Your First Wargame?

[norsemanjs]

Avalon Hill's "1776" a christmas gift.

After that AH's "Jutland". It was fun pushing those little cardboard ships all over. Drove my mother nuts.

[Veldor]

Avalon Hill's "Blitzkrieg". Came across it at a flea market my parents drug me to and begged them for the $10 I think it was to buy it. I was 10 I think or thereabouts. Very young as by 12 I was writing what I would imagine now to be annoying letters to Avalon Hill and Don Greenwood suggesting ideas, begging to playtest games and so forth.

What I remember most is being in such a hurry to play that I overlooked the stacking limitations rules and as I otherwise had absolutely no concept of how to play a wargame, I happily pushed around 3 or 4 stacks per side of what had to be 12 to 15+ counters per stack and it was the most fun I'd ever had..

Is it possible that it still stands as the only wargame to ever have a majority of the counters (or indeed any) colored pink???

[TheGreek]

My first boardgame was "Bismarck" by Avalon Hill. This was in 1963 (showing my age). I was immediately hooked and wargaming became a lifetime obsession.

My first computer wargame was something called "Torpedo Fire" by SSI for the Apple II+.

[TheGreek]

In response to Veldor's question about pink counters, in just about all of the early AH games, one side had blue units and the other had red (pink). This probably came from AH's first game, "Tactics II" which, like "Blitzkreig" was an abstract game between two hypothetical countries called Red and Blue. About the only exceptions were "Gettysburg" and "Chancellorsville" where the counters were blue and grey. I remember when I got "Waterloo", the French were blue, the Anglo-Dutch were pink and the Prussians were green. I think it was the first time a game had three different colors for the armies.

[EricGuitarJames]

1st wargame would be Airfix figures using Brigadier Peter Young's 'Charge' rules.

1st board wargame was SPI's 'Normandy'.

1st computer wargame would have been 'Close Combat 5'.

RiverBravo, I hope those Laneys are working well[;)].

[riverbravo]

ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames

RiverBravo, I hope those Laneys are working well[;)].

All tubes are burning bright!!!

I made a string order from musicians friend and they sent me the wrong Dean Markleys,crummy blue steel junk.Those nickel plated strings are fret burners man.[:@]

Glad to see you made it over here,Im starting to wonder about the wargames forums,they mite not ever return.!!

[dinsdale]

First games were with the smaller airfix soldiers, especially the pontoon bridge

Boardgame; Diplomacy, sort of counts and , that whetted the appetite for a real wargame which was either War and Peace or 3rd Reich.

PC Game; Not a PC, a TRS-80 game the name of which I cannot remember. It was a wargame with Rome Vs Carthage, had pretty much all the components of a modern game, including a reproducable crash everytime there was a siege in Genoa

[pauk]

I'm not sure but i think it was Johnny Reb on C64. Later, i spett countless hours as german chief in command - Russia - wow, it was one 5'25 disk. Anyway, one of best games i ever played till now

[LargeSlowTarget]

1st wargames in the broader sense: Blue Max, Destroyer and Silent Service on the C64. 1st strategy wargame: Crusade in Europe, also on the C64. Still play the PC emulation of the latter on occasion - the 'issue commands/receive reports' system is unbeaten.

Edit: Now that Harald1050 mentions it, first PC wargames was GNB a.k.a. Burning Steel II, too. Bought my first PC only because I wanted to play that game. [:D]

[Randy]

Like many of you I first got started with ROCO Minitanks (which I still collect when I have time), and Airfix army men. My first board game was AH Battle of the Bulge, which I got as a kid. Later I got Tactics II. I was some what dissapointed with the unit types that I made my own (Marines, paratroopers, and Mtn infantry). I didn't really enjoy the time it took to set up. My first computer game was The Perfect General. At the time I thought this was a pretty good game. I haven't seen too many here list this game. From here I went to SP (and all the variations). I still think the SP series is the best out there. I don't think you can beat this game for all the variations you can play. But, I guess wait till Combat Leader!

[sabreman1966mcs]

My first boardgame has to be AH's Waterloo (with the wooden blocks). The first one I actually bought for myself was SPI's Kursk.

[Harald1050]

Servus!

Long time ago on the C64 i played Tigers in snow, Silent Hunter and some others.
First PC-game was Great Naval Battles II (Guadalcanal).
BoardGame: must have been Diplomacy, i guess.

@LargeSlowTarget: i have to say, i also bought my first PC to play GNB2.[;)]

Gruß
Harald

[Drex]

My first wargame was a boardgame that came with an SSI subscription. I believe it was "The Siege of Constantinople". My first computer wargame was "Gettysburg" by SSI. I really enjoyed their Civil War battles series: Antietam, Shiloh, etc.

[Randy]

Did any of you play the Mattel Intellivison games Sea Battles and Utopia? These were pretty good games way back then. I remember playing Sea Battles so much that my finger hurt from hitting the fire key so much. I actually made a splint for my finger to keep on playing. As simple as these games were, they were pretty exciting.