How did you get into Wargaming?

[USSAmerica]

My start was a visit to a local hobby shop as a 12 year old, in 1979.  I bought Third Reich for $12, brought it home, and soon figured out I was overwhelmed by it.  I returned it and bought the ADnD Dungeon Masters Guide, which started a long, fun filled lifetime of playing 1st Edition ADnD, but the bug of that Third Reich game never left me.  I went back and picked it up again a few months later and mostly fooled around with it solo.  When I made it to high school a couple of years later, I ran into several other soon to be friends who played both ADnD and Third Reich.  Squad Leader followed a short time later, and then the marvels of computers to keep track of all the counters.  The 80's were a very fun decade for me.  [8D]

[mgarnett]

Hi,

My start was with my Commodore 64 and a game called NATO Commander, which at the time I thought was just fanatasic.  A very traditional hex and counter game on the computer.  I was playing role playing games, the pen and paper versions, before that and I was very big on text adventures which I discovered on my VIC 20.  Since then, I've been in love with wargames ever since, both board games and computer games.  I have very fond members of my old gaming group and playing games on all of the computers that I once owned.

In fact, I still enjoy playing these games on old computers and my "man" room at home decked out with a Commodore 128, Amiga 4000, Atari TT03 and Acorn Archimedes 4000 as well as my PC.  The graphics on these old games, and user interfaces, pale in comparison to modern games, but the mechanics are still great.  It's pretty amazing as there is no way I could play these old games using emulation on my PC because of the dated look and feel, but when you play them on the original hardware, all of a sudden those short comings don't matter anymore.  I still play all of the old SSI classic wargames.

Cheers

Mark

[Perturabo]

Have you tried using image interpolation in the emulator?

[JudgeDredd]

Saw a wargame on Steam - never looked back [:'(]

[Perturabo]

So, at least one wargamer in the world got into the hobby later than me.

[warspite1]

I have always loved playing games and always loved military history - so I suppose it was destined to happen.

The first "wargame' I recall playing was between my brother and I. We used to have loads of H0/00 Airfix Napoleonic figures and a model of Le Haye Saint farmhouse. We would spend ages setting them up - Hussars, Curassiers, Prussians, Imperial Guard, Line Infantry, Coldstream Guards, Highland Infantry and Artillery - only to try and knock each others troops over using rolled up bits of bacofoil.......sophisticated stuff [:D] but happy days [:)]

[JudgeDredd]

I didn't really - I was playng Warcraft 1 and 2, Dune, Command and Conquer, Red Alert - but I got into "real" wargaming when I picked up Red Devils Over Arnhem by Panther Games - that was 2003 when I registered here because I wanted info on it.

[Perturabo]

RTS don't count[:'(].

[Gefreiter Wardstein]

If "Risk" or "Campaign" don't count then my very first wargame was an SPI magazine game that a friend of mine had just got called "Siege of Constantinople". That was back in 1978 & I've never looked back. I spend most of my time plating Advanced Squad Leader now.

[joeblack1862]

1967: Got Donald Featherstone's book, "Wargames", from the library. At the time I was playing about with airfix figures and wanted to fight some battles, without the matchstick cannon [:D]

Still remember the joy of playing my first ACW battle (copied the one from the book).

Followed up with the WWII Lionel Tarr rules, fantastic fun.

I still own most of Don's books and still read them occasionally.

[dougo33]

I started in the mid-seventies with the AH game Blitzkrieg. From there it was other AH titles like Panzerblitz, Anzio, 3 Reich, etc. Loved all the old SPI games also - folio games and monster games. Loved our weekends of WITE and then War in Europe. I still have many of the old games stashed, including original Europa games. I miss those days

[Whydmer]

When I was about 10 or 11 (in the mid 1970's) my older sister's boyfriend bought me Panzer '44 (SPI) for my birthday. I was a little young at the time, but it sparked an interest. A year later we had moved to New York City and I quickly discovered The Compleat Strategist, and soon I was burning through my allowance and building a vast array of Avalon Hill and SPI games. My favorites were The Russian Campaign and The Battle of the Bulge, and then Squad Leader and its follow on titles. I played my first computer wargame at a rich friend's house in 1982. I have tried to remember the title for years, but I don't.  I drifted away from gaming a few times (when I mistakingly thought I was supposed to "grow up" sometime...) but I always came to my senses and returned to the true hobby.