You missed quoting Charles Grants most important advice. ''Choose an army you can love even when it loses''. That is so you don't army hop to find the 'perfect' army for wargaming (everyone knows it's Persians, whether it's Achaemenids or Sassanian).

Something to consider as well: pick a game for which you can find playing partners. The wide range of games available nowadays (not just historicals) can be a curse and a blessing. Quite often we have 6 or 7 tables busy on a games night at the club with the same amount of different rule sets being played. Makes finding a buddy for an evening sometimes challenging. And if you are moving away from GW as a group: try to find common ground before investing.

As the lost soul in question, thank you very much for being the focus and definitely giving some thoughts to ponder over. Much appreciated.

Great advice, surprising how often these questions are asked at shows and by visitors to the club, often the answers can cause more confusion

Good thought provoking video as always Lee. I would add one other consideration however that applies to those of us who aren't solo gamers, and that's to pick a rule set and scale where there are already some local players in your area. So checking out the local club or posting on the face book group or forum for the rule set you have in mind is a good way to check this out before you invest time and money.

Yet another great episode Lee!! Always brightens my Sunday! Possibly for introducing ex-GW players to the glory of historical gaming, I'd suggest Warlord rules and epic boxes .. yes I know the rules are far from perfect, BUT Rick Priestley's style of rule writing will be familiar to GW players. Once they've got used to ebbs and flows then onto others.

Interesting question Lee. I went exclusively 15mm about 25 years ago and the deciding factor was storage, particularly of terrain. So when I start to consider getting into a new ruleset or period, my first logical question is how much of my existing terrain can I use or adapt. And then the second logical question is one of army storage. Before all that, there is the inevitable emotional quesiton of whether I feel a period or a ruleset is going to be fun and personally interesting.

I would heartily recommend looking at the Osprey "blue book" range of wargame rules. Various historical periods and they make a great intro without having to know too much about them. (Plus they do have some scifi/fantasy titles you can use your Warhammer models for and not have to Ebay them all!)

Collecting terrain for multiple different figure sizes can take up a lot of storage room. Trees, buildings, etc.

If you can't find historical players you can make your own if you have sci-fi/fantasy gaming friends. There are fun games with very low page counts (less than ~20, some just a page or two) that require few models. You can, if necessary, learn the rules, produce the figures and train your buddies yourself without major time/money expenditures. Ravenfeast is a good example as are many of the Osprey games, plus countless others on Wargame Vault and similar.

Good summary, you actually said everything important. From my experience, former GW players especially miss army lists and points. Yes, you can play without something like that. 😅 Historical rules are so cheap in comparison that you can try out two or three without incurring high costs. In GW you change armies, and here you change the rules system every now and then. And always... always build up the opposing army at the same time. It increases flexibility and you can find other players or test rules more quickly. Happy Pentecost and have fun at Partisan!

As alwyøays a great video. When I demo a historical I always go for another scale then 28-32mm often 15 or 10mm, seems to get people more interested with the smaller minis and larger scales of battles.

Hi all, Coupla add-on thoughts about starting historicals; 1; local networks, are there any other historical gamers or groups in your area, and, if so, what period/scale//rulesets do they use? Not that you should let other people's preferences dictate your own choices, but it is much easier to start up if you don't have to assemble two opposing forces. 2; 1/72 is worth remembering as a scale. Readily available in mainstream toystores, versatile for both skirmish and larger battles, and a huge range of available figures and vehicles.

Great video. My caveat to people who are trying to offer advice would be "Don't assume players coming from Warhammer are going to want a Warhammer like experience". I came from Warhammer (though in the 90s) and one of the draws for me was games that felt completely new and exciting in how they approached things.

There are games that are very similar to Warhammer that may be an easy gateway, but may not move the novice out of their comfort zone. Give them one of the old classic Wargames books for a start. Simple games and mechanisms are best. Of course, it depends whether they are playing in a regular group or by themselves.

Great advice here Lee for the WH switcher. The right period is the key. There's figures and rules for everything now so choose a period that enthralls and everything else follows. And try not to follow the latest shiny thing. Do what you like.

I think that you pretty much covered the topic, the only suggestion I would add is to, before making final answers to your three questions, the newbie should have a shortlist for each and then look online for AAR, reviews and battle reports of each of the options. This will probably signpost the answers. Then proceed as you indicated. There's one other thing that drew my attention as you showed us your buildings... You're probably aware that Peter Berry at Baccus6mm has just launched Teeny Tiny Terrain. I wonder what are your thoughts on this very different way to represent built up areas on a 6mm battlefield? Will you be reviewing this new range? I can see it being very useful in many battles but less so in others, but will almost certainly be using the models for Fredericksburg, and Aspern Essling as well as others where towns, villages etc were contested and defended at brigade level, but sticking with the larger '6mm sized' pieces for farmsteads etc that were fought around such as the church at Shiloh and the Henry House at both Bull Runs. You?

Thank you for sharing. Since you brought it up, how about a discussion about scale. As a young lad, late 50s atm, we always measured from bottom of foot to top of head, same as any doctor or ID process. It is my understanding that today they measure from bottom of foot to eye level, some do both, and use this to conflate scales. I still can't get my head around the modeler I met who said, that 1/56 is 28mm. That is like saying 2+2=5 to my brain.

Folks coming from warhammer need two words, Bolt and Action, they fill fit right in

One of the most important questions to ask yourself , is what you liked about warhammer/ age of s igmar . Then look for that in historical periods and sets of rules .

I am def headed back into historical, and in all honesty, historical rules can be changed into fantasy very easily. I am also keener on bigger, sweeping battles. 28MM Skirmish, games I am well over.

Another first question might be are you a competitive wargamer and do you want to continue playing tournaments as that’s going to narrow the choice a lot. Nice to see you yesterday

I recommend the wargame rules reviews on the Little Wars TV KZfaq channel.

I still collect warhammer; that said i think the Warlord games are an easy intro. 28mm, plastic minis, d6 based and very new player friendly, and lots of stuff fo many periods.

I feel the biggest piece of advice to people coming over from GW games is historical gaming is NOT meant to be approached in the same way. There are no super armies or game winning army lists. While there are definitely rule sets that cater to that crowd who need points values and army lists but that is not the point of historical gaming. You should be setting out to recreate history and history is seldom fair or even. You will need to do your research into the uniforms, the equipment, flags, army compositions and a whole slew of other things that is not present in the GW sphere. I would also caution against toolbox games from Warlord Games as they do not properly cover the distinct historical periods very well. I have found that avoiding those historical games aimed at 40k players is a better road into the hobby. You're not playing 40k you are playing historical gaming so there is a huge difference. Also do not be afraid to reach out to people in the know about uniforms or weapons etc of a specific period. Most historical gamers I have encountered will happily share tips and tricks and information. I would also strongly suggest not coming into historical gaming with the mindset of a certain KZfaqr who thinks just because you may paint or play ww2 Germans that you are in fact a yatzi. Leave that sort of garbage where it belongs and that is in the bin. Also try to find a few rule sets that have similar style basing to be able to play them all. Biggest tip is simply enjoy the wonders that is historical gaming.

54mm is and always has been the one true scale!!!!!

Recent anouncement from GW about the price rise might inspire a flux of fresh blood into historical or skirmish games. ;)

Have to admit that it proved impossible to get into historical. Hard to find players, harder still to get agreement on rules or figure size. In my area London there are more people playing Warhammer than historical by a huge margin. My fantasy dwarf has seen dozens of battles. My 28mm renaissance poles sat unused for years as no one wanted to play that period in 28. I ended up retiring from historical

Man if I didn’t quit when GW blew up my Warhammer Fantasy hobby I don’t think I’ll be leaving this side of death 💀 😂😂😂