Sunday Sermon: Were there five or six brass buttons?

I'm not going to pretend I get this topic totally, so before historical gamers take out a hit on me I'm trying to cover this topic from the perspective of a chap who'd rather play a game with giant manga inspired robots, than a North African WWII conflict with my Grandfathers actual unit. So bear with me as I try and tackle this subject in my own 'unique' way. I'm not going to lie to you, historic wargaming has always made me personally feel a little 'hinky'. I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se, nope, it's just that I feel a little weird plonking 'actual' historical units down on the board to play pretend fight a battle that actually happened. A conflict where real people fought and tragically lost their lives. I'm not going to sugar coat this, I think for me personally I used to find something a little distasteful in it, part of me still does. The idea of placing actual units on the table that existed to play the Battle of the Somme didn't leave me cold, it left me recoiling at horror and the potential insensitivity of such actions.

This was with a father figure... erm... my 'father' displaying nothing but respect and reverence for the subject matter, and of course those soldiers who sadly and tragically lost their lives. The men who were fighting for whatever silly and selfish cause their leaders had decided at that time was worth these brave souls sacrifice. I saw how seriously good historic wargamers took the subject matter from a very early age. I saw the levels of respect and knowledge they had about this Hussar unit, or that unit of Riflemen or Dragoons... or whatever. They knew the names of commanders, where units were mustered from, and which wool factory in Yorkshire had made their sodding tunics! The levels of knowledge, and indeed the time commitment displayed to obtain that knowledge is actually quite impressive now I look back on it. I've slowly come to realise there is something noble about the pursuit of such gamers, and their attempts to pay homage to the soldiers of our past battles, and their desire to want to learn so much about their lives, and the inevitable loss of them.
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