Dad and daughter conquer war games

A father and daughter both brought home medals from the International War Games Federation’s (IWF) World Championships for tabletop figure war games in Maseru, Lesotho.

Ewan Retief (45) came second and his daughter Elishia (16), received a gold medal in the scholar women’s division.

Ewan feels honoured to have been awarded this ranking as he has not been playing that long.

Ewan’s interest in the sport started when he was at high school. He developed his own version of the game based on information he had read in a book about war games. He joined Old Edwardians War games Club at the beginning of this year.

He introduced his daughter to this relatively unknown sport, which is a game of strategy, patience, tactics and fun.

Although she was not really interested, she soon found she had a natural flair for the game. She won the majority of her games this year.

Two players face off on a board, about the size of half a table tennis table. With figurines who’s amount of movement are determined by rolling a dice.

The games are based on historically correct armies that existed from 3000 BC to 1450 AD and are played using the De Bellis Multitudinis rule set.

Each player can choose a historical army to play with. Ewan’s army is that of the Lydians (modern day Turkey). The army configuration is determined by pre-defined army lists and played according to the setup of that particular army.

Different types of soldiers have different attack and defence values. A dice is rolled to determine who will be the attacker and defender.

Players also determine the type and position of the terrain on the board.

The goal of the game is to eliminate one third of your opponent’s army and the average play time is about three hours.

Ewan believes there are many advantages to playing these war games and would like high schools to start introducing it as a hobby. It teaches one to think strategically and tactically, concentration, problem solving and even some history.

There is also an artistic aspect to this hobby as one has to paint the 15mm figurines according to historically correct versions of the army you have chosen.

War games in SA are administered by Mind Sport South Africa (https://www.mindsportsa.co.za/), an organisation that promotes games like e-gaming, figure war games and Marabaraba as a sport.

If you would like to get involved in war games, contact Ewan on ewan.retief@gmail.com