A question for old grognards

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: Skipjack

Yogi, I see you are from Wisconsin - did you ever get to a GenCon convention in Milwaukee? Those were days - a veritable Disneyland of wargaming [:)]

Unfortunately, I date back even further then that. GenCon was started by the D&D company in Lake Geneva - hence the name GenCon. I actually attended GenCon when it was in just a small room in Lake Geneva with a few tables set up for gamers to play. It next moved to UW Parkside, continued to grow, moved to Milwaukee a few years after that and then got too big even for the Milwaukee facility and moved to Indy.

I was a "wargamer" and not a D & D player by any means. But GenCon had plenty of wargamers and the convention grew to cover all strategy games. Still there was certainly a large fantasy aspect that remained perhaps the base support of the event and does so to this day. I think GenCon could probably be recognized as the original start of war/strategy game conventions. It holds an important spot in history of promoting the hobby.

[HansBolter]

AH's Tobruk? You betcha....it's in my collection.

VG's Pacific War.....like the others I bought it, perused it much and never got anyone to give it a try...not exactly a solitaire game.

AH's Africa Corps....of course...it almost always came down to a 2-1 attack on Tobruk, but was so fast playing my best wargame buddy and I once pulled an allnighter playing 4 full games that night switching sides back and forth each time.

AH's Victory in the Pacific and War at Sea...again played the heck out of em...along with sevaral variants published in the General.

AH's "bonus game" of Malta included in the Crete game was another fun filled and fast paced game you could play several timers ina night if your daring drop strategy went up in flames you could quickly set it up again for another go. (COTA's Malta scenario brought back so many fond memories of this game).


As for Third Reich, me and my two close buddies who gamed every Friday or Saturday night for 15 years straight constituted the St. Petersburg, Florida playtest "cell" for Advanced TR. One colleague was a librarian at the local community college and had access to email (at a time when most of didn't have it at home). He handled all of the correspondence with the lead designer, Bruce Harper (in Vancouver) and as a result got credit as a Designer, while our other buddy and I got credit as Playtesters. We playested potential rules changes for 2.5 years and after another year's wait the revised game was finally published. Many of the designers and playtesters attended AvalonCon that year for a ATR tournament. Me and our buddy who got credit as a designer played against Bruce Harper and another one of the designers. That one time trip to a national level convention was a highlight of my gaming "career".

The 80's really was the Golden Age of boardwargaming!

P.S. I missed the reference to Fortress Europa....we called it "Fortropa" for short and definitely enjoyed many a game session with that one.

[Bloodybucket28th]

I prefered SPI games back in the day, and drifted towards AH games towards the end of my golden age of board wargaming.  I think it was a combination of SPI going under and the realization that the less complex titles might actually see some table time.
 
What's the most recent boardgame that the seasoned grogs here have aquired?  I'm interested to see if anybody still has the Monstergame bug. 
 
I sent for "Target: Arnhem", a MultiMan Publishing mini freebie a few months back, and before that my last aquisition was "Deluxe Bitter Woods." 
 
The last game I actually played was "Memoir '44", and that's been almost a year ago.

[Zap]

[quote]ORIGINAL: HansBolter

AH's Tobruk? You betcha....it's in my collection.



Was that the one that had indivual tank and 88 counters. With the detailed Hit/Damage charts. If so, I had that game had to play it solitaire.

[geozero]

I played out many games, sometimes with multiple opponents.  Off the top of my "old" head, I recall:

Global War (SPI)
Third Reich (several completed games)
Panzer Leader
Panzer Blitz???
Russian Campaign
France 1940
War at Sea
War in the Pacific
Luftwaffe
D-Day
Arab-Isreali Wars
World War 3
Squad Leader and ASL (many games)


Anyway...very fond memories.  In a way much better games than PC games.  It was all about the coming together of friends and hanging out on a lazy Saturday or evening.  SOmetimes we played an entire long weekend like Labor Day, and ate Twinkies and drank CocaCola.  Ahhh, those were the days indeed. [:)]

[geozero]

sorry double post[:(]

[donkuchi19]

I never got through a game of Pacific War. I did finish a game of Empires in Arms once playing solo. That was when I was in high school though and I could keep it set up in my bedroom for over a month. (My bedroom was the space over a two car garage with an extended six foot walkway. It was huge and the game was off on one side out of the way). In the last 12 years, kids have managed to ruin any game I have set up for longer than a weekend.

[Plodder]

ORIGINAL: TheBloodyBucket

I prefered SPI games back in the day, and drifted towards AH games towards the end of my golden age of board wargaming. I think it was a combination of SPI going under and the realization that the less complex titles might actually see some table time.

What's the most recent boardgame that the seasoned grogs here have aquired? I'm interested to see if anybody still has the Monstergame bug.

I sent for "Target: Arnhem", a MultiMan Publishing mini freebie a few months back, and before that my last aquisition was "Deluxe Bitter Woods."

The last game I actually played was "Memoir '44", and that's been almost a year ago.

My most recent boardgame acquisition was about 2 years ago and that wasDAK II by The Gamers/MMP. Haven't had a chance to play it, just drool over the huge map. I recently downloaded the DAKII module for Vassal so I'll probably play it through that.

[freeboy]

I remember my roomates opening a window and the window destroying my Pacwar! Boardgames where great fun for what they where..

[MrBoats]

Between wind, kids, cats, mothers, accidental bumps and cleaning ladies there were just too many obstacles in the way of playing the monster games. Not to mention time and space considerations. They were great in theory but suited primarily for team play in a warehouse.

My last board game was one of AH's Civil War series -- I think Stonewall in the Valley. Beautiful maps, low counter density and a good system, but a big "footprint." I wish I still had the maps to mount and hang on the wall.

"Lee versus Grant" was one of the best Civil War titles ever released. It wasn't very big but it had a great system and lots of replay value.

[cptracks]

Started with Blitzkrieg, then AH Russian Campaign, Napoleon at Waterloo. Anzio was just awesome at the time (degrading units!) but a pain to set up. How little I knew what was coming. Midway was fun. Discovered SPI when I started University in Montreal via Strategy 1 and Blitzkrieg Module System which I loved. Played many many SPI games, A Mighty Fortress, Invasion America just about every east front game they made to name a few. Capper was Dunnegan's Sov-Nato monster. I still remember cursing at all the Sov flak counters. Some Napys and PanzerBlitz but never got into the close range stuff. VG Vietnam I really wish was on a computer now. They did a Bulge game I really liked. Played Wacht am Rheim, we never finished. AH 3rd Reich was a blast for a group of us as was War and Peace and Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Finished several of each. Then we discovered Star Fleet Battles, which I probably played the longest. A friend put together an Apple program to do the chart work and impulses. Loved GDW's monsters, never got to play them against opponents. Really like WIF, eagerly awaiting matrix's effort. There was a 2 map civil war game that I played, forget the name and publisher, but it was awesome for the time. Alas all gone now.

[pzgndr]

I took my 30-year grognard passion for Third Reich and made an adaptation for Stategic Command 2. When Strategic Command 2 - Weapons and Warfare gets released in a couple of weeks, I'll be posting my updated campaign mod for SC2-WaW shortly thereafter. Complete with Axis and Allied AI scripting for challenging solo play. [;)]

[105mm Howitzer]

The great moment came when I discovered I could tape my maps onto metal sheets, and stick them to the wall with MacTac. Then it was a simple trick to use magnets to keep counters on. Air War: wasn't big, but took forever to figure out how those #@$%&&* jet counters moved. ( it was worse if I had a newbie playing)

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: 105mm Howitzer

The great moment came when I discovered I could tape my maps onto metal sheets, and stick them to the wall with MacTac. Then it was a simple trick to use magnets to keep counters on.

never mind, I remember them now. I don’t think I have seen them in decades and forgot all about them [;)]

[MrBoats]

105,

Just curious: how many counters could you stack horizontally with the magnets? I wanted so badly to hang maps on the walls and use the magnet system, but I think I couldn't afford thousands of magnets nor the metal sheets for backing. It was a great idea, though. I think an LCD projector and pc setup might come close with an ADC-style board game adaptation.

Did you use the magnetis tape or the counter-holders?

Thanks

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Back to the orignal question...

No, but I saw one played to completion in a single evening. The game in question was SPI's Highway to the Reich. The respective teams setup their counters (which took a couple of hours), and then commenced with play. On turn one, British paratroopers drifted down on top of the German HQ and it was destroyed. The rules, which apparently didn't take such a possibility into account, indicated that this denoted a victory for the Allies. Their was considerable bickering as to the true meaning of the clause, but careful review of the text eventually gave way to the groups' consensus that the game was in fact over.

I never really bit on the "monster game" concept, although I owned several, including the mutha of all monsters, SPI's Desert War. I never even set that one up. I think that I sold it at a garage sale. I began to rebel against the sixty-page rule books and thousands of pieces in the early seventies, at least in part because of the popularity of somewhat smaller, turn-based tactical games as they evolved through PanzerBlitz, Tobruk, Squalid Leader and, finally, ASL. The games became more and more complex and, purportedly, addressed the shortcomings of their predecessors, but I never bought it. You just can't introduce unlimited deliberation into a tactical environment and call it "realistic."

I continue to play hex-based board wargames, btw. My favorite is AH's Anzio, I also enjoy area-movement games like Breakout Normandy and Victory in the Pacific. And apart from an occasional campaign game of Anzio, the overarching imperartive in my choice of games is that they be capable of being played in three-six hours, face-to-face. Anything longer than that, and matters tend to morph into something rather different from what I had intended when the contest began, and the experience sorta slips over a cliff.

Pooh on those big old games!

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Titanwarrior89]

The Civil War I played alot and finished alot of the games. Even finished Pacific war, DAK and numerous playing of The 3rd Reich. I still have all these. Pacific war and DAK were my favorites.[:D] Oh yea, This hollowed ground and the gamers civilwar brigade series. Them to[;)]

ORIGINAL: Dave Briggs

ORIGINAL: sprior

I started AH's The Longest Day,Third Reich and the 1st ASL campaign (can't remember its name), VG's Vietnam, Victory Games' Pacific War, Enemy at the Gates and DAK

You never played VG's "The Civil War"? Cripes, you missed the best one of the bunch.[;)]

[Neilster]

I missed the Golden Age of board wargaming, although I have the 5th edition of World in Flames and have played it quite a bit. I used to have one (can't remember the name, it was part of some series where all the maps were of northern France and the Low Countries and operations in 1940 and 1944/45 could be played) that was set in late 1944 (Arnhem-ish sort of period from memory). By the time my friend and I set it up we were exhausted, so we just looked at the set-up for a while, marvelling at how thin the German line looked in comparison to the Allied strength. My girlfriend started to give me grief after a couple of days of the map being out so I packed the game up and it was never played. Dunno what happened to that sucker either. [&:]

Anyway, I was wondering...what was the biggest, most ludicrously complicated wargame/wargame system ever published? Europa looks pretty mega from what I've seen.

It's computer wargaming for me, these days for the usual reasons. I'm loving helping to develop Matrix World in Flames.

Cheers, Neilster

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

Anyway, I was wondering...what was the biggest, most ludicrously complicated wargame/wargame system ever published? Europa looks pretty mega from what I've seen.

That's gotta be Campaign for North Africa. From "Boardgamegeek":

The game is detailed to a degree no other game has come close to. If using the full rules you keep track of every individual plane and pilot in the three year campaign. Each counter on the board representing a ground unit is composed of many units which are kept track of on logs. Supplies are kept track of and dispersed in a very detailed manner....

...Playing time with 10 players is listed at 1200 hours.

We owned it but I don't think we ever got past filling out all the supply logs.

[Sarge]

The game is detailed to a degree no other game has come close to. If using the full rules you keep track of every individual plane and pilot in the three year campaign. Each counter on the board representing a ground unit is composed of many units which are kept track of on logs. Supplies are kept track of and dispersed in a very detailed manner....

...Playing time with 10 players is listed at 1200 hours.

A.K.A The Desert Hermit

That was a sick game, I seen it set up once………..sick I tell you