than board wargames?