Matrix Games Forums

Originally posted by M4 Jess
In (around) 1982 My best friend Don (some of you guys met Don at Aberdeen) and I laid out all of the ASL boards on our apartment floor...It was hugh! We could not even reach the middle boards!:eek: We both owned 2 full sets of counters.. I was the American...:rolleyes: and Don the Germans...we used both FULL sets of counters! A turn lasted hours..and the battle was set up for weeks...no partys..no girls..no visiters at all...STAY OUT we have the mother of all battles going on here...

ahhhh those were the days!:)

You grew up in a Rambler (see the first post in the thread), and spent weeks locked in a room with a guy named Don, forsaking parties and girls...

And we wonder why you're so strange!

BTW, the Rambler thing says a lot about why you like those Shermans...I think they came from the same assembly line.

I think most Ramblers were indeed manufactured using the re-cycled remains of war-wrecked Shermans.

Such a great thread down memory lane. There quite a lot we all have in common, only some of the dates changed. I was turned on to gwargaming in high school, with Alesia. I played the Gauls and eveyone was convinced that I was doomed until the high number counters entered the board from an almost completely empty sector. The looks on the faces of my two "Roman" oponents and spectators was pricelss. You know that look. I discovered SL in 79, and life hasn't been the same since. Fortunatly, I was single making decent money, and was able to afford the ASL series. A few years ago I finaly bought a new PC and the wonderful world of the internet. The websites devoted to ASL was getting my yearning to get back into it was in full gear. SASL was just what the doctor ordered, and the software assistant programs were forcing me to remember all of those rules and task checks that no one I knew really understood. But one day.......

I met up with someone who I saw once a year and I knew was into gaming. I had told him I had just bought a computer..... He told me about this SPWAW game. 30 some odd hours + download time later on my dial up modem I had it. Of course it fineshed downloading about 5 minutes before I had to leave to go to work on a monday morning!!! Needless to say I got very little sleep that week. As much as I love SPWAW and check for a release date almost daily, nothing beats holding those multi colored die, and praying for snake eyes, then checking the subsequent chart to find out whether or not the building was rubbled or not. Of course flaming rubble was even better. It is also impossible to have too many counters on the board.

I am not talking to YOU anymore...if you have somthing to say...call my ex-wife!:mad:

:p

Originally posted by M4 Jess
I am not talking to YOU anymore...if you have somthing to say...call my ex-wife!:mad:

:p

Would that be...Olga? :p

mmmmm Olga!.....................


I must find her pic!

Originally posted by M4 Jess
I am not talking to YOU anymore...if you have somthing to say...call my ex-wife!:mad:

:p

Shhhheeeesh! You wake up on the wrong side of the turret this morning, or did your ex get custody of the Rambler?

In '69 I was just a toddler, but odd that I still have the memory of watching the first moon landing on our old family black & white TV

I first got into wargaming at about the age of eleven through a school friend, firstly we started with some Napoleonics, using the old Airfix HO scale figures, but we soon progressed onto 25mm stuff. Napoleonics is still an area that I love and return to every so often when I need a break from things. Since those early days I must have gamed almost every possible era from Ancients through to Modern day and with the 20th century stuff on land, sea and in the air. Sadly though my days for figure gaming are no more, a lack of space and several changes of address means that what figures I do have left are all now in storage, but they will at least be a good investment for my kids when they are old enough to appreciate them.

My first ever boardgame was the old SPI Kursk game, where I grew up there was only ever the one shop that sold games like that and they never stocked any AH games. For AH games you had to go to Birmingham or London at the time. Fortunately Birmingham was quite near, so it didn't take long for me to start to build up a collection. One of the first AH games I got was Panzerblitz, I got it when we went on holiday and for two weeks my parents never saw me Eventually after many years of avoiding it I got hooked on SL and ASL and my gaming came virtually full circle (SL was the first boardgame that I played with my my friend that introduced me to gaming). I still have a huge boardgame collection, some fairly rare and a some fairly common but again a lack of space means that for now they remain in storage but safe for the future and a time when I can maybe teach my kids the fun that is gaming.

You guys are makin' my bones ache. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Bing
...When I bought the Isby "Air War" (SPI) I remember having to spend three days just reading the rules. We eventually decided that not even Isby knew what some of the rules meant. Air War was so "detailed" we half expected to come across a pre-flight inspection walk around, including kicking the tires.
...
Best from here,

Bing

If I recall, 'Kicking the tires' before tearing off down Mig Alley was recommended in the rules. I enjoyed the hell out of that game, but could never get anyone to commit to learning the 3-D aspects of the rules. Movement and Fire Arcs in 2D was enough for most of them to handle. Even my ASL buddies were daunted by it.

I didn't get exposed to boardgames until '74. Some looney tunes down the hall in my dorm took their entire floor to lay out a map of eastern europe and played that darned game for an entire semester. (was that you Jess?) We could observe by laying on our stomachs on the bunk bed crossed in front of their dormroom door. Frankly, those guys unnerved me just a little bit.

Over the next several years, most of my 'entertainment' dollars went into Avalon Hill, SPI and others. I never regretted it, and I never looked back. My 'dollars/hour' entertainment was about as cheap as you could get. All that and a girlfriend to boot!

I had / have still a couple of second world war aviation games.
Air Force (Europe) and Dauntless ( Pacific).

Basically aircraft to aircraft combat. I played with a mate but never did find any one else who had even heard of them.

A good game but prefered land warfare.

You know, I have been called an elitist by some outsiders that just don't get it eh.

You can always tell a real wargamer though, we have those old war stories about our grognard days at the table.

Some of us like computers for numerous reasons (most for reasons of practicality), but it always comes back to us having enjoyed those board games for what they were to us.

I don't think we old grogs are better than the new to wargaming type that missed the board gaming years, but well, what can I say, I was there, and some weren't.

I could never outdo a vet myself. I wasn't there, they were. Same thing.
Calling a boardgamer an elitist would be as dumb as calling a vet an elitist for being able to chuckle about the peculiarities of shared experience with other vets.

I can rip apart a bad computer wargame simply because I am USED to the guts of what makes a wargame good or not. I have read zillions of pages of dry boring sounding text. It's second nature to me, to relate to all that data...the hard way.

This is a fun thread.



First game: Panzerblitz - typically played all night long with COke and Doritos....age 12.....

Then discovered SPI: War in the East, War in Europe...they got too big but oh what fun....

Years passed - my old buddy spotted SP3....man are we hooked...

We have pretty much agreed that if SPWAW and the other computer games were available back then, we'd still be down in the basement, gross, pallid, and fat on Coke and chips and loving every minute of it...

Cheers

Or can you top me......

Originally posted by M4 Jess
Or can you top me......

Hmmmmmm, Jess..... I didn't know you 'swung' that way.

ba.dump.bump

I am not talking to you NOW also....

M4 Jess is NOT talking to Ken, Bernie or Pixel....

:rolleyes: :p

Originally posted by M4 Jess
M4 Jess is NOT talking to Ken, Bernie or Pixel....

:rolleyes: :p

Maybe it would be easier for you if you just list the guys to whom you are still talking...:p

Jess shouldn't be talking to anyone, he is not designing fast enough, hence testers are getting up in the morning and not rushing to test hehe

Snap to it soldier!