How did you get started in wargaming?

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: RedArgo

....some AH hill game about the battle of the North Atlantic in WWII, I don't remember the name,...

Jutland! Awesome board game. Could also be played out as a miniatures game for the battles. Great fun using my entire basement floor for battles as a kid.

It started for me when babysitting for some neighbor and on his bookshelf was Luftwaffe. Took it down and read the rules through and set it up. Took the money I earned and bought my own copy. Then Squad leader et al. Then C64 Kamfgroup. Then PC games.... Good times....[8D]

[sabre1]

Knights of the Desert, SSI was another computer game I enjoyed.  Blue Max was one I almost forgot about.  Another game that is not that old, at least to me, was "Flight of the Old Dog" with the mission disks by 360.
 
Other board games that I loved, but no one to play with since my college days of many moons ago:
 
1.Air War, SPI (horrendous learning curve)
2.Panzer Blitz
3.Richtofen's War ( I think that was the name)
4.Wooden Ships Iron Men
5.SL (orginal, never got into ASL)
6. Bismarck
 
 

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

...
Other board games that I loved, but no one to play with since my college days of many moons ago:

1.Air War, SPI (horrendous learning curve)
2.Panzer Blitz
3.Richtofen's War ( I think that was the name)
4.Wooden Ships Iron Men
5.SL (orginal, never got into ASL)
6. Bismarck

1. Air War - still have it. Played it a few times, cool but then PC Flight Sims came along and made it pointless. Too much bookkeeping
2. Still got it.
3. Still got it. One of my favourites!
5 Still got it and all the addons. Tried ASL but could get my head around it.
6. Still got it. Another favourite. Great blind search game.

[andym]

I was perusing my fave boardgame site.I noticed "Streets of Stalingrad" was available for sale........................................£195!!!!!!!!!!!!
And SPI's "Russian Civil War " was a snip at............................£79.95.Im glad i have both tucked away in the attic!

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Zap

ORIGINAL: RedArgo


I remember going into Kay-Bee toys when I was a kid and looking at war games there. I bought Third Reich, but could never really get into playing it. I doubt Toys-R-Us carries that stuff anymore.

Bill

Somewhere along the way(the Vietnam war protest), Wargame became a bad, bad. So, games started disappearing off the shelves. They used to be easily accesible in your neighborhood toy stores. Players of wargames were entered into the ranks of the sub culture.
I remember sensing shame and feeling different because I sought out these types of games. My mother was one of those proponets telling me how bad it was to like to play wargames. As I browsed at stores,I'd look over my shoulder "to see who was watching me" That mindset I spoke earlier really did damage to the wargame market back then. Of course it did not help that my friends had no interest in playing wargames.

Sounds horrible[:(]. I guess clowns like Jack Thompson are nothing new...

[Zap]

ORIGINAL: BoredStiff

But the Reason I picked it up was because I have always been a Proud American (Thanks to The Founding Fathers)...

This game really amazed me as Im a Patriotic American.

Somewhere along the way(the Vietnam war protest), Wargame became a bad, bad.

As I browsed at stores,I'd look over my shoulder "to see who was watching me" That mindset I spoke earlier really did damage to the wargame market back then.

Let me guess, nowhere? or is that a nuclear explosion?



To get back On Topic. It started with toy sholdiers then to AH board games.[;)]

[simovitch]

I think I was 8 or 9 (c. 1970) when my brothers got me started playing Milton Bradley's Dogfight, Broadside, and Stratego. They were also playing Anzio and Panzerblitz but that was a bit much for my fledgling brain. By the time I was 10 though I was playing Gettysburg, Kriegspiel, Midway, Bulge, etc. etc. all the time and constantly buying more. I remember we had subscriptions to Strategy & Tactics, Fire and Movement, and of course The General.
 
With my older brother I always had an opponent (and always got beatren severely.) Played straight through the '70's and still have boxes of ASL and Europa stuff in the garage.

[old man of the sea]

First game that was a wargame of sorts was a home made version of Risk. Also played with a home made version of miniture rules with plastic soldiers and a dice like Risk but different in that we played in the jungle of the back yard called "Little Nam" First printed wargame was given to me by my older brother, Blizkrieg and then Afrika Korps. After that I got a subscription to S&T and got into board gaming very heavy in the 70's. Board gameing lasted until the late 90's with the last game I played to death being World in Flames. The computer game part started in 1990 with my part in the V for Victory series. I've never really played computer games for fun, it was always way to much work. That's the problem with making games, when they are done, after I have made so many, I never touch them again to just play. Kind of sad really. The only game I play now really isn't a game, its a training system, but it sure is fun to play with.
 
E

[MadmanRick]

ORIGINAL: Barthheart

ORIGINAL: RedArgo

....some AH hill game about the battle of the North Atlantic in WWII, I don't remember the name,...

Jutland! Awesome board game. Could also be played out as a miniatures game for the battles. Great fun using my entire basement floor for battles as a kid.

It started for me when babysitting for some neighbor and on his bookshelf was Luftwaffe. Took it down and read the rules through and set it up. Took the money I earned and bought my own copy. Then Squad leader et al. Then C64 Kamfgroup. Then PC games.... Good times....[8D]

Actually Jutland was AH's World War One naval combat game. The only AH games I can remember that involved the North Atlantic in WWII, were Bismarck and Submarine. I played both and I preferred Bismarck, although Submarine could also be a great game if one played with all the optional rules.

[MadmanRick]

ORIGINAL: old man of the sea

The computer game part started in 1990 with my part in the V for Victory series.
E

I wish somebody (Matrix??) would get the rights to the V4V series (both the Three Sixty Pacific and AH versions) and update them to be playable under XP/Vista. I really enjoyed those games, especially the Market Garden and Tobruk games. I still have the CD versions of the Three Sixty V4V compilation and AH's America Invades (Stalingrad & Tobruk were on floppy's and may actually be around here someplace), but I've tried to load them, including using DOSBox and I've had no luck. [:(]

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

The title says it all.

With me, in high school in the early 80's I saw some kids playing StarFleet Battles and I was hooked ever since.

How did you guys get started?

Back in early 80's... when PC computers came out and I saw Avalon Hills NUKE War, B1-Bomber and later got into that aged old game "Empire"


Liked War games all way back to asa kid the old "Battleship" but you had to have another person or persons to get a game going..

PC's changed that

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: Zap
Somewhere along the way(the Vietnam war protest), Wargame became a bad, bad. So, games started disappearing off the shelves. They used to be easily accesible in your neighborhood toy stores. Players of wargames were entered into the ranks of the sub culture.
I remember sensing shame and feeling different because I sought out these types of games. My mother was one of those proponets telling me how bad it was to like to play wargames. As I browsed at stores,I'd look over my shoulder "to see who was watching me" That mindset I spoke earlier really did damage to the wargame market back then. Of course it did not help that my friends had no interest in playing wargames.

[:@][:'(]



War Games were second, before that I think the move was to remove Toy Guns, and the like, the premise being it corrupted young minds and raised all the murderers etc

Never mind my peers and I growing up in 1960's had our realistic guns, like an M1 and we played guns Dawn to Dusk, also at that time came out GI Joe (and later due to [:'(] Feminists... GI Jane) Ahh I still sort of recall how i had a Jeep to put my GI Joe in etc...

As it is, first it was toy guns then they went after war Games... and it seems theres MORE Murderers etc NOW then
there were when kids played Guns...

Go Figure [:'(]

[105mm Howitzer]

Oh, is that the latest thing in the UK too? I noticed at my local hobby shop ( about the last one left in Montreal with a decent choice of games) prices for older boardgames skyrocketed. Inquiring to the shop owner, she affirmed that these games fall in the "collectibles" category. Seeing the way bidding goes on E-Bay, I concur with her. I guess wargaming with boardgames became collectibles..Sad, sad[:(]
As for the thread, I actually started in 1977, in High School, playing Diplomacy ( hardly qualifies as a wargame) teamed up with a teacher. Graduated after that with SPI's monthly magazines ( with games) and away that ball started rolling. ( made President of my university's wargames club in 1985; always fun to argue with Leftist/Marxist Student's Committees why we needed budget money over the "Friends of Nicaragua Club", among others.

ORIGINAL: andym

I was perusing my fave boardgame site.I noticed "Streets of Stalingrad" was available for sale........................................£195!!!!!!!!!!!!
And SPI's "Russian Civil War " was a snip at............................£79.95.Im glad i have both tucked away in the attic!

[RedArgo]

Actually, I found the name, it was War at Sea. I have the Pacific version called Victory in the Pacific. They are both simple games. AH rated them level 2. I may try to get my boys interested in this one.

Bill

[MadmanRick]

ORIGINAL: RedArgo

Actually, I found the name, it was War at Sea. I have the Pacific version called Victory in the Pacific. They are both simple games. AH rated them level 2. I may try to get my boys interested in this one.

Bill

Ahh yes, good ole War At Sea! Although it was a strategic level game of the entire naval war, rather than just the North Atlantic. It was a nice little game, made even better if you can get ahold of the expansion. It added alot of the ships left out, as well as some additional map iirc. VitP was also a good game, actually much more exciting than WaS. I still have both (including the WaS expansion) around here. Now if I could only find an opponent to go head to head with!

P.S. there is also an updated version of WaS put out by L2 Design Group.
Check it out here:

http://www.l2designgroup.com/War%20at%20Sea.html

They also are planning an updated VitP as well!

[Ketza]

The comment some one made about their mom being against wargames made me think of this.

In the Xmas of 1980 I got "France 40" as a Christmas present from my Mom. I played it solitaire that whole Xmas break. She liked the fact I played wargames she felt it was a "intelligent" hobby. Wargames did impact my life in the long run. I am currently the director of logistics at a company that makes military hardware. All those hours of pushing around hundreds of cardboard counters and keeping them in supply came in handy. [8D]

[RedArgo]

ORIGINAL: MadmanRick

ORIGINAL: RedArgo

Actually, I found the name, it was War at Sea. I have the Pacific version called Victory in the Pacific. They are both simple games. AH rated them level 2. I may try to get my boys interested in this one.

Bill

Ahh yes, good ole War At Sea! Although it was a strategic level game of the entire naval war, rather than just the North Atlantic. It was a nice little game, made even better if you can get ahold of the expansion. It added alot of the ships left out, as well as some additional map iirc. VitP was also a good game, actually much more exciting than WaS. I still have both (including the WaS expansion) around here. Now if I could only find an opponent to go head to head with!

P.S. there is also an updated version of WaS put out by L2 Design Group.
Check it out here:

http://www.l2designgroup.com/War%20at%20Sea.html

They also are planning an updated VitP as well!

That brings back some memories. I don't think I ever won at that game. I'm suprised no one has made a computer version of some of those simplier AH games.

[Fred98]

As a boy in the 1960’s I watched 12 O’clock High and Combat!

I bought Airfix 1/72 scale model aircraft and after some time became pretty good at it!

I bought Airfix 1/72 scale soldiers and played in the backyard.

After I “grew up”, I built lots of 1/35 scale Tamiya soldiers, vehicles and tanks.

I still have the best models stored carefully in a box.

My then company decided to issue corporate ties to the men and corporate scarves to the women.

The ties came in 2 colours – blue and brown. The brown one was very boring so I chose the blue one.

A colleague had chosen the brown one and then hated it! A few weeks later he brought in a copy of the boardgame “Rise and Decline of the Third Reich”. He offered to swap my blue tie for the game and I was hooked on wargaming
[8D]

[panzers]

I have to admit: I am absolutely stunned beyond belief that there is no mention at all about axis and allies. I always though it was a given that game was the default game that leads to all wargamming. But, obviously I missed the boat on that one.[&:]

[stevemk1a]

Yeah, my boss asked me about wargaming (I casually mentioned it as my hobby [X(]), I tried to explain, and he suddenly exclaimed "Oh!, you mean like Axis and Allies!". So I'm sure it's a touchstone for many!

My wargaming started when my parents got me AH's Third Reich for Christmas. It later led (via my RPG geek group in high school)) to marathon games of Panzer Blitz in the school computer room during spares and after class, then to Squad Leader and ASL. I still remember having a room in me and the GF's first apartment that dedicated to my Red Barricades game (and my plastic model airplanes) ... she had two cats so a stringent closed door policy was in effect! Eventually all my opponents grew up and moved away.

I also remember my brother and me having a blast playing North Atlantic 1986 on my dad's old Apple II clone ... good times.