"When did you start playing Miniature Wargames? " Topic

When did you start playing Miniature Wargames?

1). As a chiled upto and inc 12 years of age.
2). As a teenager 13years to 19 years.
3). As a young adult 20years to 26years.
4). As a an adult 27years to 37years.
5). As a mature adult 38years to 48years.
6). As someone well and truly past it, 48years and above ;)

Be interesting to see.. I started around 11years. Then had a break in later teens and got back into it in my thirties

2). As a teenager 13 years to 19 years.

Started earlier, but not as formalized.

Jeff

If 1/72 plastics with homemade rules counts, 1. If it doesn't, then 4.

2). As a teenager 13years to 19 years.

2 – at the age of 13 in 1976 – It was the Star Fleet Battle Manual Game.

1. Lucky exposure to Charge! aged 9.

How lucky I was to be a youngster in the 1960s when libraries were open in the evenings and had books on wargames and military history!

Phil

If 1/72 plastics with homemade rules counts, 1. If it doesn't, then 4.

If Marx ACW figures with Morschauser rules, then 1.

Otherwise 2.

when libraries were open in the evenings

Yes, now about 20 hours total over a four-day week?

3

1) I think

Round abouts 12 years old.

1) Started off throwing marbles (single shot) and pencils (machine guns).

The graduated to the airfix guides when they first came out in 1977…and we had a modelling club in High School where we could paint out kits at lunch time.

At the top end of 1) – 1966.

1 and going strong since. All that changed was my tastes and scale preference.

What year did Military Modelling magazine start? About 1970? Because it was then, so that makes me a 2, just. It evolved from an earlier Airfix kit phase, which would be a 1.
I'm guessing the majority of responses will be 1 or 2. An early interest MIGHT survive into adulthood, but I wonder if many people come to any hobby like this as an adult, out of nowhere.

What puzzles me is how anyone in 1970 even found out there was such a hobby. I picked it up from friends, but how did THEY know? Sad to say, I can't remember now how we found things out before the internet!

What Phil said. 1) George IV Bridge Library in Edinburgh had a fine selection of wargaming books.

1-esque

1 – 5th Grade

Yea, if plastics count, and we aren't overly concerned about rules being written down, then 1.

Otherwise, 2.

1) If I could draw a straight line between the soldiers weapon barrel and the target, I called it a hit and knocked the figure over. I considered that more realistic then rubber bands andI was not aware of the fact that any 2 points define a straight line at the time. For melee I wouldput the figures in my hand and roll them around. The one that fell out of my hand first was the loser.

Lost a lot of players when I suggested using the orange CRT card from Avalon Hill's Gettysburg, and I wasn't that sorry. What got my cookies was this kid on the other side of town who had real rules. He had them printed in the early 70s. But this was in the mid 60's and it was a long bus drive to his house.

2. Starting when the first 1/72 Airfix packs – Combat Troops and Germans – came out.

2

5- from my son playing 4oK and MageKnight

1.

Airfix figs with rubber bands. Then I got the Marx sets.

Ah, the good old days.

If you count playing with toy soldiers in the back yard as a "miniature wargame" then 1. But, if you count using a codified rules system (i.e. its in a rulebook somewhere) then I didn't start until late in my teens with D&D minis and using them for the RPG.

I didn't start playing "formal" miniature wargames until I took up Battlefleet Gothic and VOR.

I have been playing Avalon Hill style wargames since I was 11 though…so wargaming I have been playing for a long time.

Andy Welkley
"Your Phrendlee Hevy Phyzx T-chrr"

Started when I was a teenager, category 2. I believe my first miniature wargame was WWII tanks (No infantry, just tanks) using 1/72 scale models and homebrew rules. Took a long break in my 20s in order to chase girls, so my second and current wargaming period began when I was in category 4.

1. Airfix and Roco minitanks 1966

I was 8 when we added dice rolls to the green army men.

1. Panzerblitz game from AH came out the year before….sort of dates me. Picked up a booklet "Miniature Wargames" by Terrence Wise from the Victoria station book stall in London (11 shillings)….was reading material bribe by the parents for the train trip. Little did they know what would happen next…..

Michael aka WR

4, a guy I worked with introduced it to me and I have been hooked ever since.

1

3.
But 2 for boardgame wargaming.

2 – when I checked out a copy of Featherstone's book from the school library.

Board wargames – 1
Miniauters – 3

Plastics with real rules, dice, measures, etc…..around age 9 so a 1 for me.

1

2

2 – 1973

Another person who if you count toy soldiers in my youth then 1. I played a lot of chit based games in the 1970's when I was in teens and early 20s. But serious collecting and playing a set rule system would have to be number #3.

Ran naval maneuvers with a friend, and his 1/700th scale plastic ships, when I was about 6 – 8, too.

More like steaming out of port, and docking, without combat at the time, since we lived near a large naval base.

1 airfix WWII and some basic rules and dice. Then got a bunch of Airfix Napoleonics about 20 boxes- all stolen at school. AH at 12 – boardgaming every since. 15mm ACW started when I was 17, Minifig renaissance at 19.

That would be #2. Saw actual games with miniatures when I was a freshman at UMass. I quickly jumped in with both feet. As a child I had all kinds of Airfix figures, Rocco Mini Tanks, Marx sets, etc. I would play with my troops along with my imagination, so no actual gaming with dice, rules, etc. Just a child's heroic imagination. I did do wargaming with board games at an early age though.

Mike

1, 2 with published rules

2 for board wargames
3 for miniatures (a game of Chainmail circa 1975-6)

1.

Dave

1. With 1/35th Timpo and Airfix as well as the obligatory 1/72 8th Army and Afrika Korps in the back garden.
2. When I got into Napoleonics with a school friend.

1. At school – Dulwich College Wargaming Society, every Tuesday lunch time in the Rotunda.

Tuesday evenings was the Corps drill night, so Tuesdays really were the highlight of the week – especially as we had Saturday Morning School :-(

1.

Bob.

The upper end of 1. I built 1/72nd scale models and played with Airfix soldiers. I bought a copy of a thin miniatures magazine (somthing digest? -they had a tactical problem in each issue that seemed to always be solved by attacking the defenders flank) and bought a copy of Tactical Studies Rules' Napoleonic rules. I mounted my Airfix Napoleonics to cardboard cutout stands with thumbtacks pushed through the bottome, and we were off to the races.

1. using Britains Detail, Airfix and ice cream stick soldiers.

RR

1. 1974 with airfix napoleonics and WWII