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Why Is Miniature Wargaming So Popular in the UK?

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HG Wells Little Wars

I did not always live in the United Kingdom.

When I first moved house to the island, I couldn’t help noticing that I had moved into something of a wargaming paradise. Hobby stores, wargame clubs, conventions, and more were all suddenly in spitting distance of my house.

Not that there wasn’t any wargaming on “the continent”, far from it. I clearly fell in love with this hobby in my youth, far from the British Isles. Still, the local gaming stores there seem to be further apart, the tournaments less frequent and the opportunities to get a game fewer.

Maybe I just ended up in a lucky spot?

Games Workshop Sales in the UK

Games Workshop Sales

It’s hard to generalize from personal experience alone. What made me think on the subject more were Games Workshop’s recent financial report, which also seem to point to a strong UK bias.

Of course, Games Workshop isn’t the entirety of the miniature wargames industry, and it obviously is UK-biased from the start. It’s still the biggest fish in the pond, so the numbers got to mean something. It’s not like there’d be no Malifaux or Warmachine games here in the shadow of Nottingham. Quite the opposite.

The Numbers By Country

Let’s look at those GW sales numbers divided by (estimated) population per country (or countries).

  • United Kingdom: £30,922 Millions in GW sales revenue divided by a population of 63,705 Million makes ~ £0,49 spend per year per Brit on GW product alone.
  • North America: £36,688 Millions in GW sales divided by 351,851 Million people (US + Canada) makes only ~ £0,11 North Americans spend per person and year on GW product.
  • Continental Europe: £39,452 Millions in GW sales is a lot. Yet divided by the 291,247 Million people of just the 5 largest non-UK EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain & Poland – sorry Austria, Scandinavia, etc..), it is only £0,14 per “continental European” a year.
  • Australia: £10,943 Millions in GW sales divided by 23,190 Australians (should New Zealand be in there?) makes £0,47 Aussies still spend per year and person on GW products (despite every effort to make those Aussies stop). Almost as mad as the British!

What’s Going On Here?

With all the caveats and limitations such rough numbers based on the sales of but one (if the biggest) miniatures company imply, what is going on here?

What’s different in the UK (and Australia?) to the rest of the miniatures-gaming world?

  • Is it really just the fact that so many gaming companies start in the UK? Or is that but a symptom of the hobby’s popularity in the UK?
  • Is it the “HG Wells tradition” (the pic above being from Little Wars)?
  • Is it the UK weather? If so, what about Australia?

What makes the British so mad about pushing miniatures across the table?

Leave comment and let me know what you think!

Z.

Image: From HG Well’s Little Wars at the Project Gutenberg.
Zweischneid

Zweischneid

I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Hopeless painter and founder of Pins of War. I hope you enjoyed this article. Don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.
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  • belverker

    not sure why it is, and don’t ask me why us Aussies still go crazy for it ;-) altjough i believe gw are releasing their best stuff over the last few years i know my purchases have been higher then they were 5 years ago

  • Knight_of_Infinite_Resignation

    I think it is something to do with a British proclivity for sub-cultures and the creativity that goes with that. There are many sub-cultures here, of music, fashion, hobbies, even religion (modern Paganism’s stronghold is here too and Wicca and Druidry both started here). People have considerable freedom to indulge their whims without negative comment, there is little force on individuals to conform to societal norms (contrast French or German society for example where eccentricity is frowned upon and members of sub-cultures are often regarded as ‘marginal’ people, drop-outs and misfits). Because of this conceptual freedom Britain punches far above its weight as far as the creation of all forms of culture is concerned.

    • schnuersi

      “…contrast French or German society for example where eccentricity is
      frowned upon and members of sub-cultures are often regarded as
      ‘marginal’ people, drop-outs and misfits…”
      Since my insight in contemporary French culture is limited I can’t comment on their part but as far as Germany goes this statement is simply not true.
      Modern German society is several orders of magnitude more open minded and flexible than traditional culture. While it is true that “eccentricity” is not especially popular that is mostly true for the outward appearance. There are plenty of subcultures in Germany even though the majority doesn’t usually wear a dress or costume to throw it into everyone else’s face.

      A major reason why miniature wargaming has such a difficult position in Germany (…again I can’t speak for the rest of Europe) is allready visible in the name: WARGAMING. That still is a no-no in Germany. Even in the contemporary German society. Everything asociated with violence and war is concidered bad. Especuially inadequate and children. Period.

      That used to be cultural main stream.

      The people participating in the hobby in Germany usually don’t use the name “…wargaming” for it. Its usually called table top gaming. Or just gaming. War isn’t mentioned. It helps a little. But since the guns and tanks are easy to see even for a non gamer it still is a problem. You can’t imagine what troubles I had to overcome when I started with the hobby more than 20 years ago. The fact that it is a rather expensive hobby really was my least… I know hard to imagine.

      Building, painting and collecting scale models, model trains and even tin soldiers is concidered a respectable and traditional hobby. Playing with them usually is not.
      Board and Card games are very popular regardless of age. But the board game publishers often go to great length to “disarm” the german version of boardgames.
      Example: in the German version of Space Cruse (called Star Quest in Germany) the Marines are relabled as a sort of SWAT policemen in Space who don’t use real weapons but only non leathal equipment to subdue the “bad boys”.
      As a kid I wasn’t allowed to play Risk because it was concidered a war game. I did play I nevertheless but I never owned a copy.

      This is changing slowly but steadily. To the point at wich we are know were GW Stores don’T attract radical left wing anti war and wartoys protesters. Even if they are at a prominent spot in a mall or main street.

      Video, computer and console games, roleplaying games and the internet by making original versions more and more availabe change the attitude of the younger people towards wargames. Since the no wargames or depictions of violence at all cost attitude of the “hippi” generation (Alt-68er) is loosing more and more base and as such influence.

      • Martin O.

        Wargaming is probably a direct translation of the German Kriegspiel. These were the theoretical exercises in decision making introduced after the Napoleonic wars by the Prussian staff college for officer’s training. Famously elaborated into dry-runs for actual wars as for the Franco-Prussian war and even mentioned in memoirs of German generals of the 2nd WW. You can still play those Prussian Kriegspiele as a ruleset has been re-issued only a couple of years ago. I took part in a demo game and it really did remind me of being back in the army class rooms. The most revealing part was having to agree with 2 fellow officers on a course of action without knowing much at all of the real situation (controlled by empires). On the UK side we now know of Victorian officers playing wargames with lead toy soldiers and writing rules for them in their letters to each other as early as 1875. As yet there is no proven link between the German Kriegspiel and UK Wargame apart from the translation link. It could be the Victorian obsession with Games that lies at the basis of using toy soldiers for wargames, as opposed to wooden counters. But then again, German Zinfiguren and ‘flats’ predate anything in the UK. Maybe that’s just how the cookie crumbled.

  • Martin O.

    As you refer to the recent financial results of GW, I would strongly recommend you also read in full the Chairman’s Preamble and the CEO’s Commentary. They are very insightful statements. As for your question, why the UK, part of the answer is culture and history. However we must be careful not to do too much ‘hineininterpretierung’, that wonderful German word that means it all seems logical after the facts but that does not mean its logic was inherent in its conception. The question GW management asks themselves is: what do we need to do to make them all like the UK? The answer is marketing. Store growth is absolutely paramount to that. The difficulty is store growth without sacrificing return on capital. The GW statements are saying one thing: turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Maybe the new shareholders mentioned in the statement, who apparently have been wanting a bigger slice of the cake for a long time, may decide that quantity has a quality of its own?

  • NagaBaboon

    It’s a good question. I seem to remember in the backs of all the White Dwarfs even into the 90s there were only a few stores in the US and Europe, and this was before the Internet and when stores were much more vital for the companies promotion. Perhaps we’ve just been exposed to it for far longer so more generations have had a chance to pick up on it.

    In regards to Australia I have no idea, I suppose I know more people who have emigrated to Aus over the years than to America or Europe but my experience alone is not a very good way to take an average for that. It’s possible they are including New Zealand in those numbers I suppose, though probably not.

  • tony harwood

    Interesting question and not sure I can answer it fully, but the UK is home to Hornby, Dinky, Mettoy, Airfix and I am sure that this has had a long lasting effect on the associated wargaming hobby.

    Linked to this – there have been toy soldier manufacturers for years (Britains) – so maybe it is as simple as the true home of wargaming (as a hobby) is the UK

  • David

    My take on Australia would mainly be that GW had stores around. In Melbourne in the 90′s I knew of 2 stores within public transport/short driving range from my house out in the suburbs both in large shopping plazas. I think it really just has to do with the fact that lots of kids grew up with them around in accessible areas. Not sure that there’s many new players picking it up these days though with how the stores are run.

  • jesse

    you might be onto something with weather being a factor, Australian weather (especially in recent years) can be charitably described as ‘bipolar’ at the best of times, ranging between bloody hot and dry, bloody cold and wet, and all points in-between on a day-to-day basis, add to that the relative quality of TV programs (or lack thereof) and one quickly strives to find a myriad of ways to stay indoors in air conditioned comfort.

    plus the availability of stores in the major metropolitan areas as David said, have some fond memories of GW Marion (which had to close down and move due to ridiculous rent costs)

  • Jeff

    I lived in Glastonbury from 82-85, we had two gaming clubs and a larger club over in Bristol, this was before Warhammer so lots of Neapolitan Wargames, and Squad Leader, War At Sea that sort of thing. I was more into RPG’s (D&D specifically) back then, but yeah the U.K. has always been a gamers paradise.