Salt Lake Open wargaming and Warhammer convention 

• Scott Renshaw

On a snow-covered ca. 1942 battlefield, the Hungarian and U.S. armies meet. The troops—infantry, artillery, tanks—are positioned in trenches and in the cover of forests, each with an objective to break behind enemy lines. A few key factors will determine who emerges victorious: a measuring tape to determine the range of the weaponry. A laser pointer to assess whether someone has a clean shot. And quite a few rolls of the dice.

In an upstairs gallery at Sandy's Gajo Games, Shawn Bridges (Hungary) and Todd Wilsted (U.S.) participate in a tournament of Flames of War, a tabletop historical war game involving 1/100 scale miniatures and set pieces representing terrain elements like hills, buildings and trees, in campaigns that typically take around two hours. They're part of a thriving local community that regularly plays war games—some with a historical slant (like Flames of War), others more fantasy-based (like the mega-popular Warhammer games)—and will be filling two venues near Salt Lake International Airport for the Salt Lake Open, the first combined convention of fantasy and historical wargaming in the area in more than 30 years.

Shawn Bagley has been a wargaming enthusiast for decades, but became what he calls a "super-volunteer" for Warlord Games after moving to Utah from California several years ago; "I retired and reinvented myself, and I get to talk about dice-rolling and army tanks," Bagley says. After observing a local first-year fantasy wargaming convention that took place last year, Bagley approached that event's organizer, Mario Capizzo, and the two decided to collaborate on a joint convention that would also include history-based games.

Getting started with these games requires an investment—not just of money, but of time. Bagley says that, depending on the game, starter kits can cost $125 - $300. Every soldier or piece of equipment you want for your battlefield requires the purchase of that item, which then needs painting to represent the uniforms of your chosen army, camouflage patterns and more. There are even players who improvise combinations of components from different kits, a process known as "kit-bashing."

For many players, according to Bagley, "part of this hobby, maybe 30-35%, is the painting. You get to tap into that creative force within you. The gaming part, you're going to get frustrated, because the dice can kill you. But darn, that tank looks cool."

Painting figures was an entry point for Gajo Games' owner, Craig Tyrrell, who began with an online business selling pre-painted figures before opening his brick-and-mortar store. According to Tyrrell, the in-person component of these games represents a huge part of their appeal. "It's visual like the computer stuff, but you have to actually sit across a table from another actual human being, and talk to them," he says. "I get that from parents all the time: This is so much better than just sitting in front of a console. ... It keeps people socialized and talking to each other. And these days, there's not enough of that."

Bagley acknowledges that COVID had an impact on in-person gaming, which took a hit during the period when most such activities were shut down. "COVID hurt game stores; it was just unsafe," Bagley says. "We had to rebuild the gaming community. [The Salt Lake Open] is part of that—a community-building effort."

The members of that community can certainly get heavily invested—both financially and time-wise—into this hobby. Todd Wilsted estimates that he's spent "thousands of dollars" on game equipment over the approximately 20 years he's been playing; Bridges counters with a laugh that "I've only been playing two years, and I'm already thousands [of dollars] in." A lot of that has to do with the requirements for each individual game, as Flames of War has variations representing World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and more, with players needing a different army for each game.

But for the players, it's worth it for the fun involved—and for the creativity that isn't necessarily married to historical reality. Bagley mentions a game at a tournament in Las Vegas, where the scenario involved a battle in a particular geographic location. "I brought a mountain so the guys would have to fight in the jungles of Burma in World War II," Bagley says. "One player had a Finnish army. Were the Finns in Burma? No, but players build their armies of passion. ... He brought to a jungle fight [figures of] Finns on skis. It works, because that rifle on that skier is the same as the rifle on a U.S. Marine in the point system."

That's why even when any game can have its super-competitive players, it can be a lot more fun not to take it quite so seriously. After all, when it comes right down to it, the essence is two people across a table playing a game, not actual war—or, as Wilsted puts it, "It's roll dice, push models."