"What made me the wargamer I am today" Topic

Hi all,

Just added a post to my blog looking back at the games and people that have affected my development as a wargamer over the past 45 years or so.

Ferb

Elmo has war-gamed in several "epochs"

1) Roleplaying with D&D
2) Crunchy games like Battletech and Command Decision
3) Warhammer and 40K with all things GW
4) The "post-GW" era and its magpie syndrome
5) Being "that guy" who barely games except for conventions.

Ah ! Decalset – RULES ! RULES ! RULES !

And so began my obsessive rule purchasing phase.

Meeting Don Featherstone along with the old military guys in the family and friends of my dad who looked in on me after my Dad passed away.

DM

Asperger's, and a pathological hatred of exercise.

;-)

Airfix 1/72nd scale figures, a Uniforms in Colour book from a book rack at Sears, and WWII. Could add my first trip to Virgina as a kid to see our family there. So much history.
VR
James Mattes

Early Micro Armour at the local hobby shop.

Buying Airfix 1/72nd figures, reading Airfix Magazine,until one evening after school spotting Military Modelling in the local newsagents and finding the Wargames figures review with Hinchliffe, Lamming, Minifigs, Warrior, Peter Laing and a few others.

Always been a history buff, WWII 1/32 models, board based war games, D&D, 15mm Nap's

End of 60's: Charge!, Charles Grant and Airfix (a time of great discoveries) …

70's: The Society of Ancients as a teenager but periods distracted by years of University, Rugby, Parties and Girlies (kept up the wargaming just about – and happily live with those same distractions from it, even today …)

'80s, 90's, noughties: work, the Society of Ancients and WD (35 years of unmatchable fascination … not been bored for a moment)

Today adding value to the historical mix by working with BFT, heritage groups and local volunteers to make sure historical wargaming and military heritage interests remain as accessible to the enthusiasts of today and tomorrow as they were to me – and better where possible.

What a fantastic world the giants, from Peter Young and Tony Bath to Paddy Griffith, opened up for me. Something worth sharing and protecting.

Phil

Minifigs-Skytrex opening on my route to/from school.

Dave Rotor being willing to extend a credit line to a school boy.

Dungeons and Dragons (available in the Dungeon of minifigs-skytrex !).

OGRE

Dragonsmeet

GamesDay

Airfix guides

Discounted Featherstone and others (seemed to be a glut in '77-'78).

These are some of the major milestones (who said millstones ?).

Gaming in general -- D&D
For minis? Space Hulk then into 40k.

Life.. and games workshop, when they actually cared about the hobby and stocked a range of different things.

I'd say it was my best friend. He likes to model and paint, while I am more into terrain and games. We have been playing around with toy soldiers since we were at school. Long may it run.

On the names that mean most to me. Minifigs, Ral Partha, Hinchcliffe, Garrison, Early Citadel, SPI, Avalon Hill.

Guess I'm Old School.

The person who made me the gamer I am today is Brother Henry Otto.

Brother Otto was an Irish Christian Brother who was a history and mathematics teacher at a Catholic High School. I did not go to his school but went to public school, but i met Brother Otto through a friend and I gamed with him and his group for many years.

Brother Otto was a wonderful soul who taught me that the whole point of games was fun and adventure, and that I should never allow the rules to get in the way of a good game or history to prevent imagination and play. I was a difficult pupil as he had to do a complete quadruple ego-bypass and competativeness removal, but he got his point across. He showe me that games were far mor about fun than winning. He also was an excellent tutor for history who showed me that things weren't always what the books said, and that good cheer and good sportsmanship and an infinite amount of patience with ones fellow creatures was far more important than good rules and being right.

Airfix plastic figures

All the war films of my youth that portrayed Germans as stupid, even though they had the best looking uniforms and equipment

"Discovering Wargames" by John Tunstill, whose book I still have today

Meeting the 'great man' himself, Peter Gilder, and being so inspired

Having a career that enabled me to afford to continually expand my collection whenever anything 'new' grabbed my attention

But it mostly starts with my Mum who made me paint my Airfix kits, instead of leaving them lying around the house in a bare glue-covered plastic state.

Airfix figures.
Hugh Walters and Dave Rotor – lord how I miss them.
Paragon Wargames group – beer, arguments, pole cats on a leash.

Airfix, Timpo, Marx…..The list is endless.
Growing up as a kid in the seventies I had a ton of plastic soldiers and playsets, always interested in history.
In the mid nineties I met a man named Bill Pritchard who introduced me to his gaming group, and I have been gaming ever since.
My style of gaming is very George custer, riding to the sound of the guns….Not always the smartest, but it makes for one hell of a game!

My father…bought me a large number of toy soldiers. Unfortunately most were given awat, thrown away or lost…I did however keep the Ceremonial Britains…

When I hit my teens I started a Wargames Society at school. We mainly focussed on Napoleonics (Airfix) – we never painted the stuff.

Around 17 started D&D for about seven years – great fun.

Then I grew up !

Wasn't until I had two kids and an understanding wife that I started in earnest again.

Eric

Too much glue

The Money in my pocket with out it no figures no paints no house to put the wargames table in no club.

Airfix plastic kits and figures for two shillings [10p] in local Woolworths
Don Featherstone's article on wargaming in Henry Harris's How to Go Collecting Model Soldiers, which led me to his other books and to Wargamer's Newsletter
Terry Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming
Meeting Paddy Griffith. joining WD and attending CoW
Meeting Bill Leeson and playing Kriegsspiel

[marriage, kids, career. mid-life crisis &c]

Rediscovering the 'classics', Old School gaming &c.

What made me the wargamer I am today? Probably my parents getting it on about 61 years ago….

Personally I blame Airfix, The Victor, and Commando Comics.

I had chicken pox and my dad bought me the Airfix Napoloenic book by Bruce Quarrie and that was that!

Craig

Airfix, Terence Wise and Tony Bath!

Another shout out for Airfix and Woolies!

As a young'un boxes of soldiers and bags of AFVs all spread on the front room floor fighting away; and yes 2/- a go, or 1/10 if you were really lucky.

Then Charles Grant's articles in Meccano Magazine, Airfix Magazine and 'The Napoleonic Wargame' in (iirc) Military Modelling, just as Airfix launched their Waterloo 1/72 figures. Many an AWI British Grenadier found itself painted up in Old Guard blue! From there to Jeffries Nap rules, and I was hooked……

Add in an excellent an inspirational History teacher and I was very much motivated. (Do they even teach history these days?)

Of course, growing up in the 60s there was a lot of WW2 about in the culture of UK. Everyone had relatives who had served….

A word of praise for good wargames clubs too – every county town had at least one in the 80s. Clubs generate an energy that keeps gaming alive, and Ive been lucky enough to beling to several excellent ones…

Roleplaying Twilight 2000 back in my teens! That and my parents of course.. :)

1960s:
Airfix 1/72 soldiers by the box loads, MARX 6" army men by the dozens, Battleground playset, Ben Hur playset, Fort Apache playset and a few others.

1970s:
More Airfix & some Little Green Army Men, HO Train Platform at Christmastime which hosted battle after battle with the above Airfix soldiers. School fieldtrip to Gettysburg where I bought my first Avalon Hill game (Gettysburg – doh!)

1980s – 1990s:
Less toy soldiers and tons more boardgames, 175+ and counting.

2000s – 2010s:
First trip to a minis con (Historicon) and I think I've spent more money in the past 10 years on minis than I spent in the first 30+ years of everythings else combined.

2020s(?):
Now that I've spent all of my children's inheritance, they have thrown me out and I am forced to clean the restrooms at the Fredericksbug (VA) Convention Center for spare change to buy more lead. Alms for the poor???

Forgot to add, Airfix series 1 planes which were about 10 -12p back then and the boxes of 1/72nd figures which were placed all over the rug in front of the fireplace and then 'killed' using a Britains 25pdr and matchsticks!