"How Bad Was 80s/90s Wargaming For You?" Topic

I started the 1980s by learning about this new thing called D&D as my older brother got the game for Christmas in 1979 (the purple box). I was 12 in 1980 and already a gamer, since board games were one of my favorite past times.

I played D&D, Traveller, Battletech, Marvel Super Heroes RPG and a whole lot more.

I officially got into miniatures gaming (though I had miniatures previously, but these were for collecting, not really playing) when I went to my first Gen Con in 1983 in Kenosha, WI at the University of Wisconsin Parkside.

That year I played a fantasy miniatures game called Knights Hand (which I bought and still have) and my first World War II 1/285 game- Jagdpanzer. My friends and I were hooked. I spent what little money I had on moderns (at the time they would be Ultra Moderns) as I was more interested in gaming possible scenarios at that time. My friend ended up buying lots of CinC West German figures (which I ended up buying later from him) and I bought a bunch of Soviet stuff (T80s mostly) and two sets of rules- Leopard Tracks and another set of rules with a red, white and blue cover that I cannot remember (though which still sits in a box somewhere in my home).

I also started getting into Battletech with miniatures after that, and bought the 1st Edition Harpoon (which I still have) after playing a game with Larry Bond himself at Gen Con 1985 (now in Milwaukee). I bought a bunch of CinC modern (at the time Ultra Modern) naval miniatures to game with.

I joined the navy after graduating high school in 1986, so my miniatures gaming was curtailed quite a bit between 1986 and 1989. Even then, I managed to get into FASA Star Trek minis gaming and had some of the old FASA miniatures.

For me, at least, the 1980s gaming was a pure golden age of lots of gaming. I marvel at the energy I had back then, as I played a lot, worked a lot and managed to do well in school and was involved a ton of extracurricular activities. I don't think I slept much. These days I still want to do a lot, but while the spirit is willing, the body is far, far weaker.

For me it was my intro to board wargaming and RPGs, a lot of good memories, played some games that I probably wouldn't have the patience to play now but at 15 I had no problem taking in big, complicated rules.

The other thing about the period was having FLGS everywhere; if not in every mall, at least every other mall (West Edmonton Mall had 3!). Nowadays it's closer to a FLGS every city.

From about 1984 to about 1993 was my golden age of gaming, or at least rivaled that of high school.

I had a great time but in those days I had far more patience to learn rules and would think nothing of rolling out all the morale tests required by WRG Renaissance.

I played Bismarck and WS&IM by Avalon Hill, WRG, Forlorn Hope and Bruce Quarrie a lot. Some friends wrote a great set of Napoleonic rules that had some concepts that were advanced for the day.

So I look back with fond memories of some epic games with many thousands of 25mm Minifigs on the table in some instances.

"I found things such as degree of armour slope in WW2 rules and cannonball bounce through to cause casualties in the rear ranks in horse and musket games and all the book keeping, movement and ammo logs to slow down or overcomplicate matters. I think those concepts have been abandoned by rules sets designed in the last 20 years."

I don't know about that. I played WRG for Napoleonics and WW2 in the 1980s (and had a look at Korps Commander, Firefly, Cambrai to Sinai etc). We did have one Napoleonic set which used bounce sticks, but can't recall what they were called now. Had a look at Command Decision to but didn't really start playing that until the 90s and then dropped it for Spearhead.

We did Waterloo in the mid 80s in 20mm using WRG 16xx-18xx, although I bathtubbed it a bit so it would fit on the dining room floor. Bizarrely I have absolutely no idea where all my 20mm Napoleonics went.

The only WW2 rules I can recall playing where angle of strike was significant were the old Charles Grant 'Battle' and you had to make up a sort of protractor thing on a stick to measure it. I dumped those for WRG in the mid 1970s.

The 80s were great, I went to University & made new friends who I still game with a couple of times a year, I did a hell of a lot more gaming then than now. We played boardgames, RPG and wargames (Ancients – WRG rules, and Sci-fi). We would stay up all night to finish a game, ah the spirit of youth
These days I have very little time to either game or arrange games, and as for staying up all night! It's a major undertaking to get us all together from either of my gaming groups.

I remember the 80's being great for gaming in general. I was playing AD&D, Car Wars, and SFB for the most part. I went to a lot of great conventions like Origins, and Pointcon. Then in the 90's it was still pretty good.

Really good, but not as good as today, courtesy of the interwebs.

My gaming in the 80s and most of the 90s consisted of RPGs like D&D, and later on Warhammer Fantasy. I didn't even know historicals really existed as a genre until Warhammer Ancient Battles hit the shelves in the late '90s IIRC. So I missed the halcyon days of historical wargaming completely, not that I could afford large armies anyway, until I had a job in college. In some ways, things are better now: ranges are better/nicer/more complete/more varied than the older figures I still see for sale, or talked about nostalgicly. But worse because my preferred historical era is ancients/meedievals, and no one plays that around here anymore…

Damon.

I was in the gaming wilderness in the 80s.

I was married to my first wife (never marry a redhead, they throw stuff at you) and had my first child. Oh, and then there was the navy. But I did manage to play a hell of a lot of Avalon Hill games, and even Third Reich solo. Yeah, the 80s were, er, amazing.

New Wave was great though.

And I also played a lot of Strat-o-matic baseball.

I started into wargaming designing my own, taking my mentors' example of home-grown rules. So early on it was fun in all aspects. I've never played "commercial" rules. My "golden age" of gaming was late 80s through the 90s. Then most of the guys I gamed with moved, and moved onto other things. It's never been the same since.

Imnsho, the Net and computers have mostly killed gaming creativity, making playing too easy, and removing the incentive to build your own game. Not to mention that almost all the guys who used to miniature game now don't bother, because the "Blue-eyed God of Entertainment" has made it too easy to play alone….

We played Empire IV. Need I say more?

For me those two decades were the Golden Age. I had regular local opponents and we had great fun playing. What more could a gamer ask for?

I had a great time. played everything and anything until late in the night and sometimes 7 days a week (until I found my partner. _layed a lot of multiplayer boardgames I would play again if I could (Civilisation, Empire of the middile Ages etc). There was one large club in the city with 60-100 members so there was also a game of something.

Age definitely has something to do with it but it was the Golden Age of gaming for me, probably because I had so much time to invest in it.

and Martin, this is the second time in three years you have mentioned the Cambrai to Sinai rules…I had wiped these from my memory until you mentioned them the first time, and it has all come back again today :-)

For me, the 90s were my golden age. first cons, beginning a decade long army build, more time to paint, research and game.
Wish I could go back to those years.

"You weren't there man.. you wouldn't know"