Historical Wargame Club Spotlight

By: Lauren Hunter

Staff Writer

Franciscan University of Steubenville offers many clubs for the students that it educates. The
selection ranges from academic clubs to sports to specific interests, so there are a variety of clubs
that will appeal to the students.


One of the new clubs that was formed recently was the Historical Wargame Club. This club was
the idea of one of Franciscan University’s history professors, Dr. Alexander Burns.

The Historical Wargame Club started operating as an official club in the Fall 2024 semester after accumulating interest and hosting unofficial meetings since Fall 2023.


President of Wargame Club, Senior Joshua Ginter, said in an interview, “Wargame Club was
started to create an environment to learn about important or interesting historical battles and wars in a more hands on method than a classroom lecture, while simultaneously giving students a space to have fun and enjoy themselves.”


Historical Wargame Club features tabletop gaming as its main focus and is similar
to popular titles such as Axis and Allies or Dungeons and Dragons. The members meet for the main games roughly twice a month on Saturdays in Egan 200.


Each game that is played is set up to resemble wars or battles that occurred in history. Some of
the recent battles and campaigns that have been and are currently being played through are
Thirty Years War campaign, Team Yankee and Lepanto. These games are moderated, run and
organized by Dr. Burns and Joshua Ginter.


Ginter stated, “I hope that the people who attend the Wargame Club get a good learning of what
battles are important, what makes them important, and how warfare worked and changed in
different eras. Further, I hope that they build good, strong friendships with other club members.”


Occasionally, when there is not a designated game happening that weekend, there will be mini
wargames that are hosted by individual club members. These will usually be smaller historical
battles that do not require a lot of time to play through.


When asked what he hopes that Wargame Club adds to the university, Ginter stated, “I think one
of the problems here at Franciscan is most of the freshmen come here in a bubble. They tend to
avoid interaction and keep to themselves.”

He continued, “I hope that the Wargaming Club can provides a great way for freshmen to burst
their bubbles and get to know other people, preferably outside of their major.”