"Oldest and youngest here" Topic

OK, how old are you?

I'm 55 and I've been a wargamer since I was 14.

You?

57. I didn't start gaming until I was in my early 40s, but I had collected and painted prior to that.

53 – current youngest. WooHoo!

Started wargaming with Squad Leader sometime in the late seventies

65 Started gaming in the late 1960's

72. Started gaming in high school in the 60s playing the Avalon Hill games. Started miniatures after meeting Dick Bryant at a con on the USS Massachusetts in the early 70s.

59, started gaming in 1976 with board games, then Airfix Napoleonics.

55. I started when I was about 12.

55, started wargaming with figures in 1974 aged 11 when, whilst I was obviously very bored at a grown ups get together, a friend of my dad disappeared into his attic to bring down 4 file boxes of painted Hinchcliffe Napoleonic figures to show me. I spent the entire evening gazing at them in something like awe before being dragged away to go home.

Got up the next morning for breakfast. On our dining table there were 4 file boxes of painted figures with a note saying "This should be enough to get you started." He'd dropped them off on his way to work.

Don't even remember his name. Only that he he was a professional photographer for the military (RAF, probably).

44, started in early 80s with the usual suspects, Airfix plastics, French and British.

James, awesome story about the generous friend of your Dad's.

47. Started in the ‘80s in the usual way, AH and Minifigs with friends, then a long hiatus, until my son started inventing his own games, much like I did at the same age, and I thought, "well….". Anyway, here I am.

I'm 64 and started wargaming when I was 14 (5 if you count chess).

61, started at 14.

65 Started wargaming in the late 1960's

54, started at 12. So many years ago…

53

Wargaming since about 14 or 15.

37

61. Started around age 14.
The ages listed here make me worried about this hobby

53, started in 1974 when I was 8 with Avalon Hills Africa Korps, Waterloo and Gettysburg boardgames. In the same year I discovered Wargamers Digest, Airfix ACW, and assorted HO scale WWII manufacturers.

61, I started wargaming as a child, writing my own rules, probably with Peter Laing minis or Airfix plastics. My first club was the now defunct Stockport Wargames club in 1978.

56, started miniature painting at 11 for a homebrew game; started Avalon Hill style "official" wargaming at 12 or 13, at 13 started D&D and other TSR style games.

63. Started over 50 years ago.

68, Avalon Hill Board games in High School. Duke Seifreid got me into miniatures in Dayton in the early 70's. Been going strong ever since.

Kim

Looks like I can claim oldest at 76. Started wargaming at Don Featherstone's house in Southampton as a teenager.

You can read more about me here:

link

Rod

63 in Dec. Been gaming since the 60s …

58. Airfix in the late 60's

I just turned 83. First toy soldier when I was 4, 1941. First Britains 54mm toys at 11 in Washington, DC. Found another buddy with the same, and we gamed for a couple years.

Did not game with true rules (Vietmeyer, Column, Line and Square) until the 1970's using Willie and Stadden 30 mm.

GdeP

69 & started wargaming with figures, rules and other people around 1966 after a couple of years solo.

I am 51 and have been collecting lead miniatures since I was 14. That said, I started playing with 1/72 Airfix miniatures and 1/32 Marx figures when I was about 5.

Didn't start Minature gaming until 1981 but did plenty of models mostly 1/35 as a young teenager

64, started wargaming when my Dad gave me some Airfix ACW blue and grey when I was 10

Wow, 44 to 83 so far…keep 'em coming…

62. Started at 15

61 … been wargaming since a friend discovered Lawford and Young's 'Charge' in our local library in 1968. So just over 50 years.

I think it is splendid that so many of us from the 50s and 60s are still doing this and have truly made this sort of wargaming 'our own'. Better still, although there are so many more leisure activities competing with it, I see a good number of younger faces at our events – so it still does appeal.

So I'm looking forward to the next few years and a number of good projects to come!

Phil

60 in 11 days time. Wargamer from about 14 upto about my 25th year when gave it all up, sold all my figures and many books but still modelled 54mm-120mm figures and WW2 Armour. but then went on to study military history and built up a very comprehensive library (which I still have) but then I started to narrow my interests to researching Napoleonic Wars Uniforms of (Mainly) the British and French armies.

51

Started at 8 by knocking over Airfix figures with the spring-loaded cannon that came in the bags of Green Army Men available here in the mid '70s.

Whenever my family would go on holiday and pass through the South-Canterbury town of Timaru my brother and I would pester our parents to call in to this tiny model shop, stocked to the gunwhales with all sorts of incredible delights, so we could each buy a new box of Airfix "soldiers".

Even in those days I had some inkling of the tactical possibilities of the various boxes. One time I got a box of Waterloo French Infantry and my brother a box of Waterloo French Artillery.

"Aww, you've got more soldiers than me!" he lamented.

"Yes, but you can shoot mine from further away." I replied.

I'm not sure he found that a convincing argument.

I got all grown up in 1982 when my scant collection of Airfix Napoleonics teamed up with WRG 1685-1845 rules; then, more recently, Volley & Bayonet with the beautiful Alder 6mm figures, until eye disease robbed me of the ability to paint and play effectivly.

At least it cannot rob me of many happy memories: the excitement of buying a new box of figures; the pleasure of setting them up in serried ranks, only to knock them down; the deliciously obsessive umming and ahhing over which units to paint next, which periods to game and which battles to recreate; the warm cameraderie of fellow gamers and the deeper fulfillment of the historical research.

But above all there is one memory most precious. To seriously misquote Martin Luther King: "It allowed me to go to the mountain. And I looked over, and I saw the Promised Land. I will not get there with you but I want you to know that we as gamers, modellers, figure collecters and painters will get to the Promised Land: our own little model shop stocked to the gunwhales."

67 and started with Avalon Hill games in 1971. I also played with toy soldiers as a child and distinctly remember when I was 10 that I was putting them in trenches to better withstand the "gun fire" of thrown small rocks and dirt clods. I don't really consider that as starting out in miniatures, but perhaps it was.

64. Started serious wargaming when I was about 8.

57. Started with toy soldiers at 6. War gaming with Tactics II at 12. At 26, First miniature army, Space Marines and Imperial Guard for Space Marine. Now I have sooo many.

66 at 12 with Arifix and different size rubber bands and wrote my own rules, painted them with Floquil paints after I primed them with Automotive primer.

67, began with larger plastic army men with some vehicles. When I was about 10, Dad showed me how to use a dart gun assign each side X number of darts and fire fewer darts from whichever side that took casualties. We used dominoes to make trenches and pill boxes. Started more involved rules with AH, 1914, Midway Blitzkrieg etc when I was 13. Then began collecting Airfix soldiers and Roco vehicles using Tractics rules.

71 come November. I can't remember a time I didn't play with minis.

Youthful 60, started collecting around 1984 playing Empire. Family and sports took over but started up again at 53. I have about 4000 18mm AB figures

72, wrote my first rules (WW2 naval using Revell, Aurora, etc. models) at 10.

4th Cuirassier, you missed forwardmarchstudios at 37.

The ages listed here make me worried about this hobby

Why? There are a lot of young miniatures gamers out there that don't know about/bother with TMP. And those forty-somethings have another forty years of gaming in them at least.

55,started "serious" wargames when im 13/14 I believe, played with toy soldiers as long as i can rememeber. The conversion to "true warames" came when I Met Rudi geudens from the Light brigade who had a shop the tin soldier in Sint Niklaas, after my first visit my life changed forever…

70. I started out with board games in 1958 when I got a copy of Gettysburg for my tenth birthday. A couple of years later Airfix troops and ROCO tanks started popping up in the local toy stores, one of my classmates had written actual rules, and that was all it took. I did take six years off while I was in the Army and another year after a heart attack in 2000 but that still adds up to 61 years of gaming.

LT

69.. Been gaming my entire life with 2 younger brothers…army men, cowboys and Indians. With rule set (Quarrie) in 1976 or 7.

I'll decrease the age bracket a bit with 37. :)

56 and I started wargaming in 1974 when I was 11.

Started with Airfix 1/32 Napoleonics, firing guns and Little wars…

Mike

Not disclosing !:)

What a lot of old bastards. I am 58 and first wargame with rules and dice was when I was 8. If a fifteen year old joined it would bring our average age down to Ancient.