"Do you remember what got you into wargaming? " Topic

I remember very well. I was 11. My brother was 2 years older. We played endlessly with Airfix 1/76 WW2 Assault sets and with the model tanks we built. But we had started to lose interest in the bang-you're-dead stuff, and tended instead to set them up in tactical situations and wonder what ought to happen.

We vaguely knew of wargaming, and we tried fighting tank battles by pointing the gun turrets at each other's tanks and figures, and arguing over whether a round fired would have hit in real life.

We were fumbling for a pretext to carry on playing with soldiers.

He changed school just on 39 years ago, and went to a much larger one that had a wargaming club. He went to an introductory session and came home blown away. They use dice to decide if your shots are on target – genius! Then more dice to assess damage! One guy there, he converts Airfix Shermans and fights Arab-Israeli battles – the Golan Heights that were still in the news! This was just revelatory. But he also noticed Napoleonics and as a result largely lost interest in WW2.

I went to the same school 2 years later and added back WW2 to my interest area, as well as WW1 and WW2 naval. I think I would have given anybody a game in any era, had they both armies and a set of rules.

To this day I am still fumbling for a pretext to carry on playing with soldiers, really. They look nice, it does no harm and if I didn't read military history, I don't know what else I would read.

I got into it because I loved the looks of the great Napoleonic tables my boss in the AF could put together. I'd been perfectly happy playing AH, SPI, Yaquinto, etc., wargames until I saw that first table full of pro-painted figures and terrain.

So, yeah, playing with toy soldiers. ;)

Shawn.

Proper wargaming ?

The two fisted whammy of the Minifigs-Skytrex Shop and Battle for Wargamers Magazine.

Wargaming.
I was around 11 as well, saw the wargames at a local Department Store and was mesmerized by the back of the box of "Starship Troopers". I ended up buying Cross of Iron (squad leader gamette) and got Squad Leader proper for Christmas.

Miniatures.
Local group of gamers were not board gamers but miniatures players. Got hooked on IABSM2 and a couple other titles. This was around 2005. Had played (but not collected) CD2 back in the early nineties though.

I was into modelling, Airfix figs etc, then a local wargames club hosted an event after school in a classroom – about 81? A guy showed me TTG Laserburn figs, I watched a microtank game, and then sat and ogled the AD&D Monster Manual, spellbound. I still recall that the owner had colored in the illustrations, some using gold and silver pens.

Airfix tanks and plastic Napoleonic soldiers were the catalysts for my interest in wargaming.
Rod Robertson.

Little wars, a quirky dad, Don Featherstone, Airfix Magazine and Military Modelling. All that converting Airfix figures, until I bought my first Garrison greeks

A copy of "The War Game" by Charles Grant (that my dad bought as a library discard) and a few boxes each of 1/72 Airfix Napoleonics for my older brother and I. I was around 11 and he was around 13 or so.

An MFCA show in Chester, PA when the school was still PMC (Pennsylvania Military College)…that after having played the Milton-Bradley games for a few years and Avalon Hill's (Afrika Korps, Gettysburg, Blitzkrieg) for 1 or 2. Must have been 1967 or so.

A copy of The Armchair General, and the realization that my Airfix tanks and troops could be used to game and I was hooked!

On my honeymoon in the seventies, pulled in for gas in Cambria CA across from a placed called the Soldier Factory. Walked inside and my world changed.

link

Playing 40K for the first time got me into wargaming.

The comic book 300 got me into historical wargaming.

Playboy Magazine in the early 70's had an article about unusual Christmas gifts for the man who has everything. They mentioned Minifigs and the rest is history…….

I received Avalon Hill's Battle of the Bulge for Christmas probably in 1976 or 1977. That lead to other games and I was hooked.

Hmm,
My grandfather when I was 8 bought me a copy of Tactics II. I was hooked and played the whole stable of Avalon Hill games, along with GDW. Then, around the time of junior high, I discovered the joys of miniatures (Navals, but still, the bug was there) and I haven't looked back. I still have a board game collection, but I don't play them so much as mine them for ideas.

This mans artwork:

link

And Airfix 1/72nd scale figures

Airfix 1/72nd toy soldiers as a kid. Then I discovered Spacehulk and games workshop.

My brothers and I had tons of airfix figures and Avalon Hi games. When I was 6 my mom gave us the Morchauser (spelling?) Book and there was no turning back. Then on of my best friends moved onto the neighborhood and it turned out he was a game too. That was 46 years ago…

I played with my Airfix figures in the garden with casualties caused by flicking stones at them. Them my parents got me Terence Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming (and isn't that a better name for the hobby than wargaming – and why doesn't microsoft recognise wargaming as a word?) one Christmas and I started re-fighting all the scenarios in that with dice and rulers!

Grunt, you nailed it. I used to stare at these pictures for hours and then go at it with the Airfix ACW and GIANT ACW figures circa 1970.

Boardgames: When I found the "Complete Book of Wargames" in the public library (Lincoln Library in Springfield Il). I photocopied the free game, Battle of Kasala" played it solitaire a couple of times and I was hooked.

Miniatures: Greg Novak brought a 15mm Johnny Reb game, Lightning at Hoover's Gap to the Saturday night games club at the University of Illinois. Practically the entire membership decided to give it a try and I've never looked back.

Boardgaming, then D&D (and other RPGs), and Star Fleet Battle Manual with minis, then an invitation to join a game using Brian Stokes "Tank Charts" being played at the FLGS.

I was in the late, lamented Polk's hobby department store. As always, I wandered into the rear of the 1st floor where the Imrie-Risley 54mm soldiers were. I spotted a copy of Morschauser's "How to Play Wargames with Military Miniatures". That led to purchase of Airfix soldiers – I already had Timpo knights. It also led to 50 years of games.

My dad taught me AH's D-Day when I was 9 or 10.

gateway drug = model making (Airfix, Frog, Novo, then Matchbox and then, wow – Esci, Nitti, Fujimi and Hasegawa)

activator – my mate geoff and my dad's amazing model railway layouts… even if he (my dad, not geoff) 'borrowed' figures to double as train crew…

enabler – a student grant and games of liverpool, the fine chaps of the LWA

I was about 8 or 9 and my brother had borrowed Richthofen's War from a friend of his and taught me to play it. I have been addicted ever since.

Sharpe

years of playing with toy troops and tanks, and years of Avlon hill games, but Battletech was the first minis war game I ran across

A fantastic visit at the National Army Museum in London…while my British girlfriend of the time was disgusted to see me loosing another hour in the shop buying airfix toysoldiers unavailable in Italy

Real gaming, a s/h copy of Battle Magazine a 1976 issue 2 years old in 1978 but it was still solo struggles for years (where I stayed could get the airfix stuff but none around me was interested in the small town that I lived in.1980 moved to a big city and with a bit of searching found a club not far from me at a local school. Fond memorys.
Cheers strange back in a small town and soloing again :) thankgoodness for all the clever stuff that have developed over the years. First rules ready through was "Little Wars" which was in my Primary school libary. First rule system try out eas a set of Donald Fethersone 3tulrs and some Prince August homecasts.
First real idea on it all 6th ed WRG Ancients at the club meets.

My gosh! Grunt1861 do those pictures bring back memories! Just loved them as a kid and evan now. I was really excited when I found that artist did American Revolution maps/pictures in a publication by national geographic.
A number of years ago during my career with the national park service I did a project helping out national geographic with some research they were doing. They liked my work and asked, since I could not get paid for my work if there was anything they could send me. I asked about the pictures/maps. I got a nice box on my desk a few weeks later with mattered copies of the pictures/maps of Bunker Hill, Trenton, Second Saratoga and The Cowpens.

10th grade , a new friend ( still close friends today) had me play D&D with mini's . I was enthralled then we played a game of OGRE …that was all she wrote .

My best friend in high school sucked me into it. That was 1973 and I've never looked back.

I forget exactly.

But there were boxes of MPC (read Airfix) ACW figures in a hobby store where I got some model kits and I was entranced about this thing called a "war game"…

Seemed cool to me…

Especially since those boxes were $1.19 USD a box or so.

Eric

Nope, I was wargaming before I became a teenager and I'm 65 next birthday!

I do remember playing WW2 when Kennedy got the bullet. I played ACW before then.

Grunt1861 +1

Pat

Always had bucket loads (literally) of Airfix figures, then one day, aged about 11 I found Grant's "the wargame" and a book by The Don in the library….Two men I never met, and wish I had.

I always had an interest in history and playing with toy soldiers, and then when I was 12 or 13 my parents (really my mom) gave me the D&D Basic box set, which led me into a games store, which led me to staring in wonder at the board wargame shelf (I don't recall any minis other than fantasy RPG stuff, so board games won out), later scrounging enough lawn mowing money to by AH's Battle of the Bulge (not sure how this won out over Panzer Blitz/Leader).

Miniatures came much much later, other than crappily painted RPG figures.

Somewhere @ 1968, combination of Marx, Airfix and Avalon Hill.

Boardgames until @ '72 and Fast Rules and Tractics. Caught Naploeonics @ '78 at a con at CSU Northridge

I was Airfix models and 1/72 figures – my friend and I used to line them up then knock them down on a dice roll – 4,5,6 for a kill, last man standing was the winner. Then one day I picked up a Donald Featherstone book in a shop in Blackburn – I can still remember (40 years on) the astonishment I felt at discovering that this was actually a proper hobby, that real grown ups played.

Manchester wargames club members put a demo on at our school using Airfix Romans and ancient Britons…

It all started from then!

Don Featherstone's Wargames and Airfix figures.

As a kid my parents bought me over the years the Milton Bradley games of Tank Battle, Carrier Strike, and Chopper Strike. My brother and I would put the three of them together and play one big game. We would also take the tanks from Tank Battle and the large box of baseball cards our neighbor gave to us when his sons went to college, building a house-of-cards city and shoot rubber bands from one tank to the other – last man standing.

A few years later, a friend in Jr High brought over AD&D, which brought me to the Dragon's Den store, and Star Fleet Battles and AH's Air Force, and later TFG's Batlewagon. After high school, post boot camp school in the Navy, brought a room mate with 1/2400 scale WWII ships, and the naval arms race in Friends Games(iirc), in Weaukegan.

But the finishing touches was the Project Warrior club at Wheeler AFB in Hawaii. Invited by a chance encounter at the game store in Aiea near Aloha stadium, I walked into the back room of the library on the base, and was blown away by the huge Napoleonics game in progress, and immediately wanted to play.

boxes of Airfix plastic figures. Napoleonic I think

What got me into wargaming? Lack of feminine companionship?

My Traveller players had their characters hire a company of mercenaries to rescue their patron from jail. Large unit actions were beyond the scope of the rules, so I bought Striker. It was so damn complicated, I bought Rogue Trader as a simpler option. We all fell in love with the fluff and the art, and switched to wargaming instead of RPGing.

Avalon Hill Afrika Corps in 1967.

Afrika Korps for me as well. Introduced by my father.

I had played with Marx ACW soldiers as a kid in the 50s and early 60s, played a few board games in the late 60s, built some Tamaya kits. Then, in 1972 saw an ad in Military Modeling for Charles Grant's "The War Game". A single illustration showed some cavalry with a burst circle held by the author's hand, and I was hooked. Got the book (it came from England), met a great group of guys there in Jackson who played CLS Naps, and its been Delightful ever since. I've been thru lots of periods, but I'm pretty much settled on 18th century and Imaginations.

Played with a couple MB games of the 60's, Battle Cry, Broadsides and Dogfight. Then with SPI and Avalon Hill into the 70's when I was stationed in Germany. Walked into a hobby shop in Marathon FL in 1979. The owner had a personal Alexander Successor Army under the cash register. It was 25mm Minifigs. That's been my hobby since, whether I gamed or just painted. Ditto on the artwork Grunt.

4th C I love your story! It tracks mine so closely!

For me it also was 30+ years ago. I was a bit older than 11 … probably 12. In 7th grade. I had a great collection of Airfix soldiers, and a combination of 1/72 and 1/76 tanks, as well as some Rocco mini-tanks (1/87 … collected earlier, and declining in my esteem at that time). I read so many books, and all the descriptions of the models … soaking it all up like a sponge. My dad had been in the Tank Destroyers in WW2, and talked with me a bit about some of the tanks. It all stayed with me.

I was out-growing "bang he gotcha". I needed a way to keep playing with my toy soldiers.

I started developing some basic rules for making a competitive game out of our model tanks. Pretty basic stuff. We took turns. Moved inches determined by the tanks' speed. Then we tossed pebbles for shooting. A Pz III had to hit a T-34 two times to kill it. A T-34 only had to hit the Pz III once. The T-34 had to hit the Tiger 3 times. The Tiger only had to hit the T-34 once, but had to hit the KV-1 two times.

It was OK. No great shakes.

Then I saw the box for PanzerBlitz in the local toy store. I read the back cover … about the sun glinting off of the barrels of the panzers, and the commanders slamming the hatches on their dreaded T-34s. I just had to have it. I bugged my mom, and she bought it for me for my 13th birthday. I was SO looking forward to it. It was the first present I opened. I didn't even want to look at the other presents. I tore open the box, and found …

… cardboard cut-outs.

OMG what a disappointment. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't a 1cm square of cardboard with a profile of a T-34 on it!

Still I read everything in that box 50 times. Played every scenario. It wasn't a very good game, really. Some stuff really bothered me … like it said each counter was a platoon of 5 Panzer IVs, or a company of 10 T-34s. The numbers (AF, DF) were about what I would have expected for 1-on-1 comparison, but the counters represented TWICE as many Russian tanks. There was no explanation of why the Russian tanks were so pathetic.

Then one day I was in my local hobby shop looking at some tank models, and the guy behind the counter started talking about the tanks I was looking at, saying how the Jagdpanther had "A" frontal armor but only "D" side armor, and I asked what he meant, and he told me about these rules he used for gaming called Armor and Infantry (from WRG). He referred me to another hobby shop that sold the rules (and WOW also sold these COOL little tanks from a company called GHG!), and I was hooked!

At first I started buying the GHQ tanks just to use on my PanzerBlitz game board. Sure looked better than the cardboard cut-outs. But over time I bought the rules, and got into it with a couple friends from school, and have never given it up.

I still need to have a way to play with my toy soldiers.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)