"Twenty Years A Wargamer" Topic

Today marks 20 years of wargaming for me, when I got the Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition starter set for my 8th birthday. Now twenty years and more money spent than I'd like to calculate, I have a seemingly endless horde of minis and rulebooks. Here's to another twenty!

How long have you been wargaming? What was your first wargaming item you owned?

Almost 45 years now, though a lot less over the past few years than I'd like to recognize.

42 years ago, 15mm WW2 American Inf. still have them but remounted for FOW

Since 1970 or so, but in earnest 1977. Airfix waterloo sets, still have them! And boardgame "Torgau" GDW?

Now cracking on 31 years. Wonder how much $ that has been :)

@ 50 years for me (started young) Airfix and Avalon Hill

43 years and counting. WWII still my favorite. Its all good!

Over 50 years with Toy Soldiers – Marx, MPC, and Airfix in Plastic

Avalon Hill for Games

Hinchliffe for lead

Avalon Hill Waterloo
around 1969 (I was 8)

I got Richthofen's War for Christmas in 1972. So I guess it's 46 for me. BUT, I had Dogfight, Battle Cry & Broadside before that, got those in the mid to late 60's so really more like 50 years… Damn… I'm old. But Still gamin' & enjoying it! It's really been the only constant in my life.

Grown up miniatures with rules and dice? 50 years next summer. Board wargames would take me back to 1964.

First Boardgame was Afrika Korps. First rulebook was Column, Line and Square 2nd Edition and first "adult" miniature was a 30mm Napoleonic light cavalry officer. (There were a LOT of Marx sets and Airfix figures further back. But that was playing with toys. That 30mm command figure was my start as a miniature wargamer.)

I guess I started out with the Marx playsets at about 8 years old. Dad worked an extra job for Dec. so he could buy us kids our toys. It was the latest Marx playset for me every Christmas. Very fond memories. I used to spend hours playing with them Eventually ended up with 10,000 toy soldiers from all their playsets and purchasing extra bags of figures to go along with the sets. So I guess it's been about 63 years of gaming for me.

61 years first game played on a gym floor with revell, monogran, and other plastic models ships, aircraft and vehicles and lots of Marx green army men.

1970 48 years and counting. Airfix French Foreign Legion vs Arabs.

I have been selling as a convention vendor and store straight since 1983. Though back in 1971-2, I convinced my mother to stop some war games in our gift shop. We stocked them until I went into the army.

First game was Napoleon at Waterloo which came with my S&T subscription in 1971. My first bought games were Korea and Kursk. I did not know about Avalon Hill for awhile. My first AH games were Blitzkrieg and Kriegspeil.

I got my first board wargame in 1968 (Tactics II) while in high school. No one would play it with me 'cause it was too complicated. Started with miniatures in 1975 after I was out of college. So 50 years for board wargames and 43 years for miniatures.

48 years ago, almost to this day. Began with hordes of RoCo Minitanks.

About 46 with figs.-- add another 6 if boardgames count.

42 years

32years.

i'm currently 75, I got my first Britain's figures when I was six so that's 69 years playing with toy soldiers. When I was 12 I played a war game with A friend using Britain's figures again. He had rules for moving and shooting and determining casualties by rolling figures on the carpet; face up they are alive face down they are dead.

when I was 25 I ran into a guy showing Pictures of column line and square games, at the hobby chest in Chicago. he taught me the rules. The next year I moved to Boston and taught the game to Dick Bryant. He and I have been wargaming friends for over 50 years

Marx Alamo playset in 1954. My Dad pushed the dining room table over against the wall and we crawled around on the wood floor shooting those tiny black bullets out of the spring cannons at one another's figures. It was heaven.

Then he brought home Tactics II from Avalon hill in 1958, and I wore the pink and blue color off of the counters I played with them so much.

So, 64 years for me.

And my buddy Bobgnar edges me out !!

Good one, Bob.

20 years of gaming? You young whippersnappers are kind of cute.

I read the rules for Tactics-II and played a solo game 43 years ago. I first played a wargame against another player (Sniper!, if I recall correctly), and also first played a role-playing game (D&D), 42 years ago.

My friends and I started playing with army men about 55 years ago, but I don't really count all of those happy memories as wargaming.

40 years -started at 7 when my grandfather gave me Airfix 1/32nd scale 8th Army. This was followed up with a visit to Bovington Tank museum where I bought Africa Corpse [sic] figures. Even back then my grandfather insisted on rolling dice when we played games. Never looked back.

Started playing H.G. Wells' 'Little Wars' with my dad, using Airfix ACW and Britains' guns when I was 8 (1960), so 58 years.

40 years. Blimey was 1978 so long ago? Matchbox pz iii airfix crusader, 1 box matchbox Germans, 1 box airfix british, 1 airfix gun emplacement, operation warboard, still have them all apart from the crusader, although the pziii got mangled and turned into a destroyed scenery piece.

I started with board games over 40 years ago – link

Started playing miniatures about 10 years later

I did a series called Retrospective where I reminisced about the games that influenced me – link

Started playing little wars with airfix figures in 1974 so 44 years..

Mike

First playing with others and 'proper' rules about 1965/6, playing solo a year or so before that (naval games with scratch built ships). That makes it 53 years.

Started with Charles Grant's "Battle" in 1970, so 48 years. We are an elderly lot, aren't we?

Started with AH Blitzkrieg in 1968. Found miniatures in 1985. 50 years and still going!

38 years … almost as long as I have been building and programming computers.

About 50 years, started with AH games, 1st mini games were Airfix Napoleonic using ACW rules "Hardtack" .

My first plastic kit, 1971, my first WWII game with rules, 1974, my first ancients game 1978, my first D&D game 1978

48 years ago for me. Like for many others, Airfix was the culprit, plus a Roman plastics set I bought from a nifty ad in a comic book. A bit later it was Avalon Hill, especially Russian Campaign when it appeared, and – around the same time (mid-1970s) – the discovery of GHQ. Then Minifigs. And so on and so on.

Judging from the numbers cited above, someone should start a retirement home for gamers. "After the spaghetti dinner, we'll be playing Gettysburg in 28mm in the Sunset Room…. Following Bill Gray's yoga class, the Perry twins will be giving a seminar in figure design…" The kids will know right where to bring me.

60 years playing with toy soldiers of various types, probably 50 + of organized wargaming.

Was playing with toy soldiers 51 years ago. Wargaming is going on 44 years. Avalon Hill and Airfix. I love it so!

Marx WWII set in 1954 with rules my brother and
I made up.

AH in 1958

Mini's (Airfix) in 1960.

So, 64 years or 60 years or 58 years depending upon
what is meant by 'wargaming'.

I don't count rolling marbles across the bedroom floor
at green army men – that would add another couple of
years.

43 years now.

Not counting throwing dirt balls and darts, and shooting my BB gun, at my Marx figures starting around 1961-62, I "officially" started in 1970 with AH's Blitzkrieg.

With a proper wargame, it started with Avalon Hill's France 1940 in 1977, so just over 41 years now.

First attempt to create rules for plastic army men was probably 1974. A few years later, I was quite surprised to find that others had already done this.

Started playing with toy soldiers early summer of 1968.

First Airfix in 1970.
First gaming with rules – 1977 until 1981.
Re-started 2001.
Downsized now, but still at it.

46 years for me.

My first green plastic army men at age 5, so 55 years ago. Plastic Airfix WW1 Aircraft at age 7. Plenty of models after that, but no real wargaming until age 15, when I bought CnC micro scale tanks. Then Airfix ACW, with enamel paint that pealed off the barrels. Avalon Hill board games, the first being "The Destruction of Army Group Centre", played many times.

Back in the summer of 1980 I sent off for my first selection of Citadel Miniatures with the intention of collecting and gaming fantasy battles with a friend.
So 'proper' wargaming started 38 years ago.

Probably about 6-7 years before that I was collecting and playing solo with plastic WWII kits and Airfix soldiers.

Hmm, things seem to have come almost full circle!

43 years. First miniatures was version 1 of Seakrieg. Still have the ships, may have the rules.

52 years old, started gaming in AH, Spi etc in 1975, minis since 1985. So something like 42 years.

Started playing with Marx playsets around 1965, received a large Marx Alamo playset that Christmas. Followed by more playsets, hordes of Giant and Airfix figures and playsets, GI Joes, and then Der Kriegspeiler's lead Napoleonic figures, Avalon Hill's Tactics II and SPI's Napoleon at Waterloo in 1972. The rest is…history.

Around 48 years, when I was in my early 20s and a work colleague introduced me to the hobby. First army was a Russian 18th century one made up from heavily modified Airfix AWI figures for playing " Charge" – still rank as some of the most enjoyable games I have ever played. Eventually bought 25mm Minifigs and Hinchcliffe Napoleonic figures, having got seriously hacked off with paint flaking from the Airfix figures. Pride of my collection at that time were some Tradition Pavlov grenadiers, who towered over every other figure on the battlefield; sadly their battlefield performance did not match their imposing stature. Now got armies stretching from early Imperial Romans to WW2 and in scales from 1/3000 to "28mm"; still buying and painting; looking forward to Claymore show in two weeks time so I can build up the lead mountain a bit more.