"The game that started me in the hobby" Topic

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Here is a blog post about the game that started me in the hobby. Looking back how can one have anything but nostalgia for your first? So what was your first?

My first wargaming game was Warhammer back in 1985-86 or so. I played RPG's for a few years before that.

First wargame was Avalon Hill's D-Day back in 1973. First Miniatures game was Tractics in 1975.

Dave

It started out with looking for a different kind of board game when I found Herquest by GW/MB (which I still have up in the closet somewhere). But then I learned about SPACE HULK by the same GW and I was hooked ever since 88. Till this day Space Hulk is still my favorite all time game to play.

Ain'y nuthin like the smell dead bugs in the morn'nin. . . :)

Tractics was a miniatures game? I thought it was a boardgame. Maybe I am confusing it with something else.

Hmmm was tracktics that had the amazingly detailed charts where you could penetrate a tiger if you hit the periscope just right?

No offence – each to his own and all that, but I think that if my first encounter with wargaming had been with rules that contained the following

For example one decision point is how fast are you going to drive your tank over broken ground to escape the guns of tank destroyers? There is a table that looks at the chance of a mechanical breakdown occuring because you are going too fast and being hard on the machine! Very few rules today cover such an issue…You move everything simultaneously. You have a thousand decision points to contemplate. It is truely fascinating to contemplate. I remember in that first game the question was asked, how do you cross the intervening distance between the crater you are in to the woodline over the field? The rules were meant to cover that kind of detail.

I would have been put off for life!

Anyway, my first contact was with Don Featherstone's 'Advanced Wargames', obtained from the local library in 1970. The first rules I bought were Charles Grant's 'Battle' the following year

Happy days

My first game was Squad Leader at age 11. I couldn't get enough of it, I loved the small scale, individual weapons, fire lanes etc. Then came most Avalon Hill and SPI games. I only got into miniatures gaming over the last 6 or so years. I have fond memories of games of D Day and 88 as well, I still want to buy Panzer.

Never really had a wargaming 'moment' like that. I can trace my gaming roots back to the early sixties playing with the Airfix HO&OO sets so I suppose it was those figures that first got me into gaming.
Big gap between the ages of 12 and 25- then I got into serious gaming with a Minifigs 'starter pack'.
Purchased my first 'proper' boardgame around this time too(I'm discounting the Waddington's 'Battle of the Little Big Horn'!).
Called 'Ostkrieg' by Swedish Games Production. Pretty basic as I look back but a cheap way of dipping my toes in the water.
Happy days.

kawasaki – good point. I came to that convention as a role player. They gave us just a handful of troops and basically did it roleplaying style. They asked for the details of what we'd do. I think that played better than an abstract game would have. I know I would have been totally put off by a game like DBA back then. I think the complexity added an aire of mystery to the game and that in turn led to a feeling of some sort of accomplishment when one achieved understanding.

It is very interesting reading the other stories of what got people into the game at all.

AH Gettysburg (@ 1968) and LOTS of Airfix. By 1974 we had discovered Fast Rules and then Tracitics (scenarios were bring what you have).

D&D with miniatures in 1977.

For me it all started just playing with very large sets of plastic army men in the back yard. My first actual wargame was an old obscure board game called Sirocco which was based on WWII North Africa.

My first was D. Featherstones War Games in the late 60's with 2 sets of AmRev plastic toy soldiers from the back of a comic book.

Still have the book; still have the soldiers.

I started out playing with those 1/35th scale Tamiya models. Then my parents bought me Panzerblitz for Christmas, out of the Sears catalog. I played that solo for years, until I stumbled upon my first local wargaming convention.

My first miniatures game was Rally Round the Flag.

Avalon Hill for sure for board wargames (unless you count Milton Bradley Dogfight, Broadsides and Civil War; Strategic Command Game; a 3-D submarine game whose name I can't remember). First "minis" game was WWII naval with 1/1200 ships during high school. Got back into minis with Warzone (having been tempted numerous times but passed on Warhammer, 40K and Epic).

Another D&D with miniatures, but in 1976.

Schogun:
I would definitely count Dogfight, Broadside, Battlecry, and Hit the Beach as gateway boardgames that led directly to my D&D days. I've got copies of all of them, and my daughters love them as much as I did.

A game allegedly designed by General Horrocks – I think it was called Combat.

Doug

I got a copy of Tactics II for my eleventh birthday back in 1974. Within a month I had bought my second game, Avalon Hill's Tobruk – which is basically a miniatures game disguised as a boardgame.

I think it was 1974 with a couple of boxes of Airfix Naps and a copy of Charles Grant's "Charge!"

I think it was 1974 with a couple of boxes of Airfix Naps and a copy of Charles Grant's "Charge!"

That would have been Peter Young's "Charge!" ;0)

First wargame was Tactics II around 78 or 79, followed by several of the old SPI ACW games. First miniature wargame was Warhammer somewhere in the late 80's, followed closely by Man o'War.

AH Wooden Ships and Iron Men for first board wargame at age 12 (27 years ago). Chainmail was my first miniature ruleset, probably of the same vintage.

AH Tactics II in 1975, followed by more AH games – 1st miniatures game was Heritage's 'Knights & Magick' in 1979 or so.

D&D with miniatures in '76, too. I was also a huge Squad Leader fan and owned all the expansions. We used to use the Squad Leader boards and home-made counters to play Traveller and later Striker.

Don Featherstone's Advanced Wargaming – using painted (badly) Airfix Napoleonic figues, back in the '70s.

I also started with Milton Bradleys Dogfight, Broadsides, Hit the Beach and Battlecry. First Avalon Hill boardgame was 1914 purchased in 1968 and first miniatures rules were Fletcher Pratts naval game for my 1/1200 ships (followed ALNAVCO's SeaPower) and Tractics for my Roco/Airfix forces.

It was the 3M Bookshelf game, Feudal, that got me started in gaming with miniatures to a set of rules. I saw a NZ TV spot on Napoleonic wargaming and made the natural assumption that medievals must also be available. Hastings followed soon after: I had to refight Hastings with my own painted miniatures….

1066.us

I also started with Milton Bradleys Dogfight, Broadsides, Hit the Beach and Battlecry. First Avalon Hill boardgame was 1914 purchased in 1968 and first miniatures rules were Fletcher Pratts naval game for my 1/1200 ships (followed by ALNAVCO's SeaPower) and Tractics for my Roco/Airfix forces.

Gettysburg in 1963. Then I collected all the Avalon Hill games I could find. I saw the futility of owning EVERYTHING once S&T hit its stride.
Then in 1974 or so, wome of us boardgamers at Penn State made a gaming pilgrimage to New Jersey, and there was a Napoleonics miniatures game on Saturday night. I don't remember much about it, not the scale, if there were hexes, or even what side I played. It may have been the one that was being featured in Strategy and Tactics around issue #20 or so.

The rest is history. More or less. Miniatures rapidly took over from boardgames. I think it was WRG 3rd ed Ancients. In 1976 I branched out into AWI with "1776", and Hinchliffe figures.

AH D-Day '61 in '61. First miniature game was a micro-armor game developed by a friend in his basement on or about 1970. Have not found a WWII miniature game to match the fun of that game.

Empire II

Panzer Blitz and France 1940 both picked up in '71 for $6 USD each in a now defunct store here on LI. Board gamed exclusively until '89 then the craziness began.

My first wargame was 1914 and Panzerblitz. I got into historical Miniatures not long after that with ICD wargaming club in Illinois. We used Classical Warfare at the time, Empire was not far behind. Everything else was home-brew.
VR
James Mattes

My father re-invented a game that he and his brother had created when they were kids during World War II. They wanted to track the naval battles and island fights in the Pacific and got a big map of the Pacific, and then made little ships out of clay and baked them in their mom's oven to make US and Japanese fleets. They'd move the ships around on the map to reflect what what they'd heard on the radio or seen in the papers and keep track of losses. Then they wanted to fight their own battles and made up a very simple game based on d6s. When I was a kid my dad recreated that game with me, we drew a big ocean map board together with islands on it, movement was by squares drawn on, and I helped him carve fleets out of balsa wood. He made it a 4 player game, so there were 4 fleets so my sisters could also play. Ever since then I've loved any war game with little figures to push around -- Axis & Allies, Dogfight, Beachhead, Shogun, etc.

Tractics was a miniatures game? I thought it was a boardgame. Maybe I am confusing it with something else.

Tractics was a miniatures game published by TSR. Before TSR started the Dungeons & Dragons phenomenon, they published miniatures rules the most notable being Tractics and Chainmail (which provided the combat system for the first edition of D&D)

Tractics was extremely chart heavy (like most 70's historical miniatures games) and periscope hits and the infamous turret ring hit where the key to knocking out uber-tanks like the Tiger. The armor rules where pretty good for the time but the infantry rules were all but unplayable (IMHO of course).

Dave

AH's "UFO" in the late 70's: For miniatures, Heritages Dungeon Dwellers paint and play set "Crypt of the Sorcerer" in 81 or so.

Wow I am a noob – Pig Wars about 3 years ago!

For me it was Squad Leader and Kingmaker that gave me the bug. I loved the "advanced" combat rules for Kingmaker, because it let me imagine a little more explicitly the nobles arrayed against each other with all their retainers and mercenaries on the battlefield. From there I eventually caught the GW bug and rode that hard for 5 years or so before switching to historicals.

Ogre for me…
But Feudal and a bunch of the 3M games, though abstract, had a hand in it…

Funny that so many have mentioned Dogfight/Battle Cry/Broadsides… I just the other day got copies of all three in a yard sale. I'd never heard of them prior to that.

Started out with SPI boardgames in 1972, moved on to Avalon Hill. A good friend lent me his copy of the "The War Game" by Charles Grant and I never looked back. My first miniatures game was a Napoleonics game with Airfix figures.

Tom

Charles Grants 'Battle', around 1970.

In 5th grade in 1973, I made friends with an older kid (6th grade, whoa!). He taught me a miniatures game he had learned from his older brother (8th grade, whoa whoa whoa!). The forces were stylized, each army getting the same allotmant of each kind of troop.

We went to the hobby store to get figures so I could make my own game to play at home. I would paint them and used to call him up to try to get him to recite the combat resolution chart and the movement rules. It gave me the bug. Next was D&D a couple years later, with its enticing references to large scale fantasy games using Chainmail rules, though it was 25 years later before I got to play a tabletop medievel fantasy army game, with different rules (Warhammer Fantasy Battle).

I had to cudgel my memory for a little bit; as I recall, my first wargame (sounds like something Fisher-Price should put out) was AH's Victory In The Pacific, which was introduced to me at the tender age of eight on a family vacation by a gamer I never saw again.

For miniatures, it would have been Starguard, at the age of ten at a FLGS that has gone extinct.

OGRE/GEV (then from Metagaming), Chitin:I, and Warpwar, followed quickly by TFT:Melee/Wizard and eventually D&D. The miniatures were an early thing, but I wasn't connecting them to games until TFT and D&D since my interest in OGRE predated even the Martian Metals figs by years.

1979 D&D Blue box. A friend gave me my first miniature— that little icon? That's him.

I didn't do much with miniatures back then, except use them in AD&D games as combat markers. But I was into simple wargames— first Risk, then games that came in Dragon magazine (Arrakhar's Wand, Flight of the Boodles) and in college I picked up Ogre.

In 1995 I made my first wargame, a spaceship combat game. As originally conceived, it doesn't involve miniatures… but easily could. Around that same time I also bought Space Hulk (2nd ed.)

The miniatures bug came fully back for me a few years ago when I began working on another wargame to handle medieval combat on a grand tactical level. Research on the web eventually led me here. That led to purchases of Warmaster, BoFA, WHA, Fantasy Rules! 2nd ed., a lot of plastic 1/72s, a lot of 10mm, Ogre/GEV miniatures boxed sets, LotR plastics & metals, plastic spaceships, metal spaceships, and the creation of G.O.B.S.!.

Call me a late bloomer. :-)

"A game allegedly designed by General Horrocks – I think it was called Combat.

Doug"

I'd forgotten about that!- saw it in a junk shop a few years ago and nearly bought it. Sorry I didn't now. Red and blue tanks and 'sticky polythene' terrain. Actually got a good few games out of it back then but I was about ten years old and didn't know any better LOL.
Well, he was in charge of XXX Corps…

Empire was my first miniatures game in 1974. Started painting Airfix British, then soon to Minifigs 25mm Prussians. Ancients soon followed, along with ACW.

I started with historical miniatures, then boardgames and then roleplay. Now I'm back to almost exclusively historical miniatures.

Rob

I'd forgotten about that!- saw it in a junk shop a few years ago and nearly bought it. Sorry I didn't now. Red and blue tanks and 'sticky polythene' terrain. Actually got a good few games out of it back then but I was about ten years old and didn't know any better LOL.
Well, he was in charge of XXX Corps…

Steve – that's the one. And don't forget the red and blue SP guns and the red and blue planes.

I've still got some of the pieces, the board and some of the sticky terrain but no box.

Doug

My first board games were "Risk" and some Napoleonic naval warfare game think it might ave been "?Wooden Ships and Iron Men?" Does that sound correct?

First miniatres were Airfix Napoleonics played with Grant's "The WarGame". I see that I am not alone in this. Still love it, but play it rarely.

My parents bought me a subscription to Strategy & Tactics for my 14th birthday, 31 years ago. My first game was Raid!, which took me about a year to figure out :) My second was Kharkov, which I figured out a lot quicker.