"Progression to minaiture wargaming?" Topic

Just wondering if anyone shared a similar progression:

Ship, tank and plane models 1967+
Then
Avalon Hill games 1972+
Then
Read LOTR 1975ish
Then
LOTR figures 1978
Then
D & D (with figures) 1978
Then
Tabletop Battles with figures
Fantasy 1981
Napoleonics 1982
Starships 1982
Learned to spell "miniature" 1985
No turning back since then.

In my case, figures predated gaming – bought the first ones and painted them as a gift to my later-to-be wife.

Mine was Avalon Hill boardgames to models to miniatures then a brief fling with D and D then back to Historical miniature wargaming.

Started with Milton Bradley games like Dogfight and Briadside. Moved to Avalon Hill games. Discovered Airfix soldiers and the old "Courier" magazine. Got into reenactment groups and simultaneously into miniature partaking seriously (that is spending money and painting figures).

Airfix HO/OO and Lincoln Logs
Major Matt MAson
GI Joe
Back to Airfix
Read LOTR
Buy my first real wargames rules (WRG Ancients 5th ed.)
Minis battles with my Airfix
Buy my first Lead Minis
Buy more lead minis
buy more rules
Buy more lead minis
Play D&D – meh.
Play Runequest – hooked
Buy more lead minis
branch out from fantasy into pulp, colonials, etc.
Start writing my own rules

Virtual, My progression was very close to yours except the models were 1973+ and instead of Napoleonics I started with AWI. Otherwise the same.

Milton Bradly games 70's
AH Blitzkreig 70's
Airfix plastics using "Hardtack" rules late 70's
CLS metal figures late 70's
TSATF
DBA/HOTTs
Plastic figures replace most metal figure purchases 2000+
Buy too dang much 70's-2015
Lion Rampant
Try to rid self of overstocked & failed projects Ongoing

1. Building plastic model airplanes and playing with Airfix toy soldiers. Both 1/72 but not drawing any connection between them.
2. Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz.
3. Building (again 1/72) model tanks to visualize what was on the counters.
4. De-compartmentalizing the infantry and tanks leading to true miniatures gaming i.e. with rules, and the good guys took casualties too.
5. GHQ, CinC, and H&R Infantry.
6. War, other than WW2.

Marx in 50s and early 60s.
1973 straight to historical miniature gaming.

Avalon Hill 60s and 70s
SPI/S&T 70s
GDW 70s
Rally Round the Flag 70s
Johnny Reb II 80s – 2000s
Napoleon's Battles – Late 90s
Battalions in Crisis – 90s
Fields of Honor – 90s
Command Decision – 2010s
TDFG – 2010s
AOE – 2010s
MLW – 2010s
GMT – 2000s

Still play most of these.

Marx sets late 50's early 60's
Airfix/ROCCO early 60's
Avalon Hill 1964
Historical Miniatures Gaming 1969
Great Drawdown began 2016. Should take another three to six years.

Read Tolkien, of course--in the 60's and often since. And did a bit of D&D in the 70's and 80's But nothing to do with wargaming.

Plastic toy soldiers
"The Wargame" by Charles Grant circa 1974ish
1/72 plastics
Discovered actual lead wargaming figres around 1976 or so.

Blowing up model tanks on Super8 with my dad.
WWII Pacific theater hex and chit games.
D&D, Gamma World
Medieval 6mm~ish

- – - – H I A T U S – - – -

HeroClix
19th Century topics
TSATF, Space 1899
28mm obsessive level collection and conversion
Writing a post about my wargame progression

Avalon Hill wargames ca 1966.
Strategy and Tactics ca 1970.
Diplomacy pbm ca 1971.
WRG Ancients ca 1977.
Dungeons and Dragons ca 1978.
Then almost exclusively miniatures. Tried almost every period and discarded them, except for AWI, Flames of War, and British colonials.

Plastic models
Roco Minitanks
Airfix soft plastic figures
Airfix models
long gap where if it didn't have nice curves, long legs, and long hair I ignored it.
Back to GHQ micro-armour, (after marrying one of the above)
A few 15mm Napoleonics
the long downhill slide to a full fledged miniature gamer

Since it came up more than once, read LOTR, twice to both offspring, listened to The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarilion on tape while driving the entire upper Midwest as a risk consultant for various insurance companies.

MARX, Airfix, ROCO, Risk, Stratego, … and the rest is history …

GI Joe and toy soldiers, AH games, RPGs, miniatures.

Collecting Dinky and Matchbox.
Introduced to 45mm Napoleonics.
Introduced to microscale WW2.
Adoption of same.
Discovering SF microscale.
Long hiatus.
Getting into SF microscale.
Seduced into Full Thrust.
Small liason with GW Epic 40K.
Contnuing with Full Thrsut and Disrtside.
Member of SFSFW.
Hiatus.
Back into the DS2/ FT2 world.
Dystopian Wars catches my eye.

1967 Age 4. Crept downstairs on the evening of Christmas Day after parents had gone to bed. Opened up a Macchi Folgore and Fokker DXXI, raided my Mum's sewing box for scissors, found the glue, and assembled both kits, left them on the dining room table for parents to find, aghast, the next morning. They thought we'd had burglars.
Airfix kits, and first HO/OO soldiers. WW1 British, Brit RHA and Germans I think.
1973 Discovered Military Modelling magazine. The one with the two Napoleonic Russians on the front. Discovered the section on new wargames figures releases in the back.
1974 Sent for Hinchliffe catalogue. Also Peter Laing and received the Laing catalogue with a sample British Colonial figure. Painted figure, decided 15mm wasn't for me.
1975 Went on holiday to Torquay. Bought my first Hinchliffe figures, Imp Romans and Achaemid Persians.
1976 Sent postal order off for ECW from Hinchliffe. Decided to stick with ECW.
1977 Discovered H&R micro modern armour., bought and painted loads, Mother threw most of it in the dustbin.
Thought about buying Avalon Hill board games, bought one, never played it.
School intervened, and life in general. Didn't do anything wargames related again until 1992.
Went to Partizan at Newark and Triples at Sheffield and became interested again. Bought Old Glory and Essex ACW and started gaming using Fire & Fury.
1995 moved to another county, moved house 5 times in 5 years between 95 and 99. Went to Newark Irregulars a couple of times but moved soon after.
2007. Laid up with gout, started perusing eBay, discovered Flames of War. Bought some tanks. Started looking for local clubs and soon after joined one. Been playing ever since.