Jasper alluded to what I have believed for a long time, wargaming is 25% research, 25% modelling, 25% playing and 25% talking siht with your mates, and sometimes its 50% talking. Its a social activity for like minded people, I hope it lives on.

Firstly, Little Wars TV, thank you for being a positive influence on the hobby. As a young wargamer, under the age of 30, I think it is important to say why we struggle with the hobby. The reasons are diverse and many, and I won’t be able to sum them all up here, but I will attempt. Maybe the most important reason is the cost. While many others and I would dispute this, it is a barrier to entry for many. The wargaming hobby being split on if they should include 40k, fantasy or other point-based competitive competitions doesn’t help either. It grows even worse when many sneer or make fun of younger hobbyists and what they are into. An attitude of elitism and mocking isn't helpful and rather discouraging to us. This attitude when it comes to historical wargaming is no better. Playing a fair pointed battle in the ACW, 100YW, or TYW isn't wrong. Another key factor is folks under the age of 30 are still establishing themselves in the world. We are buying our first cars, getting married or dating, trying to find affordable housing, maybe even starting a family, not to mention starting our first jobs as professionals or part-timers. None of these are cheap or leave much time for wargaming. I do hope the wargaming world lives on and I will continue to play and enjoy many games. Once again thank you for all you do.

In regards to the graying of the hobby, Ill say that I think with how niche of a hobby Tabletop wargaming is, and with the retention rate being 98%, it will always be true that the population will trend older. When I was a kid playing with legos and the little green plastic army men, I wanted so badly for there to be rules and structure so that what was happening in my imagination could be expressed to others in a way that made sense for everyone involved, and tabletop wargaming very much scratches that itch. There's always going to be kids like that, the key is that historical and generally more traditional wargaming has to have a sizable internet presence for this newest generation (including even people my age entering adulthood) to be able to find the hobby in the first place, a job that Little Wars TV does exceptionally well.

As a younger person who wants to get into historical war games is (as mentioned) the difficulty of finding groups or clubs. The other is just that there is so many different systems for just about any setting, the nice thing out getting into a fantasy or sifi system is that it’s a lot easier sell it like a board game (plus expansions) rather than requiring someone to do the research to find minis with right kind of hats and uniforms along with learning the rules for the particular system that group plays.

Thanks for the info. I recently opened a game shop in our small town. One of my objectives is to get People out of their computers and cell phones, and into tabletop gaming. Thus far, our club membership seems to follow your data, with about half of the members over 50. We really have to work at getting kids and teens into the hobby. I have found that an impressive miniature game layout seems to work best. Let's admit it....we're just big kids with cooler toys!

To comment on the virtual games topic, if I'm going to play a miniature wargame I want friends around a table and a ton of little dudes on the table. A computer simply can't replace that. There's loads of amazing computer wargames and strategy games but I play them for different reasons. The feeling of moving armies around in physical space and seeing them laid out is magical. For some context here I'm a 30 year old guy from Philadelphia.

Regarding the graying of the hobby. I don’t think it helps when people complain about sci-fi games being run at a historical convention. Historical games should have priority but not be exclusive. Young people are more drawn to the sci-fi games. Get them in the door and introduce them to historical gaming. Telling them their not welcome is not growing the hobby

I would say despite a relative greying of the hobby I dont think its a massive cause for concern. The economics of the last 20 years have been prohibitive and I think coupled with GW's predatory commercialisation of game balance, those war gamers who love the hobby will shift to the massively more affordable historicals even if by way of something like Bolt Action as the 'arcade' historical. Personally I havent touched my 40k collections in what I realise writing this comment has been years and yet being able to build and play 3mm modern for less than a 'value' 40k set (rules and all) AND be able to play it on a tiny kitchen table in a tiny apartment....the future is very bright for wargaming.

To attract younger people to the historical hobby, it's important to make it more easy and affordable to start. Starter boxes with all you need to play helps, like the ones from Battlefront or Warlord. I fully agree with Jasper that pre painted armies would also help to make wargaming more accessible. When you like playing games, the effort to build and paint the armies before you can start can be a dissatisfier. Esspecially for a generation who grow up with the easy access of digital gaming.

It is interesting on how views are so different about the hobby many younger gamers complained that fall in did not have enough sci-fi or fantasy while several other gamers older one is quite a famous GM that there was too much fantasy and sci-fi , these surveys are so interesting.

Im hugely into this hobby and Im only in my mid 20s.

I stumbled onto this KZfaq "site" so I am on the outside of this survey of sorts. I got into historical miniatures back in my college years (1972-1977) at SIU (Southern Illinois University) where I ran into Tim Kask, the editor of the Dragon Magazine and who introduced me to D&D (First addition). Yes, I am at this time closing on 71 years old this April, so I am one of those "Graying". I painted a regiment of Austrian Light Infantry with a howitzer battery for support that was bought off of me before I left college. In those days we used Tri-color rules as I remember it. This should give me some value in looking at your issue of the "Graying of the hobby" as you put it. With this in mind, my focus back then was in doing seminars on rules for whatever we would be doing the following week/month as a way to bring new people into the fold. It goes a long way if you teach the younger people "the ropes" to any game. This is harder because of the shorter attention span the younger people exhibit these days, so you need someone that is skilled at presentation that makes it interesting. Seminars should be broken down into Basic/beginner, Intermediate/Tell me more, and Advanced/Fine print. Over the decades this is what I found works best. Information needs to be broken down into three key areas: 1) Overview of materials and basic tactics (Not Sun Tzu's "Art of War", that is a bit deep for a beginner). It is far better to give them a unit to work with and have them come up with ideas as to how they can support the battle. 2) Engage them with what the army is planning on doing and *WHY* (Strategy! What a novel idea.). Then advance them into greater positions of leadership (Regiment, Division, and Corp). 3) Advertise in a local paper what is being planned be it seminar, event, or just an "open house or just show up to see what is happening. ". 4 (Bonus) Have someone always available to engage and bring people into the group/club/fold. There is nothing more off-putting than people ignoring someone looking on from the door. As for the 1813 Fall Campaign, I would not have attacked Austria, but instead blocked the mountain passes to Austria (VI, VII, and IX corp as blocks with IV corp in reserve), The French have an opportunity to strike and savage Hamburg (since it is close and can be attacked easily), taking the city if possible (otherwise sieging it) and then turn to fall on the rest of the northern army to clear the north while giving ground on the Eastern front. The limited cavalry would have been best deployed on the eastern front to know the dispositions they face with a reserve for the north. Napoleon focused on maneuver, and attacking Austria would bog down his armies that would have been better used in braking up the northern and eastern front alliances. Destruction of the enemy armies in detail while avoiding battle with the others was Napoleon's forte. With garrisons in the east, there was a better chance of opening up the eastern front, and then force marching back to Hamburg. It also matches WWI more closely in the opening years of that war. For the allies, draw the French out so it is more difficult to send reinforcements to other battles. The French have interior lines of communication so it is harder to gain the initiative by the allies. Just my opinion.

Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy is the best wargame magazine in print, in my opinion. It covers multiple time periods with different rules sets, great reviews of products. Highly recommended, have had subscription for several years. Other magazines are good to great, WS&S is the best.

Regarding the graying of the hobby. I think there are multiple factors at play here. E.g. as a marketer i see that a lot of older folks tend to read the physical magazines etc. I believe the survey might be a bit overweighted by that alone. If u did the survey at a convention or through social media I think you could find the numbers to possibly be a bit more balanced though there might be a bit of a lean twoards older folks enjoying tabletop games more.

I'm a younger gamer (34), and I've been playing historical games for 20+ years. think what was said about attracting younger players was valid. They're less likely to want to spend money, and have plenty of other options for gaming. They also are likely to have less storage and hobby space than older hobbyists. I do think that the "traditional" form of historical gaming, with hundreds of ranked up 28mm or 15mm minis just isn't going to appeal to younger gamers. I think the way forward is to focus on providing a fun gaming experience that doesn't require a lot of miniatures, gaming and storage space or painting time, with rules that are accessible, and easy to understand. GW did great at getting people into sci fi and fantasy gaming through boxed sets, community support and mainstream appeal. I think if we had more of that in historical gaming, it would be a lot easier to draw in new players.

I love listening to the results of the GWS. Thank you all!

Great discussion; thank you!

Seems to me that it’s worth exploring whether those with 3D printers use them very much. I have a FDM printer but I don’t use it nearly as much as I thought I would and it’s become another “pile of shame” element in my collection of hobby items. The ratio of power users to weekend hackers with printers represent the real potential swing in the economics of the hobby

Nice summary. Thanks guys.

Another exceptional video gents! I remember during Covid start up, I signed up for the virtual con called, PATCOM from Paint all the Minis. Thats was okay, but I was lost as I didn't know nothing of Discord and missed out on gaming...but got a lot of cool swag and coupons. I never played on the "Tabletop Simulator", as it looked very complicated just to move pieces on the screen...didn't catch me at all. We still gamed in person during Covid with safety measures in place and worked fine...I even had my 10th Annual BIG BDay Pirate game in November 2020...even had a nurse there which ensure I had provided a safe envirnoment to game. Again, good stuff guys...take care.

Thank you for the shout out Greg! To the future of print on demand minis gaming! :)

38yo gamer here who broke into table top with Star Wars Legion a few years ago. Love the hobby, have been eyeing historical games in the ACW era and looking at Bolt Action, but the time, energy, and monetary elements are probably going to keep me in a single system for a while. From what ive seen in the Legionspace, things like TTS are being used almost exclusively by the competitive gaming community, which anecdotaly appears to be mid30 to mid 40s men. Is there much of a historical competitive scene? Or, does it tend to be a more casual beer and pretzels style groups?

I would be interested in the age question if you asked each respondent their actual age. Then you could see a graph of the ages to look for any significant "bumps" in the age range.

I have been gaming since 1973, and I intend to keep gaming, I have always had a love of History, and the reenactment of it on the table, in many time periods.

I started in the hobby in 1972 with Hinchliffe figures. As far as the “graying “, the US population as a whole is graying.

Suggestion, a visit to Adepticon for follow up. Who is at Adepticon, why? How is this CON run different from the Big East cons, can we identify ten points to consider? Cold Wars was losing vendors to Adepticon, a series of interviews of these Vendors as to what their experiences have been and who are their adepticon convention customers? An indepth look into the changing face of the Miniature gaming world with insights for success to grow in the future. Thank you,

To put things in perspective, a majority of survey respondents were not born when I first heard laments about the graying of the hobby.

Id like to see the survey expand more into whole of hobbyist interest. Include boardgames. Industry can learn a lot more to help improve interest from the survey. I suggested also a category of those who hardly play due to time, money lack of storage space or social base, but they still maintain interest in youtube or other media to see what things are happening or trigger spark of getting back to. KZfaq/internet has shown many great ideas and techniques to try out modeling or ways to find research and discover history, rules, files, that I never had when as a teenager, other than occassional magazine or library book. Where I live I just discovered my city has no hobby stores other than GW, gone are the modeling/railway andsupplies, have to order online. Wonder if this could also be added to survey. Hobby shops also show trends.

May make sense to adjust the age question to a birth year range question, or present the data both as "30 and under" and "born 1980 or after" (that being 30 years before you started the survey). Makes it easier to directly compare how many are aging and moving through the demographics, and how many have stayed throughout.

As someone who's quite interested in this hobby and slightly under 30 I can say the main reason I haven't taken the plunge is because none of my friends want to, most of them struggle economically as stable jobs that let you pick up expensive hobbies are increasingly rare. But since board wargames (e.g. hex and counters stuff) suffer the same fate even though they require a fraction of the cost and space commitment I think there's another thing that's important to discuss: discoverabilty. This hobby is virtually impossible to discover unless you specifically go looking for it, games can't be found in retail stores, if you're lucky you may track down a couple of models, the distribution is left on a bunch of ugly websites, dusty forums and Facebook groups, none of the spaces younger people use. That's why the work you do on YT is vital, you're the only channel I've found that puts some effort into presentation and goes beyond a middle aged guy rambling for far too long over some ugly slides or badly lit footage using hard to understand terms, no disrespect towards these people, but I can assure you that you're either already very committed to learning more about the hobby or you'll just bounce off and never return

thank you from one gray old man to others hitting 75 this year

The biggest problem I had to overcome to get into historical wargaming was other historical wargamers. 😇

Very nice

I'll give my experience as a young man trying to get into historicals. My first barrier was rules. The thing about Scifi wargames is that 40k rules the roost, so which rules you go with are a no brainer. You probably already have a gaming buddy who can lend a rulebook and a codex to you. With Historical wargaming, there are seemingly hundreds if not thousands of rule sets across numerous eras of history, and there is very little media which even explains why you would want to play Rules A over Rules B. There's almost no KZfaq videos, and outside of this channel the few videos one can find are usually completely unedited, poorly shot affairs with a 'stream-of-consciousness' script filled with 'um' and 'uhh'. Then you try searching for opinions online, and those are also hard to find, tucked away in rogue reddit threads, old forums, and /hwg/ threads from 4 years ago. So then the only way to actually, really figure out which rules are for you is to read them, but that requires buying them and when you're 20-something with little disposable income, it's hard to justify buying 3-5 different sets of rules just to figure out if you'll even like any of them. That's assuming you have time to read them all when you're either in school, starting a career, or starting a family. It's one of many 'research quests' that filter people out of the hobby. Then someone mentions game scale; and you find out that ruleset you liked can't actually let you command grand armies while simulating Band of Brothers. You don't even know what "operational level" means. Another research quest. If you haven't gotten filtered out yet, and you actually find rules you like, then you have to figure out model scale. These rules say that they work with ANY scale. But this guy online says "15mm is the best all round," and this other guy says, "6mm is the best for that historical battlefield look" and this other guy says "10mm is the best of both worlds", and some crazy man says, "2mm not joking." There's no resource that can explain what is informing these guys' decision making. Another research quest. And once you decide model scale, you learn that for some historical eras, the base size is more important than the model size. Yet another research quest. So say you haphazardly decide you'll go with 10mm. Now you get to find models, and this is a task unto itself. Finding companies that product models for the setting you want in the scale you want is yet another research quest for which there are no good resources. Now, after engaging in probably real world weeks if not months of research, you are ready to begin getting into historical wargaming. You must now perform the most difficult task for any young man interested in historicals - finding opponents. Not every city has a 'club', and most shops never attract anything other than 40k players. This is the Great Filter out of the many filters that prevents young people getting into the hobby. For me it took about 7 years from when I first became interested in historical wargaming in my early twenties until I actually became a historical wargamer.

The problem with virtual miniature gaming is that there are so many good historical, multi-player video games that are easier and funner to play rather than try to struggle with virtual miniatures.

Just sold off all my sci-fi models from a certain company, picked up a Roman starter army from Warlord, never been happier.

I was one of those saying I was spending less this year, and that's partly a reflection of plateauing with my projects and partly me reining myself in because shipping costs are triumphing over nice-to-have buying.

I would like to see a graph of how many completed the survey each year. Is it up or down? Which areas have the best responses.

One thing to remember about spending is that we are currently going through a global recession that is particularly hitting those of us under 35 the hardest.

I think an interesting question for next year's survey would b3 to include "What year did you get into tabletop wargaming?", and another question asking, "Do you play miniatures wargames, hex-and-counter wargames, or both?". I got into computer wargaming last year (I am presently 22) and we have almost exclusively been using hex-and-counter type wargames when we aren't playing something like Combat Mission (the one exception to this is Fistful of Tows). Part of this is that on a computer screen 3d models are less impressive than if you painted them yourself, but part of it is we play more operational or strategic level games where having the movement and combat stats written on the counter (as well as the unit they belong to) is a massive help. We are scattered across and outside of the US, so an in-person game between us is deeply unlikely, but if we were to do such a thing I am certain a hex-and-counter game would be chosen or created for ease of transport and simple cost. Regarding 3D printers, 2 of my non-wargamer friends own them and would certainly let me print minis.

As a low teen wargamer I think we really need school clubs and games at libraries to even have a hope to get the next generation in.

Thanks for the video. The hard part for historical games is the fact that the manufacturers can't really claim 'ownership' the way a company that owns a brand can. Warhammer, Star Wars, Marvel, Warcraft, D&D; the companies that own those properties have full control over marketing and engagement. It's their goal to craft a product/experience for their consumer base, and almost impossible to compete with that level of marketing/advertising resources.

Interesting but skewed by sample bias. There are a lot of people under 30 playing tabletop wargames, just different types. I'm sure we all know what they are. Over time a fair few will take on historical gaming too. Those gamers have huge disposable income (no house or kids). Similarly online systems are big. Marvel Crisis Protocol runs 4 global competitions a year, in addition to tabletop. Nearly all my terrain is printed on my FDM printer from bought or publicly available STL files. The quality is excellent and its cheap. I'm likely to buy a resin printer when more good quality ancient and medieval figures become available.

Regarding the question of virtual wargaming, is there really a place for it when video games and simulation games are widely available? Look at combat modern operation, rule of the waves or the combat mission series of games. I would argue that it makes for a much more immersive yet wargaming experience. Whereas wargaming simply copied to computer or digital is not really appealing when it is not in person.

Well considering I run a gaming group of 20-30 year olds that total to 42 people… and we never heard of this survey. Hard to argue the numbers.

As a gamer well within the 25-30 bracket, here’s why I’m in a minority: money. What is the old phrase? “It’s the economy, stupid.” My generation is saddled with heinous interest rates from student loans to credit cards. Rent is skyrocketing. We only dream of owning property. There is an ever-shrinking volume of disposable money for people like me, especially as inflation ramps up. Greg hit the nail: shrinking disposable income. It’s not about “selling” an idea. Quite the opposite: it’s about lowering the barrier to entry. In other words, meet the potential gamer where they are, and where they are is a vastly reduced buying power than what they need to start in terms of cost for paint, primer, bases, flocking, brushes, glue, army transports, rulebooks, and miniatures. Unfortunately, the trend is that prices for the hobby are *increasing* across the board. Small wonder, then, that my Gen Z comrades choose to pursue Steam Deals for video game titles that cost the same as a Starbucks Coffee during a weekend/summer/fall/winter/spring sale. Consider the most trending video game among my cohort as of this comment: Lethal Company. It’s $9.99 on steam and we’re loving it. Cheap entertainment. Quick satisfaction. It’s cheaper than breakfast, now. How much does a Napoleonic army cost between supplies, minis, and rules? Hundreds. I speak from experience. Mini producers who are ahead of the affordability curve on this issue absolutely include Turner and Diratia. Further, I think there are two missed opportunities for data collection and clarity in the survey. First: break the 20-30 age cohort into 18-22 and 23-30. The 18-22 bracket contains broke college students. The 23-30 bracket contains graduates with jobs. That fracture will allow for the inference that people in the younger cohort are likely not so ubiquitous due to a lack of income because of being full-time students, while the 23-30 cohort will be in their first post-undergrad career positions. Second: include wargame board games. I and several friends have begun buying self-contained board-wargames from manufacturers like Columbia Games for three reasons: (1) they tend to be below $100 each; (2) they can be played in 3 or less hours; (3) the box contains the full play experience, no need to keep buying and painting minis. It’s all there. War-boardgames like The US Civil War (GMT), Bobby Lee (Columbia), Commands and Colors (GMT), as well as Axis & Allies (dunno who published it) are shortcuts into the genre of wargaming, just sans-minis. I think breaking the 20-30 cohort apart as explained above and creating a metric for war-board games will be extraordinarily revealing. I suspect you’d see that young people *are* interested in wargaming, but we probably tend to go with the most affordable, complete, and convenient option (all of which miniature wargaming, frankly, is not). And, that we only really start having “ownership” of the hobby once we’re out of school and into the workforce.

Great to see that people will continue in the hobby, could the growing influence of 3D printing affect the spending habits? It's obviously cheaper in the long run to print your own than it is to buy from an established company?

Thanks for this feature video. As they say, an unexamined life isn’t worth living. And aren’t we about learning from the past to guide the future. For that you need this knowledge. And some very nice whiskey, like that bottle of Whistle Pig Farmstock Rye. But would the Whistle Pig Old World Rye have been more appropriate? Until next time.

Is there data about when people enter the hobby? Maybe there is an ever-green graying, where players start in their later years.

Unpainted miniatures (or yet-to-be-printed STLs) is neither a pile of shame nor a pile of opportunity. Instead, it's best to think of them as bottles of wine (or whiskey) in a wine cellar -- waiting to be consumed at the right time.

I did not respond this year. My experience is that asscoiations, wargaming clubs etc for sure are not young people. That is not just in wargaming but many kinds of asscociations over here. Playing loads of boardgames and some roleplaying games I know there are more players and female players than ever. I will today bring a map based "dudes on a map area control" boardgame and know some first time player will try it. Just like last week. And last month etc... have you seen how many kids that play Games Workshop etc tabletop games?

First. Very interesting!

An excellent vid. I thought this was going to be boring but how wrong I was.

Regarding the comments towards spending patterns, this may be a reaction to post covid spending assessment. I for one spent more on the hobby than I probably should have and have now budgeted a more controlled spending pattern for the coming years.

10 years ago there were fewer older people active on social media or the internet more generally. I suspect the ageing of the survey's sample has more to do with them gradually making themselves known online over the past decade rather than an actual greying of the hobby.

We want the better view of the table and the tactile in-person aspects of miniature games. In contrast role playing games work pretty well online (zoom, discord, etc, and even better with VTTs like Roll20). RPGs already had a head start online, then during Covid many more roleplayers switched to online play, and a big percentage stayed there. Now a lot of new RPG players start online instead of around a table.

two reasons i can think of with regards to the graying of the hobby is that the real wages have been dropping rapidly since the 70's and this hobby is kinda expensive, the other is that pc games have become much better and more immersive than back in the "good old days"

Having turned 30 this year I straddle the cut-off for the slighty grey portion of the population. I wasn't aware of the survey!

There is a Famous POPULIST that studies countries by AGE GROUPS and our hobby seems to be the SAME - that is by AGE GROUPS !! From a Historical Wargamer of OVER 60 years !!!

Another good question might be: If you don’t own a 3D printer, do you own any 3D printed terrain or miniatures?

5:03 I'm half and half and you see vitual TT gameing alot on youtube as it's an easy way for youtubers to colab... So I have to ask... Was their an option saying do you vitural game?

Are you guys planning on doing a video on the new Napoleon movie?

Resin 3D printers are cheap and are more plug-and-play than FDM printers. They are also better for printing figures as you can get a better resolution. There are available STL files for all sorts of periods and scales.

One thing I definitely see about younger players is they tend to prefer much faster games with lower model counts that play on smaller tables. Most young people don't have much space for their hobby to take up. A 6/4 table, terrain, and 100 miniatures a side is a big ask for someone living in an apartment.

The chuckle heads war game group with their award winning game of pony wars was featured and Jim’s P great Khartoum game

Hi from the UK.. Did you ask how many solo gamers their are?

As well as the grasying of the hobby you have to remember which age groups have the largest disposable income. Because our hobby is not a cheap hobby.

What was the male/female split this time? You guys produced some very interesting content on this Q a few years ago.

The whole of the west is graying. It’s not necessarily just a gamer thing. I suspect it’s a whole society thing.

I've seen the argument made that TTS or 3d virtual tabletops are more of a hassle to move things and really people should be using 2d tabletop applications like vassal.

33yo here, I wargame with paper models with my 7 and 6yo and my 30something friends historically wargame too with their kids. We're here, we just don't subscribe to magazines or go to conventions. :)

Is it a graying of TTG, or the graying of Magazine Subscribers?

One thing about the greying of the hobby. There's a greying of the population in general. People stopped having as many kids in 2008, and never started up again. Universities are soon facing a massive decline in enrollment.

When are we be able to watch Napoleon campaign

Greying of the Hobby. For my two cents it's not until retirement and empty nesters do you have the money and time and a convertible bedroom to put the effort into the hobby.

I'm in the early 30s cohort, and this hits the nail right on the head. 3D-printed, pre-painted miniatures would make things so much easier. I understand that preferences vary amongst different people, and I respect the desires of others, but I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in doing my own painting, and painting services are prohibitively expensive. If I can have well-sculpted, customizable, correctly painted miniatures that I can print at home, I'll be golden. I would be more than happy to spend money on new sculpts and expansions.

I can see why virtual gaming didn't take off. It takes away the appeal of minaitures games (painting, moving models, in-person gatherings), but doesn't add the conveniences of digital games.

Can confirm the age distribution based on my channel. Most viewers are over 50, probably because of the Napoleonic focus. On the other hand, it is clear that the existing players are getting older. 😙

I think the retention rate is high because these days historicals is a hobby you start as an adult. I don't have hard numbers, but I have a lot of anecdotes and even testimony from ex-GW employees -- everyone knows guys who used to play Warhammer when they were younger, but then they discovered beer and girls and put away childish things... some return to the hobby later, but the vast majority don't. If you managed to get teens into historicals, you would most likely see similar attrition rates.

Greg always getting blazed and glazed 😂

Just like a boat, the best 3D printer is your friends 3D printer

Virtual gaming works better for cardboard counter hex based games like ASL.

Should be a way to include ethnic participation in future questionnaires to begin tracking that data as well.

As far as the "greying of the hobby" -- it IS an issue that dates back to the 70's and WE DID have the data then too. Jim Dunnigan and SPI collected data (on wargaming, which is admittaly a related and not entirely overlapping population, but similar enough to be relevant) through S&T magazine, back then. The data was crunched on primitive, but then-cutting edge punch cards, and showed the same thing. Maybe wargaming is something you get into as you get older when your interests and hobbies change, and that explains the persistant 'prolem'

A future technology to look forward to is an affordable home 3D scanner coupled to a 3D printer, via a computer. This will enable scratch builders to mass replicate their models & figures. Also, programmable (by voice command) lucky dice would be nice to have.

Virtual gaming wasn’t ever nor is ever supposed to be a replacement for physical miniature wargaming. It’s a stop-gap measure for when you can’t play in person (COVID restrictions, friends scattered all over the country, wanting to play a game now while you are painting the physical miniatures, etc.). It’s pretty unfortunate so many people are dismissive about it, specifically about how virtual gaming doesn’t give the same feel as in-person, as if they were expecting it to be a 1-to-1 exchange.

I have a 3d printer and honestly its just great spend 15 bucks print for one or two days and you have 50 infantry men It is really way to get random projects moving the thing is that resin printers while smaller per cost they print way faster becouse they print a layer at a time so literally they are insane to print a lot of smaller things but in comparison awfull to print larger things like terrain pieces I see it mostly as a way to bulk collections cheaper, you arent going to get a stl for a character that you will print once, but you will get it for a line infantry that is going to be needed in mass I honestly had been interested at least in scifi since i was 9 got in by myself at 12 and well im 20 and hope to continue for a lot more

2:20 I have a friend who has both types of 3D printers. He has printed a lot of terrain and models for my hobby. Also, a lot of people in the community have begun to order 3D prints from licensed printers. Why pay $54 (USD) for a Resin tank when you can buy an STL for $7-$12 or have the model printed for $15 plus shipping? Model companies (Warlord) really need to get on the bandwagon or risk being left behind.

3d Printer go brrrrrrr

With virtual gaming does that include video games? Because I know that theirs a small community that play war games on a game called tabletop simulator

No worries about the "graying of" the hobby. I have decided to self identify as a 21 year old. (I would have chosen something younger, but I want to keep the option of consuming alcohol, even though I can't afford it.) Also, more good news. I also identify as one who has painted all my miniatures.

8:26 I think it's more you have a small aundce who is aging with you... I havge that same problem on my youtube channel which could mean well anything but mostly that is just your aunccddcne not TTwargames as a whole.

I absolutely hate, HATE painting miniatures. It's what's preventing me from getting more into wargaming. I wish I could just buy them already painted - paying someone else to paint mine is too much $$$$.

Interesting results, defo covid caused a build of the pile of shame, so naturally rein back on spending now :?

I disagree with the virtual gaming results as there is a growing group of young people only doing virtual gaming that I suspect aren't captured in your survey at all.

Fall-In seemed to be one of the youngest looking cons I've seen in some times - totally subjective observation of course.

Im 29 and growing my first grey hairs, the greying is real! Haha just kidding. In an ever increasing digitalised age, may it be more important to have an outreaching online presence?

I prefer the gaming side of it. I'm not a big fan of painting figures.

Let's face it, historical wargaming is dying, partly because most young people today are taught cursory overviews of history at best from elementary school through high school, not to mention that war movies are also a dying genre in Hollywood, for various reasons - lack of Patriotism being one of them. Youngsters today know very little about history, much less American history. That's a shame, and has negative implications for American culture. It's all about the innocuous and imagined Marvel Universe today, something that is also easier for writers to write scripts for (much less research). On the flip side, I still think computer wargaming may be doing better, though I would also not be surprised if the revenues from historical computer wargames dwarf those of other genres.

In regard to technology catching up to the hobby, I think it's good that it hasn't. This is a hobby that is best played around a table with friends. It loses something when played over a virtual tabletop. Technology with regard to miniature wargames should be limited.