What was the first wargames you played?

[Chris Bisson]

Yes that's the one! I actually played it a few years ago with my girlfriends son. He really enjoyed it and wanted to have another go at it....over and over again. Seems like there may be another "wargamer" in the making there.[8D]

ORIGINAL: lordhoff

"My first "wargame" I think was Hit the beach, wich was also an American Heritage game from Milton Bradley just like Broadsides and Battle Cry. Later on when I got a serious wargame, wich I considder my 1st wargame was Avalon Hills Blitzkreig and Africa Korps. I got them both at the same time. ahhhhh the memories"



You know, I may have had hit the beach too. Did it have army and marine counters that moved from a dot to the next connected by lines on Pacific islands?

[Chris Bisson]

LOL! Wodin you crack me up! [:D]

ORIGINAL: wodin

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Throwing rocks and dirt at plastic army men.

I started with marbles indoors...then progressed out side and discovered fire...many a plastic soldier came to it's guey end in my mates garden....

[jomni]

Chess?

[Chijohnaok2]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

ORIGINAL: Jevhaddah

Chess [;)]

I'll get my coat

Cheers

Jev

I thought about checkers and chess but...

I Was going to say that my first "war=like" game was Stratego...which is sort of the checkers of wargames.

[Chijohnaok2]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

heh.

That was my first computer war game as well. Played it on my Atari 800.

[Chijohnaok2]

Stratego.

First real (basic) boardgame was Axis & Allies.

First computer war game was Eastern Front @ my Atari 800 computer.

[SuluSea]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28321/fran-tarkentons-pro-football

This is the first sim I played which led me into wargaming. I can't count the hours of fun spent playing this.

[lordhoff]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Throwing rocks and dirt at plastic army men.

Ahh man! That's the hard way. Shooting rubber bands at them is what I used. [:D]

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

Hard to remember everything, maybe something like Risk, I also did have Dog Fight, but first real wargame is in my signature (The original square version)

Perhaps a bit off topic, but my interest may have started in the toy world. When I was a kid toy guns and other accessories were common and were among the biggest toys for boys in particular. Also big were "miniatures" toy play sets of rubber, plastic or metal soldiers. My favorite big set was "The Blue and the Gray" but I also had revolutionary war, WWII, Cowboys and Indians and even ordered those cheap plastic sets from the back of comic books. I suppose today, much of it would be considered politically incorrect, but that is how we were raised. WWII was over and the "Happy Days" 50's were in full swing.

I had that Blue and the Grey set. It was AWESOME! I had the Alamo too. It was a huge fort made of metal, believe it or not. And I had Cowboys and Indians.

My favorite was a WWII set based on the Guns of Navaron. It was a huge mountain with a German Fortress built into it, with an elevator. And the Americans had a landing craft, half track, a tank and a jeep. Boy, I had some really vicious battles with that. I'd get crucified in today's society for playing with those. I'm glad I'm old! [:D]

Back to the subject, my first wargame was Star Fleet Battles in the early 80's. Starships, Saturday nights, pizza and soda. Life did not get any better.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Throwing rocks and dirt at plastic army men.

I used firecrackers. We also made rubberband pistols and had 25 rubberbands a piece and the one who knocked down the most army men won the battle.

Later on it was bb guns.

Oh man, I threw rocks and dirt at plastic army men! I spent one summer building an entire fleet of WWII model navy ships and placed them all in a near by pond(I grew up in the wilds of Louisiana) and sunk them with my pellet rifle. It was glorious.

[oldspec4]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns




I used firecrackers. We also made rubberband pistols and had 25 rubberbands a piece and the one who knocked down the most army men won the battle.

Later on it was bb guns.

Oh man, I threw rocks and dirt at plastic army men! I spent one summer building an entire fleet of WWII model navy ships and placed them all in a near by pond(I grew up in the wilds of Louisiana) and sunk them with my pellet rifle. It was glorious.

Yep...did all the above.

[goodwoodrw]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Throwing rocks and dirt at plastic army men.

Ah the only type of war game. I had over 500 plastic soldiers from Indians to WW2 desert rats and every thing in between. In fact I still have some of them in a box somewhere. The oldest originating out of cereal boxes from the fifties.
Ron

[junk2drive]

There was a bare spot in the back yard where the Henry J was parked for a while. Grass never grew there so that was my sandbox. The soil was clay like and broke into clumps. When you threw it right, it hit the ground and poofed into a cloud of debris like the arty explosions in the movies. That is why we preferred it to rocks, marbles, rubber bands etc.

The lawn mower occasionally tossed out a dismembered casualty. Good for effect.

I was too old when GI Joe arrived.

[ezzler]

Cousin gave me a box of assorted airfix soldiers. About a 1,000 of them. AK/Paras/Japanese/Confederates/Indians. The big thick plastic ones. And the old wild west fort.
Hooked on minis for about 10 years and have just started up again after a 20 year break.

First go with a boardgame was with Dover patrol, same as stratego.
 Bought AH third Reich when I was 8 and too young to understand it. Tactics II which was ..so-so. Then Luftwaffe, which almost finished wargaming for me. It was so difficult and the counters kept falling over as they stacked up like smartie tubes.
But then, Richtoven's war. Shot down 50 planes one summer with my red DR1. That and Blitzkrieg sealed the deal.


On computer..zx spectrum Arnhem was terrific. Defender of the crown great game for the atari ST but for PC wargaming, the games that caused me to never ever leave my keyboard, up to this day ..

Harpoon and Civilisation.

{i really should try one of matrix's harpoons}

[wodin]

Like I said in another thread..we still want to play with our plastic soldiers and army at break time in school....I was always the Germans;)

[Jevhaddah]

First go with a boardgame was with Dover patrol,

I was given Dover Patrol last year as a gift. it's in the loft must go look it out [:D]

Cheers

Jev

[Jevhaddah]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Chess?

Yup, Chess is a wargame [:D]

Cheers

Jev

[MikeBrough]

OK. ignoring chess (which I AM getting back into), the first wargame I played was SPI's War of the Ring in 1977. First one I bought was AH's Arab-Israeli Wars in 1979.

My first computer wargame was SSI's Battle for Normandy on the Commodore 64 (1983?). My first PC wargame was Harpoon in 1989.

Somehow, even though the games were simpler and less detailed than today's games, they were more fun, more immersive. Was I just younger and less jaded?

[Arctic Blast]

War in the South Pacific and (a bit later) Carriers at War when I was a kid, playing on an Apple IIc.

[Toby42]

Avalon Hill's Afrika Korps 100 years ago! I still have that old boardgame....