I randomly came across some painter on Facebook and he was painting nothing but nazi uniforms (okay he painted one Jewish child... that was in the ghetto polishing some SS officer's boots - ***YIKES!***) so when I questioned him about it he went: *"I'm so sorry you feel offended. I'm just teaching people how to paint UwU."*
Oh I'm sure there's no other way to learn how fasch uniforms looked like.
I play warthunder, and it's really entertaining to just mention how any late war german tank was more likely to kill itself through engine and transmission failure than take out any allied tank.
Whermacht when they use vehicles intended only to be used in short bursts with long maintenence downtime constantly [and then they break down](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/027/475/Screen_Shot_2018-10-25_at_11.02.15_AM.png)
I too was worried about the frequency of fascists in historical gaming but when I decided to dive in I mostly played against older men with dusty moustaches who couldn’t come to the pub after a game because their wives had made shepherds pie for tea and they didn’t want it to go cold.
You’re not far off, I’m trans and when I agree to a game the dusty men are a bit awkward (this is the uk after all so who knows what BS they’ve read in the papers) but once things get going and we start sharing a joke, chatting about work and so on it’s like they figure out I’m not a tabloid boogie man but a real human being they can get along with. That’s the Beauty of gaming imo: bringing many different types of people together.
If you've played 3rd or 4th edition 40k you've basically played Bolt Action.
There are better systems for platoon level actions, but a common issue with most of them is how highly they rate krauts.
Personally find it very different from 4th but I've only played a couple games of 4th, it's not that dissimilar I guess but a lot of mechanics are different.
I had that worry going in, and ended up playing VBCW using bolt action rules before switching to bolt action proper, but its honestly not been my experience. Wherbs are terminally online, very few go out to clubs to play in my experience
Any nazi/italy/japan players are mostly people who just have a “bad guy” army because these games need a bad guy, (again in my experience) they often have an allied army too
Even in vbcw those who played the blackshirts, edwardians or other fascist armies also had “good guy” armies like yorkists, jacobins or a commie army.
Yeah, this is like what I told my girlfriend when she was nervous about getting into 40k. The only way to change those kinds of dynamics is to assert your right to be in the space. If we just opt out of anything a reactionary touches, we'll find ourselves isolated and the Right will treat these communities as their playground. The answer to age old Death Korps of Krieg debate on this sub is a great example. If only the Right plays Krieg, then they'll get to use Krieg as yet another dog whistle, whereas if you readily know plenty of trans people, people of color and progressive people who play Krieg, you'll stop associating them with fascism and they'll resume their role of being cute little toy soldiers and not right wing propaganda.
No, they're "literally" knights (Dark Angels), crusaders (Black Templars), US troops in Vietnam (Catachans) or any other sect of authoritarian evil. Do you not have a problem with those historical bad guys?
At the end of the day, the hobby is painting toy soldiers. Abstaining from Krieg is not praxis. No one here endorses them. If you want to make a difference, organizing in real life is the sad, sober answer and I know that the majority of us here don't do half of what we could. Including me.
I don't know man, at least knights, crusaders and US troops in Vietnam have more nuanced representations that make twist them in a more positive light way easier, Reich soldiers on the other hand... I would love to be in the wrong, but as long as Krieg being the main jerking material for the far right sections of the fandom is their main meme, besides dying stupidly and shovels of course, I can't see any future in there.
I love Bolt Action, but it does continue a lot of German myths. Such as that the Panther and Tiger were these super bad ass tanks... The Sherman was a meh tank and Russians only tactic was killing their own people.
Also that Waffle SS were the elitist bestest soldiers the world had ever known instead of a bunch of egotistical assholes who actively worked against Army leadership and floundered nearly every front by being out of position and or intercepting supplies from the Army.
Same bullshit you get in games like Warthunder where the Sherman 75mm cannot harm a Tiger or Panther from the front (While no such bias exists for the Cromwell with a virtually identical 75).
Just something you get used to in WW 2 gaming circles. Same as best generals and soldiers wore grey arguments in the Civil War gaming sphere.
I think it's very much a YMMV situation.
For me in my experience wargamers in general, whether historical, fantasy or sci-fi, are a pretty chill bunch. The only fascist warhammer fans I've had the displeasure of meeting don't actually play the game they just collect a handful of miniatures, read the lore and bitch and moan online.
With that said I have heard horror stories of neckbeard infested wargaming groups that are extremely unpleasant to be around but personally so far I haven't met anything like it.
The historical wargaming community in general though is definitely on the older side of things so I think that bias can result in a more laid back, socially competent and welcoming group.
Bolt Action is really fun. I don't think there's as many wehrabos in it as you might think. More Mark Corrigans than Daryls. Probably the most common problematic attitude you'll encounter will be soldiers who'll hear no wrong about the British Military.
If you haven't checked them out "Modelling For Advantage" on Youtube have some really good battle reports.
Idk, at least in my town bolt actions pretty friendly, most Germans are painted normally and not given the Hermann Goering Buffet special. To be fair it very much is a dad game here as well.
There's so much more to historical wargaming than just Bolt Action and Flames of War.
Any era you can think of, there's a ruleset. Napoleonic? Thirty Year's War? Russian Civil War? There's a ruleset for it.
The Napoleonic Era does seem pretty neato burrito.
I like the combined arms aspect of WW2 with things like tank destroyers and half tracks that are unique to the era.
You just got to find a good group. Honestly, historicals and warhammer have very different demographics. Warhammer skews on the yonger(ish) crowd, with an emphasis on fast gameplay and meta-gaming. Historical groups are much, much older, with a bigger emphasis on largescale, scenario or campaign driven games. I vividly remember the first time I ever saw historicals being played IRL. I was on a trip with my family to Pennsylvania, and since I'd been reading about wargaming online, we stopped by a store, and they were playing some ACW game. I was at the tail end of my teens, and I was the youngest person in that room by a solid 30 to 40 years. Most wargamers aren't period fanatics: most play various eras. So there's no reason you can't find a group who does both Napoleonics and WWII. Honetstly, you're very likley to find one which does both, since they are the two most popular periods in European wargaming. In America, Napoleonics are in third place, behind the War of the Rebellion.
Playing as the natzies is pretty great actually. If you loss you still win because the natzies got killed.
This is just a silly joke and haven't thought much about if it works or even is good to say
Cheer when your models get killed. Congratulate your opponent as they take an objective from you. Boo your own units if they do well. I do not play bolt action but if i ever had to play as the nazis i think this what i want to do then
watch out here come the 30 minute videos complaining about how people are so ignorant about historicals and that painting nazis isn't in any way problematic (as if that's what was being said)
Tbh i don't see many of those people (at least not here), but historicals are seriously underrated and the shitty gatekeeping fascists are a big portion of why.
"Yes, Nazis did put their flags on tanks at times so they could aid aerial identification and avoid being bombed by their own people. *Why does literally every tank you paint need to have a Nazi flag modelled on it though.*"
[https://youtu.be/apOe1XFzcRc](https://youtu.be/apOe1XFzcRc)
He brought up a possible reasons people don't play historicals at much, including the same concept as OP. The comments became full of reactionary chud takes. It was disheartening
...and apparently there are even some angry reaction rant videos from other youtubers.
Not trying to stir the pot here, just found a similarity.
yes I've found looking up bolt action on YouTube right now is filled with new videos all being reactionary rants to Midwinterminis. At least for me that's what I see
I thought Midwinter handled it very well. I am disappointed in the comments, but I avoid the YouTube comment section for a reason (and I LIVE for shitty internet drama).
Yeah kinda sucks since there are people who just think their tanks and guns are cool. I think early war Wehrmacht uniforms are a really neat aesthetic, it's just you have to steer far clear of the clean Wehrmacht myth.
From a sheer balance perspective, I think that real warfare aside, the tradeoffs that each side went for in equipment makes really interesting gameplay which is part of why ww2 games have endured so much. It's a bit of a shame we can't just turn off our brains for ww2 games but what's important is just that: We can't turn our brains off for these games, they represent real conflict which might never truly die and we have to remain vigilant.
The lesson of the Weimar Republic is that you simply cannot tolerate giving ground to fascists. They talk about "the fair marketplace of ideas" because they don't want the conversation to be regulated, because once it's not, they can start using violent means to silence the opposition.
Oh nice.
I actually got the Waterloo starter box for Black Powder for a birthday gift like two years ago. I haven't been able to paint it yet though due to hand injuries.
I'm getting surgery on both of them soon though so maybe after that and the recovery I'll check it out.
I have some new interest in the Napoleonic Wars
Is it wrong to paint Germans? I have a Bolt Action starter set for the German panzergrenadiers that I’m currently working on, and I don’t feel like it’s wrong
I mean. I think it depends. My spouse’s family fled Germany to the U.S. in the lead up to WWII and a abandoned their Jewish traditions to increase chance of not getting turned away.
I used to make Nazi models. But after discussing with them their point of view, threw them all away.
So I get it, because in my mind yeah, someone has to play the bad guys, ya know? But these days, I have a hard time stomaching it.
But you do you. It doesn’t make you a bad person if you paint the bad guys. It only makes you a bad person if you don’t think you’re painting the bad guys. Or if you think they were just misunderstood.
No of course. They are the bad guys. No discussion about it indeed. I will never defend the Nazis/wehrmacht or any thing related to it. Simply put, I just like the models and I like painting them
I did have a lot of Afrikaner Corps Nazis from Bolt Action for my DnD Indiana Jones Campaign as baddies but they don’t go on the shelf like my beautiful sweet Orks
There is probably some people that do so because they glorify the third reich, but you've got to admit that the aesthetics of evil are pretty appealing. Doesn't nessesarily mean you agree with historic (or contemporary) naziism
I kind of understand you. There are nice designs that look cool in a vacuum. But personally I'd choose to paint kriegsmen / steel legion or collect Killzone Helghast / Jin-Roh stuff to separate it with a layer of abstraction. I wouldn't even mind people collecting a ww2 german for a tabletop game or building and painting the occasional Panzer or Messerschmitt.
But the dude that inspired this meme did nothing but nazi soldiers in dioramas depicting them as good guys just living life.
People have a right to question your motivations if you dedicate hundreds of hours making nazi soldiers look good.
Curious what you guys make of playing other WW2 nations. The British fire bombed Dresden, the Americans nuked Japanese civilians, the Soviets raped and pillaged east Europe etc. Nazis are like the absolute most contentious thing to collect but isn’t it all a bit sensitive and too soon when you think about it? Source; I don’t play historical games
I don't mind if you occasionally paint a model tied to a heinous regime but if you dedicate all your projects to one particular dictatorship and depict them in painstaking detail in situations that is supposed to humanize them then I will definitely raise an eyebrow or two.
I would think it's just as weird if you fetishized the American army, but less distasteful, unless you're making a diorama of the Enola Gay dropping the bomb on some scared, barefooted child.
My dad is building a diorama of some nazi railway cannon, right now, but his next project is an American navy drydock. He's mostly into ships anyway, armed or otherwise. I don't think it's too weird, really.
Well to my understanding most historical games like Bolt Action encourage collecting bits of different armies right, cause its less engaging to play same nations against each other so it's kind of like that.
"The soviets raped and pillaged eastern europe" + whining over dresden is a very common tactic used by neo-nazis to try and subtly shift the discourse away from the crimes of the nazis. I'm not saying you are a nazi at all but i just wanted to mention this in case you aren't informed.
The bombing of dresden is a common neo nazi myth. It WAS a valid military target, and the commonly cited death numbers completely dwarf the cities own claimed losses during the entire war. A better criticism of the British at the time would be manufacturing a famine in India, or shipping jews to palestine because they didn't want them in Europe, thereby creating the state of Israel.
Yeah the British treatment of India or say the Japanese crimes in Nanking. I was just wondering generally if collecting Nazi toys is that much worse than any of the rest. WW2 is maybe just a bit too recent and relevant if you start to look at it like that. I think I've settled on the opinion that it's kind of all just games and that as long as whoever is involved in the game is happy then no harm no foul, except for actual veiled extremists.
I think the problem is just people fetishing the nazis. But you could say the same to a lesser degree about the empire in star wars, or the imperium in 40k. Unironically loving fascist asthetics without any critique or caveat is a big red flag
It all depends on your relationship to the history at hand. A Black person from Africa may be more uncomfortable playing a Napoleonic era wargame because it was the period of colonialism. People from the US may be more uncomfortable playing an American Civil War era game than someone in Europe. A Chinese person may have the same feeling about seeing Japan on the table as someone seeing Nazis on the table.
Like it’s all relative to your relationship with the subject matter.
The difference between portraying British in WWII and Nazis is that the British are portrayed as killing the Nazis, not portraying the famine in India. Where as any Nazi model is the Nazis being Nazis. The whole war was dedicated to eradicating “undesirables” especially in the eastern front.
I don’t play WWII wargames because the Wehraboo crossover is too high. I’m fine with people ironically playing Imperium factions, but not anyone who would seriously defend their actions.
There is a difference between fantasy fascism and historic fascism, in that the feature of history is that it happened in real life to real people. Problem with people who unironically like the Imperium without criticizing them or worse defending their actions, isn’t because it’s fantasy fascism, it’s because they often believe the same thing about real fascist. Since people don’t exist in a vacuum.
Yeah, it’s a shame. My first Bolt Action army were the Fallschirmjager. Followed quickly by Warsaw Uprising Polish. 2 very different sides, with very different play styles. Get to play baddies and cheer when my own models get blown to bits or get to play the most hilarious infantry mob with the (frankly fantastic) Partisan rules. Win win.
I'm pretty sure the Nazis made 99% of their design decisions with the intention of being the most popular faction in wargames in the future because they were all a bunch of nerds. I guarantee the majority of Hitler's inner circle would be arguing about Space Marines if they were around now. Hitler would be giving Youtube speeches in front of a bookcase full of the Horus Heresy.
uh yeah, i know the type. 'I collected 10k points worth of waffen ss leibstandarte for no particular reason at all'
I randomly came across some painter on Facebook and he was painting nothing but nazi uniforms (okay he painted one Jewish child... that was in the ghetto polishing some SS officer's boots - ***YIKES!***) so when I questioned him about it he went: *"I'm so sorry you feel offended. I'm just teaching people how to paint UwU."* Oh I'm sure there's no other way to learn how fasch uniforms looked like.
With an UwU and everything? Christ, it's like the 4channers _need_ to stereotype themselves.
Yeah the UwU was like a punch in the face
More like a pawnch to the crotch X3 OwO :3
Bolt Action looks neat but I am wary of any WW2 hobby because wherbs infest all of them.
I play warthunder, and it's really entertaining to just mention how any late war german tank was more likely to kill itself through engine and transmission failure than take out any allied tank.
Whermacht when they use vehicles intended only to be used in short bursts with long maintenence downtime constantly [and then they break down](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/027/475/Screen_Shot_2018-10-25_at_11.02.15_AM.png)
Warthunder is praxis. They keep leaking military documents
Unfortunately it's almost entirely chuds in discords called like "Thug Shaker Central" doing it. And for no purpose other than to impress other chuds.
I too was worried about the frequency of fascists in historical gaming but when I decided to dive in I mostly played against older men with dusty moustaches who couldn’t come to the pub after a game because their wives had made shepherds pie for tea and they didn’t want it to go cold.
Oh so you mean true alphas?
You’re not far off, I’m trans and when I agree to a game the dusty men are a bit awkward (this is the uk after all so who knows what BS they’ve read in the papers) but once things get going and we start sharing a joke, chatting about work and so on it’s like they figure out I’m not a tabloid boogie man but a real human being they can get along with. That’s the Beauty of gaming imo: bringing many different types of people together.
It's a fucked up world when you just existing quietly and interacting with people could be considered praxis but respect to you and keep keeping on 🔥
If you've played 3rd or 4th edition 40k you've basically played Bolt Action. There are better systems for platoon level actions, but a common issue with most of them is how highly they rate krauts.
Ya know fashies favouring smaller, tactical games rather then those also requiring grand strategy and efficient list buildings tracks
Smaller games can be fun. But after playing Fistful of TOW 3 I'm much more keen on playing battalion to division level games.
Personally find it very different from 4th but I've only played a couple games of 4th, it's not that dissimilar I guess but a lot of mechanics are different.
I had that worry going in, and ended up playing VBCW using bolt action rules before switching to bolt action proper, but its honestly not been my experience. Wherbs are terminally online, very few go out to clubs to play in my experience Any nazi/italy/japan players are mostly people who just have a “bad guy” army because these games need a bad guy, (again in my experience) they often have an allied army too Even in vbcw those who played the blackshirts, edwardians or other fascist armies also had “good guy” armies like yorkists, jacobins or a commie army.
If left wingers don't try it though then it's a self fulfilling prophecy, it's a really good game and worth trying.
Yeah, this is like what I told my girlfriend when she was nervous about getting into 40k. The only way to change those kinds of dynamics is to assert your right to be in the space. If we just opt out of anything a reactionary touches, we'll find ourselves isolated and the Right will treat these communities as their playground. The answer to age old Death Korps of Krieg debate on this sub is a great example. If only the Right plays Krieg, then they'll get to use Krieg as yet another dog whistle, whereas if you readily know plenty of trans people, people of color and progressive people who play Krieg, you'll stop associating them with fascism and they'll resume their role of being cute little toy soldiers and not right wing propaganda.
Yup. Nonbinary, queer, leftist, socialist progressive Krieg player here. It also helps when you don't paint them like Nazis.
That's an impossible task dude, you can't clean up Krieg like that, they are doomed because they are what every fascist want to be.
Yes, as opposed to the rest of 40k factions, who are all based and reasonable...
They aren't literally WWI/WWII german troops
No, they're "literally" knights (Dark Angels), crusaders (Black Templars), US troops in Vietnam (Catachans) or any other sect of authoritarian evil. Do you not have a problem with those historical bad guys? At the end of the day, the hobby is painting toy soldiers. Abstaining from Krieg is not praxis. No one here endorses them. If you want to make a difference, organizing in real life is the sad, sober answer and I know that the majority of us here don't do half of what we could. Including me.
I don't know man, at least knights, crusaders and US troops in Vietnam have more nuanced representations that make twist them in a more positive light way easier, Reich soldiers on the other hand... I would love to be in the wrong, but as long as Krieg being the main jerking material for the far right sections of the fandom is their main meme, besides dying stupidly and shovels of course, I can't see any future in there.
I love Bolt Action, but it does continue a lot of German myths. Such as that the Panther and Tiger were these super bad ass tanks... The Sherman was a meh tank and Russians only tactic was killing their own people. Also that Waffle SS were the elitist bestest soldiers the world had ever known instead of a bunch of egotistical assholes who actively worked against Army leadership and floundered nearly every front by being out of position and or intercepting supplies from the Army. Same bullshit you get in games like Warthunder where the Sherman 75mm cannot harm a Tiger or Panther from the front (While no such bias exists for the Cromwell with a virtually identical 75). Just something you get used to in WW 2 gaming circles. Same as best generals and soldiers wore grey arguments in the Civil War gaming sphere.
I think it's very much a YMMV situation. For me in my experience wargamers in general, whether historical, fantasy or sci-fi, are a pretty chill bunch. The only fascist warhammer fans I've had the displeasure of meeting don't actually play the game they just collect a handful of miniatures, read the lore and bitch and moan online. With that said I have heard horror stories of neckbeard infested wargaming groups that are extremely unpleasant to be around but personally so far I haven't met anything like it. The historical wargaming community in general though is definitely on the older side of things so I think that bias can result in a more laid back, socially competent and welcoming group.
Bolt Action is really fun. I don't think there's as many wehrabos in it as you might think. More Mark Corrigans than Daryls. Probably the most common problematic attitude you'll encounter will be soldiers who'll hear no wrong about the British Military. If you haven't checked them out "Modelling For Advantage" on Youtube have some really good battle reports.
Idk, at least in my town bolt actions pretty friendly, most Germans are painted normally and not given the Hermann Goering Buffet special. To be fair it very much is a dad game here as well.
There's so much more to historical wargaming than just Bolt Action and Flames of War. Any era you can think of, there's a ruleset. Napoleonic? Thirty Year's War? Russian Civil War? There's a ruleset for it.
The Napoleonic Era does seem pretty neato burrito. I like the combined arms aspect of WW2 with things like tank destroyers and half tracks that are unique to the era.
You just got to find a good group. Honestly, historicals and warhammer have very different demographics. Warhammer skews on the yonger(ish) crowd, with an emphasis on fast gameplay and meta-gaming. Historical groups are much, much older, with a bigger emphasis on largescale, scenario or campaign driven games. I vividly remember the first time I ever saw historicals being played IRL. I was on a trip with my family to Pennsylvania, and since I'd been reading about wargaming online, we stopped by a store, and they were playing some ACW game. I was at the tail end of my teens, and I was the youngest person in that room by a solid 30 to 40 years. Most wargamers aren't period fanatics: most play various eras. So there's no reason you can't find a group who does both Napoleonics and WWII. Honetstly, you're very likley to find one which does both, since they are the two most popular periods in European wargaming. In America, Napoleonics are in third place, behind the War of the Rebellion.
Playing as the natzies is pretty great actually. If you loss you still win because the natzies got killed. This is just a silly joke and haven't thought much about if it works or even is good to say
Cheer when your models get killed. Congratulate your opponent as they take an objective from you. Boo your own units if they do well. I do not play bolt action but if i ever had to play as the nazis i think this what i want to do then
"Just cause you are The Bad Guy doesn't mean you have to be a bad guy" "He only paints natzis though" "Oh yeah fuck that guy"
watch out here come the 30 minute videos complaining about how people are so ignorant about historicals and that painting nazis isn't in any way problematic (as if that's what was being said)
Tbh i don't see many of those people (at least not here), but historicals are seriously underrated and the shitty gatekeeping fascists are a big portion of why.
"Yes, Nazis did put their flags on tanks at times so they could aid aerial identification and avoid being bombed by their own people. *Why does literally every tank you paint need to have a Nazi flag modelled on it though.*"
Did you all see Midwinter Mini's thing on this? Holy crap was that a dumpsterfire of malding fash.
Didn't have a chance to see it, what was wrong with it?
[https://youtu.be/apOe1XFzcRc](https://youtu.be/apOe1XFzcRc) He brought up a possible reasons people don't play historicals at much, including the same concept as OP. The comments became full of reactionary chud takes. It was disheartening ...and apparently there are even some angry reaction rant videos from other youtubers. Not trying to stir the pot here, just found a similarity.
Oh my god that's disappointing, that comment section is a warzone. Thanks for the context!
yes I've found looking up bolt action on YouTube right now is filled with new videos all being reactionary rants to Midwinterminis. At least for me that's what I see
I thought Midwinter handled it very well. I am disappointed in the comments, but I avoid the YouTube comment section for a reason (and I LIVE for shitty internet drama).
I'm always a little scared of historical wargaming because of this.
Chad profile pic 👍
thanks
Yeah kinda sucks since there are people who just think their tanks and guns are cool. I think early war Wehrmacht uniforms are a really neat aesthetic, it's just you have to steer far clear of the clean Wehrmacht myth. From a sheer balance perspective, I think that real warfare aside, the tradeoffs that each side went for in equipment makes really interesting gameplay which is part of why ww2 games have endured so much. It's a bit of a shame we can't just turn off our brains for ww2 games but what's important is just that: We can't turn our brains off for these games, they represent real conflict which might never truly die and we have to remain vigilant. The lesson of the Weimar Republic is that you simply cannot tolerate giving ground to fascists. They talk about "the fair marketplace of ideas" because they don't want the conversation to be regulated, because once it's not, they can start using violent means to silence the opposition.
This is why I prefer Napoleonics…. Big flags and pretty uniforms.
Which system(s) would you recommend for Napoleonic War gaming?
For smaller scale skirmish games I’d really recommend “Sharpe Practice” and for the full scale battles I’d definitely go for “Black Powder”.
Oh nice. I actually got the Waterloo starter box for Black Powder for a birthday gift like two years ago. I haven't been able to paint it yet though due to hand injuries. I'm getting surgery on both of them soon though so maybe after that and the recovery I'll check it out. I have some new interest in the Napoleonic Wars
The only time it is acceptable to paint a Nazi force is so your Red Army force has something to kill.
I imagine WW1 would be less controversial. Though USA side I can only imagine the Civil War historicals with Confederate armies.
Worst argument I've ever seen online was in a black powder-era wargaming facebook group where people were arguing about black Confederate soldiers.
I mean why wouldn’t the blacks fight for slavery they owned them
I know it may sound arbitrary, but I've just made it a point to not own, build, paint, or play SS troops.
I bought SS models purely to kitbash them into Polish resistance fighters for the Warsaw Uprising.
Perfect
Is it wrong to paint Germans? I have a Bolt Action starter set for the German panzergrenadiers that I’m currently working on, and I don’t feel like it’s wrong
Its the “only Nazis” part that’s suspicious.
Ah fair enough, was just wondering
I mean. I think it depends. My spouse’s family fled Germany to the U.S. in the lead up to WWII and a abandoned their Jewish traditions to increase chance of not getting turned away. I used to make Nazi models. But after discussing with them their point of view, threw them all away. So I get it, because in my mind yeah, someone has to play the bad guys, ya know? But these days, I have a hard time stomaching it. But you do you. It doesn’t make you a bad person if you paint the bad guys. It only makes you a bad person if you don’t think you’re painting the bad guys. Or if you think they were just misunderstood.
No of course. They are the bad guys. No discussion about it indeed. I will never defend the Nazis/wehrmacht or any thing related to it. Simply put, I just like the models and I like painting them
Then yeah. I get it. It’s all dependent on your relationship to the subject matter and all that.
I did have a lot of Afrikaner Corps Nazis from Bolt Action for my DnD Indiana Jones Campaign as baddies but they don’t go on the shelf like my beautiful sweet Orks
I watch gun restorations to help me sleep, and my favorite one has a partially hidden black sun tattoo. It made me very sad.
Me with my bundeswehr soldiers: I have no such weaknesses.
There is probably some people that do so because they glorify the third reich, but you've got to admit that the aesthetics of evil are pretty appealing. Doesn't nessesarily mean you agree with historic (or contemporary) naziism
I kind of understand you. There are nice designs that look cool in a vacuum. But personally I'd choose to paint kriegsmen / steel legion or collect Killzone Helghast / Jin-Roh stuff to separate it with a layer of abstraction. I wouldn't even mind people collecting a ww2 german for a tabletop game or building and painting the occasional Panzer or Messerschmitt. But the dude that inspired this meme did nothing but nazi soldiers in dioramas depicting them as good guys just living life. People have a right to question your motivations if you dedicate hundreds of hours making nazi soldiers look good.
Curious what you guys make of playing other WW2 nations. The British fire bombed Dresden, the Americans nuked Japanese civilians, the Soviets raped and pillaged east Europe etc. Nazis are like the absolute most contentious thing to collect but isn’t it all a bit sensitive and too soon when you think about it? Source; I don’t play historical games
I don't mind if you occasionally paint a model tied to a heinous regime but if you dedicate all your projects to one particular dictatorship and depict them in painstaking detail in situations that is supposed to humanize them then I will definitely raise an eyebrow or two.
I would think it's just as weird if you fetishized the American army, but less distasteful, unless you're making a diorama of the Enola Gay dropping the bomb on some scared, barefooted child. My dad is building a diorama of some nazi railway cannon, right now, but his next project is an American navy drydock. He's mostly into ships anyway, armed or otherwise. I don't think it's too weird, really.
Well to my understanding most historical games like Bolt Action encourage collecting bits of different armies right, cause its less engaging to play same nations against each other so it's kind of like that.
"The soviets raped and pillaged eastern europe" + whining over dresden is a very common tactic used by neo-nazis to try and subtly shift the discourse away from the crimes of the nazis. I'm not saying you are a nazi at all but i just wanted to mention this in case you aren't informed.
Dresden was a military target, as were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So you say you're left but you bootlick US and Allied WW2 and pretend there were zero warcrimes or problematic targeting of civilian populations? Ok?
Yo why the fuck am I being downvoted what did I say wrong???
The "what about"ism, probably
The bombing of dresden is a common neo nazi myth. It WAS a valid military target, and the commonly cited death numbers completely dwarf the cities own claimed losses during the entire war. A better criticism of the British at the time would be manufacturing a famine in India, or shipping jews to palestine because they didn't want them in Europe, thereby creating the state of Israel.
Yeah the British treatment of India or say the Japanese crimes in Nanking. I was just wondering generally if collecting Nazi toys is that much worse than any of the rest. WW2 is maybe just a bit too recent and relevant if you start to look at it like that. I think I've settled on the opinion that it's kind of all just games and that as long as whoever is involved in the game is happy then no harm no foul, except for actual veiled extremists.
I think the problem is just people fetishing the nazis. But you could say the same to a lesser degree about the empire in star wars, or the imperium in 40k. Unironically loving fascist asthetics without any critique or caveat is a big red flag
Yeah, people who unironically defend the imperium of man, imo are more likely to defend Nazi Germany in some fashion.
It all depends on your relationship to the history at hand. A Black person from Africa may be more uncomfortable playing a Napoleonic era wargame because it was the period of colonialism. People from the US may be more uncomfortable playing an American Civil War era game than someone in Europe. A Chinese person may have the same feeling about seeing Japan on the table as someone seeing Nazis on the table. Like it’s all relative to your relationship with the subject matter. The difference between portraying British in WWII and Nazis is that the British are portrayed as killing the Nazis, not portraying the famine in India. Where as any Nazi model is the Nazis being Nazis. The whole war was dedicated to eradicating “undesirables” especially in the eastern front. I don’t play WWII wargames because the Wehraboo crossover is too high. I’m fine with people ironically playing Imperium factions, but not anyone who would seriously defend their actions. There is a difference between fantasy fascism and historic fascism, in that the feature of history is that it happened in real life to real people. Problem with people who unironically like the Imperium without criticizing them or worse defending their actions, isn’t because it’s fantasy fascism, it’s because they often believe the same thing about real fascist. Since people don’t exist in a vacuum.
I mean, those other nations didn't organize one of the worst genocides in the world.
The British in India? The Japanese in China? The Belgians in Congo? This is good fun imperialism or what?
Yeah, it’s a shame. My first Bolt Action army were the Fallschirmjager. Followed quickly by Warsaw Uprising Polish. 2 very different sides, with very different play styles. Get to play baddies and cheer when my own models get blown to bits or get to play the most hilarious infantry mob with the (frankly fantastic) Partisan rules. Win win.
Man people care too much
I'm pretty sure the Nazis made 99% of their design decisions with the intention of being the most popular faction in wargames in the future because they were all a bunch of nerds. I guarantee the majority of Hitler's inner circle would be arguing about Space Marines if they were around now. Hitler would be giving Youtube speeches in front of a bookcase full of the Horus Heresy.