Introduction
As a brief departure from the normal strategic analysis of wargaming, I'd like to review another very important aspect of command and warfighting I learned in the military that I believe is applicable to Warhammer: the impact of attitude and ethos on one's ability to fight and win in combat. Thankfully the gravity of wargaming is much, much less dire than actual war, but that does not mean we cannot glean valuable insights from studying the psychology of war to better prepare ourselves when we run into adversity. I cannot count how many times I have seen an opponent or experienced firsthand the deflating sensation of defeat, only to realize that a path to victory was still there. This concept is called the "will to fight" in military doctrine and will be the focal point of our article today.
Background
We will refer to a couple of key documents in today's analysis. First is the Rand Corporation's Will to Fight: Returning to the Human Fundamentals of War. The thesis of this writing is that the will to fight is the single most important factor in war, defining the concept as "the disposition and decision to fight, to keep fighting, and to win," (Will to Fight, p.3). Written through the lens of the American military, enjoying a technological overmatch relative to the enemy is inconsequential if those who wield it are unwilling to continue fighting as "casualties mount and unexpected calamities arise." Then we will examine the philosophy of training to learn how we can develop better skills to account for the horrible calamities our enemies bring to bear in Warhammer.
War is a Human Endeavor
War always has been (but perhaps not always will be with the advent of AI and robotics being integrated into warfare) a human endeavor. The US Army explains in ADP 3-0, "War is a human endeavor - a fundamentally human clash of wills often fought among populations. It is not a mechanical process that can be controlled precisely, or even mostly, by machines, statistics, or laws that cover operations in carefully controlled and predictable environments. Fundamentally, all war is about changing human behavior." This parallels to a much simpler extent the unpredictable and behavior-driven nature of wargaming. We can do all the theory-crafting and math-hammer we want, but at the end of the day the dice and your opponent's will also get a vote. The good news is so do you.
A very common response to unexpected or undesirable outcomes in this game is to lose the will to continue and find a way to win. The decision to not pursue victory is just that, a decision. You are in control of how you respond to a situation, do not discount yourself. You very well might be correct, there may be no way to come back but you are doing yourself and your opponent a disservice by losing the will to fight. This is the behavior we should strive to change, focusing on remaining adaptable and resilient amongst adversity. I'll be the first to admit it sounds like lip service and self-help nonsense, but there is certainly a historical precedence to numerically and technologically superior forces underestimating the enemy's will to fight and paying a high price (refer to Rand's table below).
The study proceeds to classify the "disposition to fight" into different levels of analysis ranging from the individual all the way up to society. What I'd like to draw a parallel to here is the individual and unit levels. As an individual, your will to fight is generally a combination of your motivations and your capabilities to do so. In other words, it's a combination of how bad you want victory and your skills you've developed to achieve those ends. Both of these are in your control. Further, in the unit level of analysis, we have more factors in your control. While there isn't really any influence on your unit's will to fight, there are mechanisms for control scores and enemy capabilities to affect the conceptual will to fight of your forces. You can also examine what capabilities your army has to counteract those potential threats to your control and cohesion of forces.
A common technique US military forces have used during training to simulate calamity and condition warfighters to respond is to notionally "kill off" key decision makers or leaders, forcing more junior troops to make decisions and find a way to survive and win. We can do similar things in our practice games to condition ourselves to find a way when things look the most grim.
Train as you Fight
"Train as you fight" is a very common adage in the US Army. A classmate of mine shared an interesting insight on the philosophy he used to train his Soldiers: "I don't train my guys until they get it right, I train them until they can't get it wrong." We can adapt these concepts for our list-crafting and practice games as well. Do not just consider and plan for what it looks like when your list has everything go right. Plan for when everything goes wrong. What if you don't get that key spell or ability off? What if you don't have as many command points remaining due to unforeseen circumstances? What if that high-probability attack profile whiffs? The best players can find ways to mitigate the inevitable variance of a dice game and find ways to right the ship when things go wrong.
I've referenced exercises you can perform when you don't have enough time for a full game such as performing Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) or mock deployments with a buddy, and I'd like to add another. Try taking turns with a partner in a situation that they believe they have you in an unfavorable position. Now work to get out of it. Take multiple reps with different approaches, finding any wrinkle you can to at least mitigate your opponent's impact. As you do this, you'll become more comfortable with how this situation affects you as well as conditioning you to how impactful it truly is. Master Sergeant (MSG) Larry A. Millner Jr. wrote in the NCO Journal about this concept in an article entitled "Choosing Hardship Today for an Easier Tomorrow."
A very important aspect of this conditioning that MSG Millner writes about is that "the Army routinely conducts challenging and realistic training allowing Soldiers to challenge themselves and even fail in controlled environments," (Millner, 2023). It is perfectly fine to fail in this game, especially in practice. It gives you a tremendous experiential lesson of what to expect in the myriad of possible scenarios that can unfold. Put yourself in those situations of adversity, cultivate that positivity, and you'll find that you're able to rise above it more often.
Lists Change, Attitudes Don't
A final related point I'd like to discuss is your choice as a player to respond to changes in the game. With a recent significant set of changes in the Warhammer 40,000 Dataslate and the epoch of 4th Edition for Age of Sigmar, we as a community are going through some pretty adverse changes. It is during these times that the skill of resilience and the will to fight become all the more important. Try to view changes in points, stratagems, or even entire armies' identities is an inevitable part of the game. Try to develop a perspective that is more self-aware and realize that these changes are at least intended to address the quality of the game experience for everyone. It is a cooperative gaming experience even if it is competitive. It is not just about you and your army's strength at the end of the day. You can lament the changes or you can find a new way to adapt to the situation and find a way to win. The choice is yours.
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