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As a parent of three, I hear constantly from schools about STEM. STEM this and STEM that–everything is about STEM. If you’re not familiar with STEM, it’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, the things that our students today are supposed to be learning about to get the jobs of tomorrow. STEM, for better or for worse, is changing the way classrooms are budgeted, curriculums are planned, and tests are taught. 

(It should be noted, by the way–and we’ll get back to this in a little while–that there has been pushback on this STEM-driven agenda, saying we need STEAM. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. There are a lot of arguments back and forth, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t. The point is: what about wargaming and STEM, or wargaming and STEAM?)

Does Wargaming Teach STEM Skills, Or Even STEAM Skills?

The Arts in Wargaming

Now let’s look at the first one right off the bat–the obvious one: Is wargaming good for STEAM? Wargaming teaches about the arts because so much of the wargaming hobby is artistic. Every army needs to be painted–at least, it needs to be painted if you’re going to play in a tournament. And that means that every wargamer either needs to have rudimentary painting skills or the money needed to pay someone else to paint their armies. 

There is so much for students to learn about the arts from miniature wargaming. From a technical level, there are things like color theory and contrast and brushwork that are essential to painting. But there are bigger things about the arts in miniature wargaming that go beyond putting paint on a figure. There are all the people who create fan art–or even original art of homebrew games. The requires knowledge of composition and balance and harmony. 

But arts doesn’t just mean “visual arts”. It also means the written word. And here we get both into writing but also reading. When it comes to writing, people constantly write fan fiction, or homebrew games, or rulesets. But when it comes to reading–that’s where I take a lot of pleasure from wargames. 

I got my son into miniature wargaming for the sole purpose of STEAM. He’s in middle school and he has ADHD and a load of learning disabilities, and he struggles with reading quite a bit. But I remembered my own beginnings, and how much time I spent poring over those copies of Wargames Illustrated that I had acquired, reading the same magazines over and over, obsessed. So I knew that I could possibly get my son into wargames and maybe get him interested in reading if I could just hook him with the right story. 

And did it work? Well, kinda. I think in principle the idea is strong, but he’s a special case. He still struggles. He has definitely caught the painting bug, which I love, and he’s getting there with the reading. I got him into Bolt Action initially, because Bolt Action has a low barrier to entry in terms of rule complexity and cost, but he got much more interested in Star Wars Legion. Star Wars was the piece of the puzzle that I needed to get him looking at books. And even if, right now, he’s just looking at the pictures, that’s good.

Math in Wargaming

This is the other reason why I wanted to get my son interested in wargaming. Now, unless you’re making your own ruleset or making complicated tables of probabilities, you’re not going to be using advanced math in your games. But you are doing arithmetic, and you’re doing a lot of it. 

From figuring out saving throws, modifiers, and adding up dice, to calculating ranges, distances, measurements and arcs, all of this is arithmetic. And the faster you can do it, the better. Games are easily bogged down when you have to constantly look at charts and do math on your finger (though we’ve all been there) but the more you play the quicker you get. Everyone starts slow, but they get better as they go, which is why learning math in wargaming is so excellent.

Of course, there are a lot more ways that you can use math when you’re playing wargames. It’s not at all uncommon for gamers to create their own charts and “one page rules” versions of games. I did it when I was a kid, combining everything from multiple wargaming books into a few pages of succint charts. 

And this is to say nothing of mental calculations you make when you’re playing the game–the calculations of probability. Knowing that rolling a six sided die is going to give you a desired result one third, one sixth, or one half the time–that’s valuable. And those are the kinds of decisions you’re making every time you attempt a dice throw. 

Engineering in Wargaming

This one may seem a little less likely to have a place, and I’ll admit that I had to stretch a bit to find examples. You don’t need to know a lot about physics to paint, collect, or play wargames.

But then I thought about terrain. Sure, not everyone in wargaming is making terrain that requires engineering, but a lot of people take great pains to do amazing terrain. For example, look at this incredible castle build by Real Terrain Hobbies and see all the lengths he goes to measure and balance, to saw and to nail, this glorious terrain board. 

In my own hobbying, I’ve been building other, smaller hobby projects that don’t require a knowledge of physics–there’s no real structural integrity issues–but there is architecture. In this build of a Tunisian Bolt Action board, I had to construct the entire building out of foam board and plaster. 

Yes, you’re not going to be a structural engineer from playing wargames, but you may very well get the bug for drawing up blueprints, creating architectural styles, and learning the basics of construction. 

Technology in Wargaming

This one has come really far really fast. Looking back over the 35 years I’ve been involved in wargaming, for a long time there wasn’t much need for technology, or technology skills. You would buy miniatures at the gaming store, paint them at home, buy printed copies of the books, get together with your friends, and that was that. 

But now there is so much more. For starters, there’s 3D printing. 3D printing in wargaming is practically its own hobby, and you can take it as far as you want it. Even with the most plug-and-play options, you’re still learning computer programs for slicing your models. You’re using the tools to make supports and hollow figures. 

But if you want to go so much farther you can create your own models in 3D rendering programs like Blender. You can do little things like manipulate a component of a figure, or you can do major things like become your own 3D sculptor. 

Where else is technology present in wargaming? The more things move to the digital realm, the more paper books are becoming a thing of the past. And even though many big behemoth companies (Games Workshop) don’t like to go down this road, other companies are quick to sell eBook versions of their rules. (Games Workshop sells some eBook versions, but they’re on proprietary formats. Warlord Games, on the other hand, has all their manuals available on Kindle that you can buy on Amazon.)

There’s also wargaming online. And while we can look at things like Total War: Warhammer III, or World of Tanks or Company of Heroes, there’s the much more simple Tabletop Simulator. Tabletop Simulator saw a huge growth during the pandemic lockdowns, and a lot of people either learned for the first time how to play wargames there, or moved their real-world hobby into the virtual world there. 

One last thing that I’ve found interesting is Moonbreaker’s painting component. Moonbreaker is a video wargame–we’ve seen plenty of those–but it openly embraces the idea that it’s a videogame version of a miniatures game. You can paint every bit of the miniatures just as you would real-world models, with washes, drybrushing, and highlighting, but it’s all done virtually.

Science in Wargaming

Here’s another one that you probably don’t think too much about, but there’s a lot that wargamers actually know about science. 

Paint is, at its core, about chemistry. And there are a number of content creators have gone to great lengths to inform painters how to better understand pigments. I’m thinking here about Ninjon’s video on the subject and Goobertown Hobbies video on the subject.

And if you want to dig into science in wargaming, there’s no better source than Brent from Goobertown Hobbies. He did an excellent video on the process of casting plastic, one on the new Siocast, and one all about resin.

Because resin is probably the place in wargaming where gamers get most into chemistry. Of course you can avoid all of this if you decide not to 3D print, but 3D printing enthusiasts will be able to do a lot just by changing the type of resin they’re using (or filament). 

STEM in Wargaming–A Match Made in Heaven

What all this boils down to is if you’re a parent, you should get your kids into wargaming. And if you’re a student, you should embrace wargaming as a place where you can learn vital real-world skills. Heck, if you’re a teenager, print out this blog and show it to your parents and ask them for money to buy models.