How Were You Introduced to the Wargaming Genre?

[sol_invictus]

I got the American/British set and the Chicamauga one from the comicbooks. I played for hours with those little bastards. Also had several GI Joes with training tower and jeep. I guess RISK was the first "wargame" I ever played. Me and some friends would have allnight marathon sessions with that game. Soon after, one of my RISK partners got Third Riech and the rest is history. The first true wargame I bought was Caesar: Alesia. Oh for the glory days of Avalon Hill and SPI.

[benpark]

Airfix "little soldiers" were my wargame training wheels. Still lpove 'em. I remember first seeing the Avalon Hill Bookcase games when I was about 8. I asked my father what they were(and if I could get one...), he replied that they looked good, but were "just pieces of cardboard". I remember getting some books that had mini wargames in them soon after-with themes like Knights and Crusades, and one with a dogfighting game.

I remember joining the Wargames Club in junior high school, and buying Panzer Leader, War and Peace, and Squad Leader(with all modules). I actually had people to play against, which was great. Then I had a series of girlfriends[:D]. End of wargames for a decade or so, until I find Combat Mission and TOAW-ACOW on the computer. The computer AI, girlfriend who thinks it's not too insane and many new computer wargames=Back to the fold for me.

[ravinhood]

Lol my first wife got so mad at me for putting so much time into computer wargames, I came home one day and she was holding my commodore 64 over the balcony threatening to drop it if we didn't go out that night. lol

[Bossy573]

Back in the early 80's I really got interested in the strategic and operational aspects of Operation Barbarossa and I started looking around for something to "play." Somehow I came across an issue of The General. Within a week I found AH's TRC and the rest is history.
My first computer wargame was Command HQ and that, in some ways regretfully, in many ways not, basically put most of my boardgames into storage.
A great hobby this. [:)]

[sprior]

Airfix soldiers, on the bottom of which I wrote a number , 1 - 4 which represented their strength (hey, I was 12!) and a large map of West Germany my soldier father obtained fromn somewhere. The higher number won the fight. I saw my first board wargame in 1978 moving into HMS Collongwood where in my locker I found a copy of AH's France 1940. First game played against someone else was Richtofen's War in the IFF room of HMS Galatea in 1979. All my boardgames are still in my basement on shleves and occasionally I go down and peek through them. One day...

First computer games were on a speccy, Laser Squad, Peter Turcan's games (they were fun), and Arnhem, Vulcan etc.

[Hanal]

There was a series of HO scale plastic soldiers that I used to buy when I was a kid. There were, I think 48 to a box and dozens of different types you could buy, French WWI infantry, British 8th Army, German Fallschirmjager, US Marines, and the DAK are just a few examples...Does anyone remember the company name?

I used to also buy HO scale armor vehicles as well, and then make dioramas using plaster of paris...ahhh the things we used to do in the "Pre Pong" Era......................

[sprior]

ORIGINAL: J P Falcon

There was a series of HO scale plastic soldiers that I used to buy when I was a kid. There were, I think 48 to a box and dozens of different types you could buy, French WWI infantry, British 8th Army, German Fallschirmjager, US Marines, and the DAK are just a few examples...Does anyone remember the company name?

I used to also buy HO scale armor vehicles as well, and then make dioramas using plaster of paris...ahhh the things we used to do in the "Pre Pong" Era......................

Wasn't that Airfix? They were, I think, 1/72 scale.

[ravinhood]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using firecrackers with their toy soldiers yet.

[sprior]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood

I'm surprised no one has mentioned using firecrackers with their toy soldiers yet.

My Airfix Matilda met its end that way...

[Hanal]

ORIGINAL: sprior

ORIGINAL: J P Falcon

There was a series of HO scale plastic soldiers that I used to buy when I was a kid. There were, I think 48 to a box and dozens of different types you could buy, French WWI infantry, British 8th Army, German Fallschirmjager, US Marines, and the DAK are just a few examples...Does anyone remember the company name?

I used to also buy HO scale armor vehicles as well, and then make dioramas using plaster of paris...ahhh the things we used to do in the "Pre Pong" Era......................

Wasn't that Airfix? They were, I think, 1/72 scale.

It was your post that jogged my memory but Airfix just did not ring a bell...perhaps you are right...

I just searched and found a dedicated site to the Airfix soldiers...yep, that's them....thanks!

[coregames]

Tactics II at first... I wasn't very impressed then, but my real passion began with Caesar: Epic Battle of Alesia. That game really felt to me like real battle. Oh, and I still have Gettysburg, though I didn't play it until the early 80's.