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Just wondering how many on this forum are familiar with and interested in two subjects;

1) Old cardboard counter board games like Avalon Hill used to produce...

2) World War One combat...

I'm just using this as an abstract 'taking the pulse' poll....


B

Yes. Very familiar....GP

Familiar, have dozens of old games. Would like to set up the Longest Day again if I get a chance. Oh, yeah I just thought of another, TSS (Terrible Swift Sword).

I have a collection of those old boardgames numbering somewhere between one and two hundred (if you count the folio games).

At least a few of them are WWI games.

1) started wargaming in the 80ies with the Avalon Hill series
2) No wargaming but lots of reading about the Great War

Not an AH (TM) fan, more into SPI.

Despite many cullings I've got about 100 including folios.

No-one ever did a good 1914-18 game, though there area few good battle/campaign games around.

Both.

Three words: Advanced Squad Leader

War at Sea was my favorite. also had War in the Pacific and Panzer Leader.

For WWI I had Jutland.

I have few dozen old paper board-games. Even few for WWI era. From new one - Paths of Glory is quite interesting.

As for combat, I recommend "Infanterie Greift An" by Rommel. Really eye opening about infantry tactics, and especially use (or lack of) artillery in support. And damn, you won't believe how trench warfare actually looked in reality!

ORIGINAL: Big B

Just wondering how many on this forum are familiar with and interested in two subjects;

1) Old cardboard counter board games like Avalon Hill used to produce...

2) World War One combat...

I'm just using this as an abstract 'taking the pulse' poll....


B

Avalon Hill, S&T, GMT, Columbia Games - had over 200 titles at peak. Favorites Pacific Victory, Command and Colors, Twilight Struggle, 1914. Play some of these via Vassal when I get a change...

Flattop. ASL. Others I cannot remember. STILL have several copies of Flattop.

Don't remember any WWI games other then Diplomacy.

ORIGINAL: Big B

Just wondering how many on this forum are familiar with and interested in two subjects;

1) Old cardboard counter board games like Avalon Hill used to produce...

2) World War One combat...

I'm just using this as an abstract 'taking the pulse' poll....


B

1. Yes. My current interest is Fighting Wings Series by J.D. Webster, but I started playing with AFD, Rise and Decline, and a few others.
2. Not so much.

1. Had most of the AH titles; my first was "Blitzkrieg," which was a Xmas gift in '70 when I was 10(!). Of course, AH was the "go to" brand, since my hometown was Baltimore. Sadly, decades later, I got rid of all my old boxed games after the umpteenth time I made a military transfer and grew tired of having so much stuff to pack and unpack - plus, computer games had since come out and they were getting better and more convenient to play vs board games.
2. I seem to recall one WW1 game I played but it was a Milton-Bradley(?) aerial dogfighting game, prior to my delving into true board wargames. Don't recall the title though.

Avalon Hill had a WWI dogfighting game. I'm not positive of the name, but Red Barron might be it. I have it in a closet.

I have perhaps 20 AH games and a few others, including the magnificent Terrible Swift Sword (Gettysburg regimental-level game). My collection includes Advanced Third Reich, Empire of the Rising Sun, 1776, Blitzkrieg, Tobruk, The Longest Day (not sure that's AH), Pacific War, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Here Come the Rebels, Midway, Over the Reich, Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz.

I didn't have anybody to play with, except my father on a very few occasions. We had some fun playing Midway. In college, I played some Third Reich and A3R head-to-head, which was a lot of fun. Then there was a way to play A3R, ERS and the comb (Global War Y2K) via email, which I did for several years. That was fun too. I moved from that to Fighting Flattops, a basic but fun online Coral Sea game. When Fighting Flattops went defunct for awhile (returning as a pay game), I started looking for the "next thing" and came across Uncommon Valor. The rest, as they say, is history. Or it was destiny. Or both. Has there been any better series in history than UV, WitP, and AE? Can't be.

Started playing board wargames by AH in 1962 or 63 with "Bismarck", "Waterloo", "Uboat" and "Tactics 2" and "Midway". Can't really remember which was 1st etc since it was so long ago. For a while various board wargames were something of "the thing" in my neighborhood so also played "Conflict" (Parker Brothers), "American Heritage Civil War", "Broadside" and "Dogfight" (all by Milton Bradley?). The first "real" WW1 game I ever played was "1914" by AH. I have to admit that 1) I always wanted it to be neat and 2) it was not, it was boring (Oh well). Sometime or other I got into SPI. Their "1918" game was fun. Unfortunately that can't be said of most.

Although I still own a few boardgames the advent of good computer games has relegated them to closet in the spare room

I have a friend who made his own boardgames. He researched battles heavily to get the maps right and painted his own pieces. The bulk of such games I played were made by him. He's still at it except without the cardboard and using The Operational Art of War system. He has an Eastern Front game he is still playtesting and is nearly done (but not playtested yet) with a 1914 game, both fronts. Nearly all the games I've played over the years are Napoleonic, US Civil War, WWI and WWII. I played a Crimean War game and some other odds and ends like that.

I left something out, he's really a stickler about TOE and puts a lot of effort into the research for that.

AH Richthofen's War was out in the 70's, and before that was AH 1914.

My first game was Luftwaffe in 1970 I think. Had a couple of buddies in the neighborhood and we also played Africa Corps, Midway, Battle of the Bulge and when SPI came out with USN I was fore ever hooked on "Pacific" games. We played that till we wore out the map and had to buy another. Then the monster games came out, War in the East, War in the West, War in Europe, Highway to the Reich, the GDW Europa series and then of course, War in the Pacific.

One of my friends had Jutland. We would have it setup for days on his basement floor crawling around moving the ship columns. Unfortunately one of his cats liked playing hockey with the ship markers.

ORIGINAL: netjam99

For WWI I had Jutland.

One time he made a Jutland game. He had a couple of sawhorses with some 4x8 sheets of plywood and particle board laying across them for the table. There were four of us and as I recall I was Beatty. We had a communication system so that things would get scrambled. I remember sending messages like "I say, Jellicoe old fig ..." It was great fun.

Maybe I said "Jelly, old fig ..."