"What was your 1st SATF game you participated in ?" Topic

I was thinking about the first time I played in a TSATF game and realized it was quite a bit ago . My first time was a Zulu War game put on by my brother Jim back in the mid 1980's and it was great ! What was yours ?

A Northwest Frontier game at a convention in St. Louis, circa 1995, with classic 25mm Ral Partha minis, I believe.

My first encounter with the rules was an adapted version used in an ancients game with Romans beating up on someone. It was at a game convention in Cleveland in the early 1980s.

With my RP Zulus,1980, I think? Definitely played one with my sister in 81. She wiped the floor with my Impis.

1978 at my local club a Zulu monster game

Classic 25mm Ral Partha miniatures with British versus Pathans.

late Seventies, early Eighties in my friend house here in Rome…we discovered the rule book thanks to Soldier of Fortune of which we were subscribers…we werent' at all satisfied with playing colonial with Newbury Rules..so he came out with this easy going set of rules..my concern was about alternate moves and use of activation – cards..totally new concepts at that time..now i enjoy it a lot….the first battle was whith his NWF Pathans and Red Coats from Minifigs..(unaffordable for me, poor student, to to buy metal minis from abroad)..the second battle was with my Foreign Legion Vs his Arabs..both from Airfix…my first serious army was a Minifigs one, acquired second hand, a ..with realisticly repainted by me..Corps of Guides and Highlanders..but again no chance Vs his brand new splendid Pathans from Foundry..that, of course, i could'nt afford…

1880's Sudan game. I think back in the 1990's.

Zulus with Ral Parta figs
Had a Drift setup and played it to death
Still doing the rules

Riel Rebellion many, many years ago

Irishserb, that would be The Sword in Gaul.

My first was a Sudan demo game put on by Larry Brom at Origins in 1979. Our booth was next to Yaquinto's and I got drafted. Had a great time.

Zulu War a long time ago

Memorial Day convention at the Oakland airport, May 1987. I played the British marching a column through Zululand. 25mm Minifig figures. I got my head handed back to me. It was my first convention and I met several colonial wargamers who are still my friends.

Probably shortly after Larry Brom developed the game. Would have played at his house in Jackson, Miss., along with my fellow Jackson Gamers who had assisted him in the development. We would have played on his large "kitty litter" table. Fun times.

Jim

ColCampbell for the win!

I don't know if it counts, but Larry sent us a copy of
the pre-pub rules sometime in 1977 and asked us to play
test them so that was my first exposure to 'em…

Early 1990. Sudan. I had 2 platoons of RMLI and it was glorious!

It's been too many decades to remember.

Sometime back in the '80s. Probably early in the decade. It was a game set in the Sudan in 1884-5. We played using 15mm miniatures on a sand table.

A Zulu vs British convention tournament. The players could bring either one British platoon or two Zulu "platoons".
There were 8 players and I was the only one to take Zulus.
Yes. It was a strange game.

'70s at the Last Grenadier. Mainly remember being in square and fighting for our lives !

1980's Northwest Frontier in Bremerton,Wa. Lynn Bodin ran the game.

It's been too many decades for me to remember, also. Fortunately I can depend on Dale's memory of the event, since we were both members of the old South Brevard Wargamers back then.

Dale, I still have – and game with – the Ral Partha Queens Guides and Cokes Rifles you painted for me back then. They remain some of my best looking units,

Rick

At the forerunner of Southern Front, "Call to Arms" at NCSU back in 1990. 15mm Zulus vs. Brits in (IIRC) a "crossing the river Nyzene(sp) scenario. My first wargame played in a con.
Found out quickly that Vietnam era squad tactics do not work in TSATF! :-).

Back in 1980 I purchased TSATF rules from the Bonnie Brae Hobby store in Denver. The first two games at some friends house hooked me even though the other players were not too excited. My friend, Terry, and I started a campaign in 1980 which we still try to play a game or two a year. It started at Wiley's Drift. The Zulus won that one and the next one at Johnson's Corner (now called Mumbasa Junction). I corresponded with Larry for several years about TSATF meeting him at the Origin's convention in Baltimore in 1982 and introducing Terry to Larry at Historicon in the early 2000s. Dan Gurule has brought TSATF to our Colorado Military Historian's club with his excellent Sudan games.

It was around 1993. We were playing with wooden figures – French vs. Arabs. I was French and the way I was rolling – I couldn't miss!! We were ready to go to Atlantic City I was rolling so hot. We found out later in the game that the majority of the dice I was using only had 4, 5 and 6 – no 1, 2 or 3!!! Good thing the dice belonged to the guy hosting the game and not me!

While in college back in the early 80s I attended Coast Con in Biloxi, MS. It was mainly a Sci Fi and Fantasy con. But, there was historical miniature gaming as well thanks to Larry Brom, who had driven down from Jackson for the event. I got to play in a TSATF game that he ran there and was instantly hooked. I bought a copy of the rules from him and picked up some Ral Partha NW Frontier minis too. I began my foray into gaming with Airfix Napoleonics and a thick binder of the Jackson Wargamers club rules. It was fun….after a fashion…..but playing TSATF is what really got me going in historical miniatures.

What a great question!

I think it was 1980, maybe less than a year after the rules were first published. It was a modest size Zulu game using 15mm Mike's Models, with me as the neophyte British player, commanding a troop of 17th Lancers, one or two platoons of British infantry, a platoon of near-worthless NNC, and maybe a Gatling gun or artillery piece, vs. a far more experienced Zulu player with three times as many troops.

The more experienced player/Game Master who owned both armies set the game up in another rookie TSATF gamer's basement. I had never met either of them before, but through a fortuitous set of circumstances the Game Master had learned of my interest in Colonial gaming and invited me over.

I remember I started out marching my British troops across the table with the Lancers in open order out front, followed by the infantry, maybe in column behind them. I guess a bunch of red movement cards were drawn first, because after I finished moving, I remember my experienced Zulu opponent/Game Master affected a fortune cookie sage voice and admonished me: "Biiiiiiiig mistake screening infantry with cavalry."

Then he charged my open order cavalry with a horde of Zulus who'd been laying in wait in the shag-carpet brush, and went on to pretty much wipe me off the table.

Somehow, from that moment on… I've been hooked.

Forgot to mention our Zulu game figs where Ral Partha ,as many of you have mentioned . What great figures !

Agreed Mad Guru, what a great question. The answer to which has hooked most of us since that fateful day.

My first actual TSATF game was at a Historicon about mid 1980's at the Penn Harris Inn. I'd always been fascinated with colonials and had been collecting 15mm FFlL troops from Minifigs and Stone Mountain but had used other rules thus far. At the con I'd signed up for an Egyptians vs Brits game run by Larry. I wasn't familiar with TSATF nor Larry for that matter. As a newbie Lori had helped me out with learning the rules and some appropriate game tactics during the game. I remember Larry's cardboard huts and thin metal minis like it was just last year. Oh boy, that was the beginning of the end. Right after the game I bought the rules, some more painted 15mm colonial figs from Gajo, some various terrain bits, and hit up the flea market for some awesome painted 15mm Minifigs. There I got (2) units of red coats, (5) Zulu's, (1) Gurkha, (2) Sikh's, and (2) Indian mtn guns to add to the loot. I've had those figs until just earlier this year when I sold them to a club mate here in Ft. Laud. Fl. The rest, as they say, is history.
Cheers,
JB

very very amusing topic…thanks for posting this question..and thanks above all to TSATF 's veteran gamers to post your memories ..i hope one day ..for my first ever trip to American Continent to travel Louisiana for Cajoul music and kitchen and for Colonial Barracks
But Mad Guru 15mm Mike Models colonials where simple pieces of shapeless metal not minis ! :-)..no problem to loos with tehm..they could have pass as well as Assirians or Dervishes…after having gamed the first time a Colonial battle with those kind of minis….i decided for ever..never again in that scale..TSATF only in 25mm and only single based…

Oh, my fine Italian friend, oh, oh, oh NOOOOOOOO…

Mike's Models ANCIENTS might perhaps be dismissed as your "simple pieces of shapeless metal not minis" but NOT SO THEIR COLONIALS -- or their well sculpted "Eastern Renaissance" range from which I recruited my Afghan Tribesmen and Ghazis!

True, the Zulu and Sudan ranges were not as finely done as say… Essex 15mm Colonials, but, they were still instantly recognizable as whatever troop type they were meant to be!

And believe it or not ALL the many hundreds upon hundreds I played with back in the early Eighties were indeed SINGLY BASED… though I freely admit that was then and remains even now (even with 25-28mm figures) arguably insane.

I can add to this thread with an exact timeline for the figures used in creating and play-testing TSATF.

It was the summer of 1977 in Jackson, Mississippi, and Dad had seen, in one of his wargame periodicals (remember those?), an ad from a gamer/collector in California. This gentleman was selling all of his wargame armies, which totaled 2486 figures, mainly Scruby and SAE's, for the price of…..hold it………$400.00..!!!

Dad spent several evenings in his game room, vainly trying to decide which figures he could afford. There were ACW, Napoleonic, FPW, WWI, WWII and Colonials. But the problem with the Colonials was they were in small, skirmish-sized batches. And Dad wanted all the figures regardless, as the price worked out to $.16 USD each. And they were all painted, but many not too well.

I owed Dad some money, for what I can't remember exactly but think it was for repairs to my Datsun 210. I was paying him weekly and suggested that we just buy all the figures; however would the guy accept weekly installments? Dad somehow found his phone number and immediately called him. Of course he'd take payments weekly. He sent the figures over 4 weeks and I can still recall unwrapping each one as if it were Christmas morning. The guy's wife wasn't working at the time and wrapped each figure in toliet-paper squares. Not a bayonet or rifle was broken.

As he sorted through them when he had received all of them, Dad said he worked out more details on this "movie-inspired set of skirmish rules" he'd first jotted down in 1974. He sold the figures he didn't want (at $.25 USD each), organized and repainted where necessary (the camel corps were in flat Day-Glo type paints!) and over the next two years play-tested TSATF with our local group, The Jackson Wargamers. And the rest is Colonial gaming history.

400.00 was a pretty penny back in 1977. What a wonderful memory – thank you for sharing.

My first of only 3 games I ever played was very nearly a year ago with TMP's Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein. I had a bloody first outing in Afristan…
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