Is there any way to play a "bad guy" force in this game and not feel icky? I was looking at the American army for an allied force, but an Axis force to be able to play anyone's army seems useful.
One thought I did have was a Slovakian army, but they don't really have official rules or models.
Posted Aug 6, 2022, 11:05 AM UTC
My struggle with “real world” games like bolt action is it feels pretty weird to pretend someone’s grandpa is in the worst day of his life for my entertainment
Thats a good point. You could say that we have been watching that for entertainment ever since the war ended though, or at least that Britain has a strange relationship with the whole "finest hour" mythology. Bolt Action is quite conciously the "commando comics" or Hollywood version of WW2 and deliberately plays into all sorts of tropes at the expense of realism. But then you can absolutely play Chain of Command with the same minis and have quite a different experience.
Ultimately though, any battle was someones worst day. I doubt Waterloo, Agincourt or Thermopalai were a lot of fun at the time either. One could argue that making war "fantastical" does a disservice to history, or that its avoiding responsibility in a sense
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Conversely, I like historicals because those games give me a tiny hint of what the worst day in my granddad's life was actually like.
It can be educational and thought-provoking too.
I agree that the capacity is there, I personally find that the culture around the table is rarely “appropriate” for that sort of introspection. It’s usually friends unwinding and very much playing a game. Every table is different though! I find comfort in the degree of separation in more fantastic settings.
That too, but sometimes we look at each other and say "imagine being that last guy there". We are kind of more into the skirmish-roleplay-campaign side of wargaming. Guys get names, backgrounds, even accents.
But yeah, plastic ratmen and green guys murdering each other with crazy weapons is far more comfortable. And they all come out to fight again tomorrow.
You are going to have to define "Ick" on your own terms Im afraid, and make up your own mind. That being said, the overall culture of historical gaming is quite a bit different to most of the discussions you see here because there's much less of the "your guys" self -identification with "the lore" involved. Its (broadly speaking) much more of an exercise in tactics than something you chose an army because of a resonance with the themes if that makes sense.
In terms of WW2 games I have 28mm armies for the Red Army, US Airbourne, Multiple German forces including the SS, Hungary, and ANZAC/British. In other time periods I have Romans, Gauls, Greeks, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Teutonic Knights, Wars of the Roses British, Napoleonic French and British.....multiple 15mm armies for different time periods as well. Sufficient I would imagine or at least hope that in conjunction with my age and job in academia for it to be read as "harmless history Dad" rather than "sketchy over-enthusiastic guy".
I mean It’s like playing an old CoD game. Someone has to play axis and someone plays ally. It’s kinda the inevitable outcome of playing a historical tabletop game revolving around world war 2. If it helps, you could always just paint all the nazi units like clowns or something or wear an anti-fascist tshirt whenever you field an axis force. Really though, I think it’s fine to have a historically accurate depicted force. You obviously aren’t a fascist, and unless someone gets weird about it I don’t see anything wrong with it
Why aren't you playing the red army LIB
Damn you got me lol
I have always preferred Sci fi/ fantasy because I just can't stand war and guns in real life . My brother is a historian and has always leaned towards historical games. I play WW2 games borrowing his minis, but he has some soldiers painted as SS and I will not use those.
I specifically play “bad guy” armies because I am a roleplayer at heart who is also bad at the game. So if I’m playing Nazis and I lose I don’t feel so bad.
Hey, you're me, the forever DM who plays orks and chaos
Ok but orks are cool bad guys.
Oh for sure
Same with any wargame really, play the army whose playstyle you like, and don't endorse the related politics (Like I play chaos space marines in 40k, Word Bearers and Death Guard, because I like the way they play, and the models look great, that's it)
You could have your troops fielded as Ostlegionen - soviet POW:s coerced into fighting for nazi germany.
Best part of that game - they have dice sets with hammer & sickle.
Konflict 47 version of the game makes it a bit easier to play the baddies and not feel super uncomfortable since it's a scifi/fantasy version of the game.
I'd probably find it strange to have the axis as my first army, but it's reasonable that i'd have an axis army as my second. It's also very doable to engage the subject with the needed gravitas, like a historian would do with their work
I have some Bolt Action minis and was thinking of redoing the lot as the factions from Avanced Wars. Keep the WWII aesthetic, none of the ick, doesn't change gameplay.
Slovakia used much of Germanies equipment, but they still did a lot of war crimes.
Bulgaria and Finland on the other hand were very clean axis members. Finland wasn't even communicating with the Germans, and Bulgaria refused to send Jews to concentration camps, intentionally saving their lives.
Personally, I don't want to play a game where a playable team who can win is the Nazis. It's not something I think everyone should think, but that's my personal line with the ick factor. You may say "well what about the horrors of x other imperial regime?" And I would say "yea I don't really like any historicals set during or after the Italian Renaissance tbh"
That's not including how hard it is to get someone into a historical game, and how much harder it becomes when someone walks up to a demo and has to ask "uh are those Nazis?"
I think you can play a game where Nazi/German forces are involved and run it as historical or educational exercise. If they win, why did that happen?
What I don't like is that bleeding over into real life. Nazi miniatures, but don't play the game dressed up in a Nazi uniform.
The line for me would be on the tabletop - no swastikas on minis. A polite historical fiction to show there's a difference between what I think and the game that's being played.
Weirdly, I would have less of an issue putting the insignia of a country that was "merely" a brutally murderous dictatorship onto models - say the USSR. I certainly wouldn't buy the dice or any paraphenalia like that though.
My granddad was a Ukrainian Pole who lived through the Holodomor. In wartime, he fought Nazis AND Soviets.
Ok
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Idk which game you're talking about because that would determine the historical period but anyone from the Socialist block would be one of the good guys in the cold war generally. So USSR, DPRK, Vietnam etc. I guess you could play Germany as Eastern Germany too, but you'd have to switch out the decals obv.
If it's something set in WW2 than your only choice of good guys is the USSR or any of the colonial countries fighting for their liberation during that period, like China.
I treat it the same way I would an actor playing a fascist, it's a role that needs to be played and has no bearing on performer. Unless you're glorifying it.
This, playing a nazi doesn't make you a nazi, hell you can even like the aesthetic. We must treath this like any other game: my old warhammer fantasy army is the skaven but that doesn't make me a selfish prick that sees the women as cattle.
Does it mean you really like rats?
Not in the r/skavenslaves way of course, that would be strange (nervous laugther)
oh no I think I just found a new kink
Hahaha, yes-yes that would be...very strange.
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