How about a Roll Call ?

[Ballista]

Good stuff guys- keep em coming...

As an aside, I entered the world of board wargaming early in life when I convinced my brother to pony up the $5.00 to combine with the $5.00 we had gotten for Christmas to buy AHs Panzer Leader. Of course, I wound up "owning" the game (he was into electronics and those new fangled things called "PCs" [:)] ) and built my collection from there........

[SurrenderMonkey]

41 yrs old.
Live in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho - (admit it; you're jealous). [:D]

Been playing WiF since 1993, but wargaming since 1976. Used to be an A3R/RS and SL guy, but when I stumbled on WiF and Avalanche's Panzer Grenadier I dropped the old stuff. Currently play HOI2 and PzG.

I also enjoy CS, PzC, and the new Total War series from HPS, as well as all of Paradox's history stuff.

My first wargame was an old SPI Blue & Gray Quad game (Antietam) that I bought because I thought it was a book on the battle. [:'(] Opened it up when I got home and was blown away. Hooked ever since.

[terje439]

28 years old, live in the south-eastern most part of Norway. Started with RPGs at the age of 10, participated in my first gaming convention at 11, were I played Axis and Allies for the first time. Got hooked on wargames after that, but was never satisfied with the ammount of detail in A&A, so started to look around whenever I was at gaming conventions, moved from A&A to Diplomacy and Advanced Civilization before discovering WiF. From the age 17-20 me and three friends used to play two weekends a month. Not played it alot after age 20, due to studies, friends moving etc.

[morkin]

Belgrade, Serbia, 35 yrs.

Used to play WiF5 with 3 other friends. We always wanted to involve more people but nobody was eager to play more than a game or two. We bought later PiF. Started playing in 1994, played almost weekly until 2001, than stopped due what I see as a "natural enemy" of WiF on a global scale - wife [:@] and kids.

Being difficult to find opponents (I beleive there are no opponents in Belgrade [&:]) I am waiting for PBEM WiF.

Started wargaming early with own-made wargames, continued with wargames published ocasionally in local monthly crossword-type magazine my mother used to buy. Major constrain to wargaming was unavailability of wargames here and my dad always used to buy me lousy ones.

Bought and played Advanced 3rd Reich by AH, Diplomacy (AH), chess, Empires In Arms.

Never liked Warhammer type games. I dont like RPG either, although I played them on a few occasions.

Raising my kids (aged 4 and 8) properly - now we are playing Stratego and Chess. In 5 years I expect to start first board WiF. [:)]

Any WiF players from Serbia, please contact me.[:)]

[wfzimmerman]

ORIGINAL: morkin

Belgrade, Serbia, 35 yrs....

Any WiF players from Serbia, please contact me.[:)]

Not from Serbia, but spent a year there in 1970. I was 9 years old and in fourth grade. My father took a year of sabbatical in what was then Yugoslavia.

* no peanut butter! (an American standard for children's sandwiches)
* Belgrade was noisy and lively -- cars drove on the sidewalks to get around traffic jams
* I had looked at a map and observed that Yugoslavia was not far from Transvylvania, so slept with covers over my head all year in hopes that Dracula would pass me by and go on to another member of my family.

My wargaming career began in Belgrade as I made friends with a young Australian boy who also attended the American Embassy school -- we played Stratego!

[wfzimmerman]

44, married, 2 kids 14 & 6, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, employed as consultant for government contractor.

First wargame was "Year of the Rat" which came with my first issue of S&T #35.

Played a lot in my teens, Napoleonics, War in the East, other SPI games. Had a small miniatures collection but not much good at painting so gave it up.

Came back to the hobby around 2000 with computer War in the East from Decision Games. Harry Rowland was kind enough to add me to CWIF beta list as birthday treat on my 40th birthday March 18 2001. Have been watching ever since, very excited about opportunity to play my first game, hopefully before my 46th birthday!

Cheers,

Fred

[wfzimmerman]

My CWIF hex is 62,305 although you could make a case for it being Detroit 62,306. I live about ten miles from the Willow Run plant which made one heck of a lot of B-24 Liberators during WW2.

My dad has a cottage up north on the lake at the forested hex at 59,305. We can look out and sea the ore freighters passing down the coast from the Straits of Mackinac.

the CWIF map does a pretty horrible job on Michigan. I'd like to have a cottage on the two ginormous but non-existent islands in Lake Michigan!

[norvandave]

Vancouver, BC, Canada. Flag in my profile is the British Columbia provincial flag.
48, wife, 2 kids, dog

Started with chess, but I have been playing wargames since early 70's starting with D-Day and Afrika Korps. Lots of 3R but never WiF. Sounds like it's right up my alley though. Don't have enough time now for boardgames, so it'll have to be computer wargaming.

[podreus]

I'm a youngster here at 18, currently living in Houghton, MI so go TECH.[:D]

I started early playing chess and Axis and Allies. The first time I played WiF was my senior year in high school. It was in my WWII history class which was a lot of fun.

I tried to get a game started up here at tech but its kind of hard to have WiF board in your dorm room and be able to live in it at the same time.

[kram]

42 years old from Bergamo, Italy
Wargamer since 1980, started with Avalon Hill Tobruk, Spi Suez 73 and Normandy, and many more after.
Used to play WiF with 4 friends one day at week since 1990, all version until WiF5 + SiF and AiF, but sadly never played WiFFE.
Last game ended december 2005, now we have some rest with Marshall Eylau Nappy game.
Cheers,
Marco.

[macgregor]

46, from just south of Ft myers, florida. My first game was 'Sniper' while at ASW school in San diego. I then bought and played 'Panzer Leader' and then 'Firefight'. I saw SPI's 'Global War' and was intrigued. Before finding WiF I'd bought and played (though mostly alone) 'Pacific War', 'Vietnam','Solomons','Island battles','Third Reich', and 'Test of Arms'. I've since had ETO and PTO(not as good as WiF). Since changing over to computer games I've had most of them,strategy, sims particularly the naval ones. I must confess I play Operation Flashpoint' a first person shooter,flightsim squad strategy game all in one. An excellent game, largely because of it's player resources. As is the case with my favorite: 'The Operational Art of War', which I'm also desperately waiting to see updated by Matrix. Most of what I know about Wif I've learned from Steve, as well as how to make wargaming a twice a week event. I miss those days. I'm hoping that MWiF will allow some of us old friends, now seperated by long distance, a chance to rekindle the same old rivalry.

[TemKarl]

44, Melbourne Australia.

Been playing WiF (solo) off and on for 15 years, space permitting. Been playing board wargames (mostly SPI) since the mid 70's, and computer wargames since SSG released "Reach For The Stars" for the C64. Was (a very small) part of the beta test for Chris Mariacci's CWiF.

Oh, and I'm the developer for CWiE-II, due for release mid-year. Between CWiE, MWiF and "Strategic Command 2" I think this is going to be a BIG year of grand strategy WW2 wargames. I need to get CWiE-II finished by June so I'll have enough free time in the second half of 2006 to play MWiF!!!

[Norden_slith]

39, expatriate german, living in Denmark since 1989, when I started studying in Kopenhagen.

I have played wargames since at least the mid-80's. Favorite game is Empires at Arms even after all these years. After that WW2 strategic and grand strategic games like (adv) third Reich, Eastfront and these days Europe engulfed. I have played WIF some 10 times in the late 90's and loved it. Space and time constraints did put an end to this monster. Some of the mechanics are brilliant and I would love to put builds onto the production spiral again, send out the navalplanes into the Mediterraen, trying to draw that early FW-190 [;)], you know what I mean.

I've been watching progress in this forum (originally watching EiA [>:] ) for a while and I am impressed by the dedication and by steve's handling of it all. Much as I would want to help, things are in much more capable hands here then mine, so I am contend to watch. You guys are doing a great job!


Norden

[Espen]

Hi, I'm from Norway, 34 years old, and started playing this sort of games back in 92. Didn't know they existed before one or two years before that. My first game was Desert Victory (Omega Games), then Russian Front, Adv. Civ., and then I joined the club in Oslo in early '95. Since then I've played: Britannia, Junta, EiA, SPQR, Diplomacy, Machiavelli, Third Reich (bought the 3rd ed. right before adv. arrived. Great.), Panz.gr. Guderian, Risk, Axis and Allies. Am also involved in a game of War between the states. Now I'm more interested in the older times, but still fascinated by this game, which is probably the best representation of WW2 in strategic games games.

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: cwie

44, Melbourne Australia.

Been playing WiF (solo) off and on for 15 years, space permitting. Been playing board wargames (mostly SPI) since the mid 70's, and computer wargames since SSG released "Reach For The Stars" for the C64. Was (a very small) part of the beta test for Chris Mariacci's CWiF.

Oh, and I'm the developer for CWiE-II, due for release mid-year. Between CWiE, MWiF and "Strategic Command 2" I think this is going to be a BIG year of grand strategy WW2 wargames. I need to get CWiE-II finished by June so I'll have enough free time in the second half of 2006 to play MWiF!!!

Awesome dude! We are looking forward to cWiE II. The first version was OK to play but had the same issues as the board game. Hoping play balance will be there this time. Starting in '39 the Axis walks.

[Froonp]

Hello,

I am Patrice, from southern France (15 miles north of Marseilles, hex 1221 on the Western Europe map, hex 64,31 on the CWiF map).
I use to work as a system engineer in servers & networks since 2002. I was a trainer in computer softwares before that. I'm married, and have a son born in October 1998.

I was born in August 1965, and discovered WiF 5th Edition in 1991. I was playing AH, International Team, Victory Games wargames with my best friend, amongst whom our favorites were Flat Top, Pacific War and Air Force / Dauntless.
Since the day we played WiF, we were addicted and nearly played it exclusively.

In 1996 I upgraded to WiF FE and discovered the Internet community of the WiF discussion list and subscribed to it. I also decided to create a website about WiF to help clarifying it for beginners and other people lost in the countersheets & rules versions for example.
We nearly played about one '39-'45 WiF FE campaign per year, since 1996, so I have a fairly good understanding of how the game plays.

In late 1997 I answered a call for help sent by Harry Rowland on the WiF Discussion list, and since that time I give him a hand at shipping the ADG games in Europe. Through that experience and contact, I was often able to ask question directly to him to have clarifications about the rules. Surprisingly, I never met him.

In early 1998 I became part of the Alpha testing team for CWiF. The first version I tested was 0.0.27 I believe, and we went up to 0.7.71. A whole lot of work was done by all of us.

To be complete about the WiF thing in my life, in late 2002 I was proposed to be part of the so-called "Rule Comitee" of WiF FE. I like participating to it to try to "have it better", but I think my opinions only have little weigth in it.

All of this might explain why I'm so dedicated to have MWiF close to WiF FE, and why I'm often asking to "Ask Harry" when important things (changes) are decided.

Aside from WiF, I used to play role-playing games (AD&D, not very frequent nowadays), and I also play computer games (Matrix's wargames, WWII flight simulators, WWII SUB simulators, that kind of thing, with some WWII first person shooter). Needless to say that I'm interested in history (mainly around WWII but not exclusively) geography (I love maps and knowing how it all works), computers (surprising) and I'm also interested in geopolitic (I should say, "amazed with").

I'm here on the MWiF forums and on the "CWiF / MWiF experience" to try to put all the experience I gathered in the WiF FE world and in the computer word through my work and my hobbies to help making MWiF great.

[TheDishwasher]

My name is John, a 37 year old Software Engineer from Canberra, Australia. I played WiF from about the age of 17 to about 3 years ago when I needed a break. I'm about to pick it up again though as the itch is back and recently got in contact with my old group again (who are still playing).

Back when I used to play Harry Rowland also lived here in Canberra and I've played many a game with and against him. I was also involved with the testing and refining of the current rules and Beta testing the computer version of the game when Chris Marinacci was working on it. I was also a part of the rules comittee back then (I remember you Patrice - you had [or still have] a great WiF web site!) and actively involved in what was then an email mailing list for WiF developers and helpers.

So, hopefully I'll be able to bring some WiF knowledge to the forum!

[amwild]

Melbourne, Australia. Database programmer. 35 Years old. Enough with the boring stuff...

I have played short games of WiF a grand total of two times quite a few years ago, just enough to know that I wanted to play it more, and just enough to know that I would never have the table or floor space required to play it more. It was at that point (some time before CWiF was begun) that I decided that I would have to turn WiF into a computer game. The only things that got in the way of this ambition was time - as in not having enough of it - and copyright issues - I didn't want to begin such an ambitious project unless I could let everyone share in it (i.e. sell it to everyone). By the time I was about ready to begin, I looked up the ADG site to see who to contact them about the rights, only to find that CWiF was in production. At that point, I figured that I'd just wait and see. I waited. And waited.. And waited... And here we are. I must say that from what I have seen here, Steve seems to be doing a better job than I expect I could have, especially since he has more experience with WiF, and he is actually coding an AI, PBEM, etc... I now strongly suspect that if I had started, I would have ended up not finishing what I had started.

Most of the war games I have played have been on computers; mainly the Civilization series and the Total War series. I have only one cardboard war game, Crimson Skies (if that actually counts as a war game), that I had a look at after having played the PC flight "sim" game, and decided that it looked like fun. I played it with the rules as written a couple of times, then sat down and re-wrote the rules to add a whole lot of options and complexity (like a third dimension) and to integrate it with the rules of my favourite pencil & paper RPG system (also heavily self-modified).

I spend most of my time with my friends playing pencil & paper RPGs, and most of my other spare time modifying the Ars Magica base rule set for our RPG sessions so heavily that its original writers would scarcely recognise what we have made of it. Yes, it seems that I like games with lots of rules... In other spare moments, I play mostly tactical type computer games - mainly WWII and modern flight sims and sub sims. At one time, I played a lot of the Civilization series and the Total War series, but I have cut back on playing them, in part to avoid awkward questions like "What are you still doing up at 7:30 AM?", after having lost track of time at around 9:30 PM.

I am looking forward (though not without some slight dread at the possibility of more of those early-morning questions) to finally playing MWiF. The only real problem I anticipate is not being able to modify the rules...

[YohanTM2]

By the way cwie, I have 3 copies of CWiE II pledged so no more posting over here, hunker down and keep coding!

The demo looks great.

Rob

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Yohan

By the way cwie, I have 3 copies of CWiE II pledged so no more posting over here, hunker down and keep coding!

The demo looks great.

Rob

Heh, his post was useful though as I went to check their website. While I didn't pledge (I'm broke, right now my next 2-3 month's money is reserved for my new computer, after that a game to be published in april...), I do plan to buy CWiE II, maybe pledge for a reedition of the board game at a later time.

Though that obviously won't be as good as MWiF.