Connections USA is the professional wargaming conference. Colonel Matt
Caffrey, USAF, was ordered to run a conference to further professional
wargaming, and the order was never rescinded. So, since 1993, the great and
good of professional wargaming have gathered to discuss their art and craft.
Before the pandemic, I was sitting around a table in a bar during Connections
USA. As I bought a round of drinks, I realised that the majority of the active
professional wargamers in the world could fit around a single table: Peter
Perla, Roger Mason, Ed McGrady, Yuna Wong, Tom Mouat, Tim Price, and a handful
of others. Professional wargaming was a tiny world in 2017.
In 2026, professional wargaming is an integral part of military education,
training and analysis. Practically every defence company of note now has at
least a few staff with some responsibility for wargames. Many people are
interested in getting into this world, and some of them ask me how to get a job
in professional wargaming. I respond by suggesting how they might become a
rounded professional because that's the skill set that will actually get them
to an interview.
Know your domain
The first step is to become a master of your professional domain. If you want
to run a space wargame, you need to know about satellites. The same goes for
cyber, air, submarines, and any other area of modern warfare. You cannot expect
a political party to let you umpire a game about a "run on the state
currency" unless you can persuade them you understand national economics.
It helps, of course, to have a subject matter expert to facilitate the game รข€”
but you still need to know more than the basics yourself. When I ran a game
about a "run on the pound" some years ago, it helped enormously to
have an advisor from the Bank of England on the team, but I still spent a week
reading before the initial sponsor meetings. Wargaming is a skill, but it
doesn't replace the need to be genuinely knowledgeable about the topic being
gamed.
Know your craft
When I talk to professional wargamers, I'm often frustrated by how limited
their mental toolbox of techniques can be. Wargamers who say they only use
"simulations," or only “digital games”, or only “manual games”, are
restricting their expertise to a narrow slice of the field. Some insist that
every wargaming problem can be solved with a matrix game (or a board game, or
whatever their comfort zone happens to be).
To be a master wargamer, you need to be familiar with a very wide range of
games, professional and hobby alike. You
should have designed matrix games, used AI to assist a strategic-level game,
and understood military course of action analysis (and why it isn't a wargame).
You need to know what a hidden scenario is, what a committee game is, and stay
aware of developments in roleplaying. Watching someone run a game of Dungeons
& Dragons can be a masterclass in conjuring a scenario and immersing
players in a game world. A roleplaying session of Call of Cthulhu can teach you
a great deal about putting players under mounting stress. Practically every
top-rank professional wargamer I know plays hobby games to some degree. So if
you don't know what a megagame (or muggergame) is, or what confrontation
analysis is, go and find out.
Getting to the interview
There's a wide range of professional wargaming jobs out there and some jobs in
serious games, and even more in hobby wargaming, but to get to an interview you
need to know the military domain being gamed to a good standard. You also need
a genuinely broad base of wargaming experience, spanning miniatures, Eurogames,
cyber, multi-domain operations etc.
When you're on that lifelong journey to becoming a master wargamer, I'll see
you at the bar. The round's on me, while you tell me about the trials and
tribulations of the professional wargaming world. Is professional wargaming an
art or a craft? We have never been able to agree, but perhaps you will be able
to tell us.
