"www.wargamer.com - 2017 Tabletop Gaming Year End Review" Topic

Pewter and lead are in the second half of the article. Be kind as this is just my two shekels worth, which if you add a buck fifty will get you a damn good cup of coffee. The direct link is:

link

Ciao, Colonel Bill

"These are the types of games that got me into the hobby, specifically Panzerblitz by then Avalon Hill, and Leipzig by SPI. Strategy & Tactics Magazine, a military history tome with a game in every issue was popular with a huge circulation." Leipzig arrived six months late, with a torn envelope, but yeah, this was not AH's Waterloo…

I wonder what the younger generation uses for frames of reference now that AH and SPI (both of which you used to be able to find in bookstores) are long gone…?

I wonder what the younger generation uses for frames of reference now that AH and SPI (both of which you used to be able to find in bookstores) are long gone…?

I'm not young, but I never knew about AH or SPI games until I met other adult miniature wargamers. Never was that interested in board games, even today. I got involved in miniature wargaming due to a love of military history, and toy soldiers. Plain and simple.

Nice write up, Bill. I don't agree with everything you said, but that is typical of people and their hobbies.

A couple of numbers that stuck in my head over the years.

S&T once listed its circulation at 30,000+ back in its SPI days.

When I was taking out MagWeb.com adverts in Military History magazine and History Channel magazine in the late 1990s-early 2000s, MH and H both listed circ at 100,000, but MH's average age was in the 60s. I don't remember H's average age of a subscriber, but probably not far off from MH.

Somewhere in the attic I still have a copy of Antietam or Gettysburg or one of the SSI computer wargames. While talking to its President back in late 1980s, he mentioned that a good ACW computer game would sell 5,000 to 10,000 copies. Then he held up the D&D licensed game SSI did: 200,000 units. "This [D&D game] funds this [wargame]."

If I recall right, the fifth iteration of Halo sold 5 million copies plus, and the series sold 70 million copies overall (so far).

When youngsters are coming from a first-person shoot 'em up where almost every second is a twitch of a control, getting them to sit down and pop open a box of cardboard counters and flat map or paint up miniatures takes some doing. And if a wargame and a computer twitch game are the same price…

I think of wargaming as a great social hobby, but I am greying…

I started in the early 90s playing my father's early AH games with him- Afrika Corps, Waterloo, etc. Then I started going along to play Napoleonics with him. Now it has come full circle and I have brought my dad into my group I found to play with!

Thanks, Colonel Bill.