"Oldest and youngest here" Topic

36. Started adding dice and rules to little green plastic army men after checking out a Featherstone book from a library in Lane Cove NSW, age 8. I think it was 'Solo Wargaming.' Squad Leader and War & Peace influenced me heavily as a teen, as I still love the idea of WWII skirmish and Napoleonics at the operational level. Started collecting Napoleonic 15's and WWII 15's in my late teens. Thinking of getting into HYW era Medieval in 15mm.

I'm 78, and first organize war game was 1969 at Jack Scurby house.

Regarding the demographics of TMP. I play with a group of which I am the only participant in TMP. Two are over 60, two or three are in their late 40s, and 6 or 7 are in college or just graduated. I doubt that there are very many gamers under 25 that are reading this.

I'm 52 and started with 40K when I was 30…. weird , eh?

62 and started gaming at the age of 9 :)

Mentally I am still 12.

That may bring the averages down a bit…

50, started at 10, so forty years wargames anniversary this year, yay!

I am 50, and I am a wargamer……

At the age of 8 or 9, I was introduced to SPI beginning wargame from one of the SPI magazines with all of 10 pieces, and a miniature hexmap. My brother and I would play it while Dad played the larger SPI or AH games with his friends.

At 10, grandma, got me the D&D Basic rules.

At 11 I was introduced to Tractics, and quickly purchased boxes of tanks, and Airfix, or Matchbox soliders….
My father started at this time, taking me to a local gaming club at Andrews Airforce Base outside of Washington DC, and it all snowballed from there. Boardgames and Miniatures…

By then end of the 80s I was playing ASL, Starfleet Battles, large scale modern micro armor.

I'm 61 started at 15 but as Jeffers pointed out inside I'm around 25….
One thing that you need to consider is where you start playing, the mass of you guys are from UK or USA so a little more easy for you, I'm living and so playing in Italy, far more difficult.

67 – started wargaming in 1976 with Aifix and Hichcliffe.

53, started with panzer leader when I was 8… miniatures took over at 13…

62, and started around age 18.

27 been gaming since I can remember with rubber band guns and plastic army men.

35
I made Airfix kits as a kid but I didn't start proper gaming until I was in my early 20s when I joined a club at uni

In fact its all my wife fault (girlfriend at the time) when she said to me "I've a friend who does this gaming thing that I think you might like, you should go along"

so she's no one to blame but herself

55.
I'm pretty sure my first toy soldiers were the Airfix Guards Band and Airfix commandos, which must have been around 1969. I got into Napoleonics after seeing masses of Hinchliffe figures at a wargames convention in 1975 and buying – or rather being bought – my first metal figures from a small shop in the shadow of Blackpool Tower, which had a display of Cromwell's Ironsides in the window. My proud acquisition was a British 9 pdr gun and crew, I still have it. I've never been a gamer but always wanted toy soldiers.
Great thread by the way.

62
I started playing Avalon Hill games at 12 (Midway). I got interested in Napoleonics when I saw a book on the battle of Waterloo in my high school library in 1970.

68. I started with arfix ACW at a young age and moved on to metal napoleonics in High School.

I screwed up a football play my Junior year because I was thinking about the figures I'd just received in the mail and how I was going to make a mold of them. Didn't hear that hike was on two in the huddle…

My grandson and Grand-nephew age 7 & 8 play with minis. My Grand-nephew is painting the big D-Day box of 15mm WWII minis. My contribution to the future of the hobby.

I'm 71 and gave up playing with Airfix ACW on the carpet when I found a copy of Featherston'e War Games in the library in Aberdeen in 1963. Stll wargaming at the local club most Tuesday nights as well as boardgaming on a Sunday and Thursday.

I win! I'm 79 but I'll be 80 in a couple of weeks. Been playing with toy soldiers as long as I can remember, but never thought to use rules, dice, etc.. Got my first board game in 1964 (AH's Gettysburg).

I'm afraid Garde de Paris beats you out, donlowry, at 83 on page 1…making you a young whippernapper….

oops, missed that.

It's because you're just a callow youth :-)

i'm 59 and i started collecting when i was 7 but gaming since 1983 jan.

61

I started at 16 with Airfix WWII and Charles S. Grant's "Battle! Practical Wargaming"

56. Started when I was … oh wait, I may have already posted. (Memory--they say that's the second thing to go with age, I just can't recall what goes first!). ;-)

81 I was 20 when I had my first full wargames army but it was a couple of years later before I was gaming properly.

x42

A spritely 45. :)

61 started with SPI games in the early seventies.

63 started with AH games at 14. Started miniatures when I was 20.

55 Started with Bruce Quarries rules in the 70s. Loved the book but struggled with the rules. SPI games were then the attraction, before returning belatedly to minies. Hoping eyesight and co-ordination do not decline significantly for quite a while, or that someone develops a suitable pill.

I'm 45. Played with Airfix and ESCI 1/72 as a kid, even tried painting them. Ran off to the Marines, didn't start wargaming until 10 years ago. My first games were (in order): Crossfire (15mm), Blitzkrieg Commander (3mm), Force on Force (10mm), Bag the Hun (1/600), and I Ain't Been Shot Mum (10mm).

V/R,
Jack

47.

Collecting figures since I was 8 or 9, possibly even earlier, starting with Airfix plastics Napoleonic, ACW & WWII.

Got into lead figures via various routes, such as Citadel fantasy and Prince August 'Mold (sic) Your Own'*. Casting your own figures aged 11-12 was sheer unadulterated (pun intended) bliss.

Started a wargames club at secondary school, even managing to convince a few pals to buy little Napoleonic armies. Sold up my mostly 15mm & 25mm Napoleonics and 1/300 (H&R) WWII German armies around age 19-20.

Didn't return to the hobby, and that via reading lots of military history, till maybe about ten years ago now. Why did I ever stop? I thought it was too childish, I guess. But as many others say, there's a child alive and well within me.

As an ageing curmudgeon I find that, whilst the hobby nowadays has far more options, many of them, like sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, etc, hold no attractions for me. And I miss ye aulde high street model or toy soldier shops, as much for their strange atmosphere as for their stock, which usually wasn't what I wanted anyway!

Places like TMP, and all the blogs folk run are fab, constant sources of inspiration and information, and a welcome semi-anonymous social network for the strange breeds that are wargamers and the like…

* Nowadays, if you Google 'mold your own' (or even spelling it properly, mould), you'll very likey get something altogether different!

I'm 37, and frankly a little surprised at how relatively young that makes me here.

I started out casting Prince August semiflats when I was about ten, graduated to actually playing minis wargames at 14 or so. Almost exclusive played fantasy games until I was 25, though – since then it's been mostly historicals.

61 and started with a castle my father made for me and Britains knights and Coldstream Guards. Airfix Napoleonics at a school club, Heroics & Ros 6mm a bit later and then I discovered girls didn't appreciate the hobby so had to make the choice.

20 years later my sons rediscovered Airfix figures (also Playmobil ACW, which was fun) and then Warhammer. After nearly 10 years running a club for teenagers I extricated myself from Games Workshop and have returned to proper historical gaming.

I am 55 and started with Airfix 1/32 WW2 figures. Over the years, I have painted and played many periods and I have about 5000 painted 28mm figures at home now. I have written a book about Painting WW2 German uniforms

66 and a lot of plastic and metal has crossed the bridge over the years. First metal in 1970? with Frappe Nappy rules. Have always had minis @6-8 years old with Roman/Carthage plastic set with motorized quad.

61. My toy soldier obsession began in 1966 with Britain's 54mm. Real wargaming started 1972 with Airfix ACW. Can't begin to count the number of figures I have collected and sold over the years, but the current collection exceeds 14,000.

35. Glad to see there is about 5 others around my age here as well.

Started wargaming around 2006 when Sam Mustafa was one of my college professors and he got me into the hobby. Attended Historicon and took the dive in pretty deep. Didn't wargame much from 2015 and on due to life getting pretty busy but more recently got back into it last year with a new wargaming store opening near my house. Primarily playing non-historicals now though.

43. A spring chicken in this group I see!!
My Pops took me to Waterloo when I was 10 years old and bought me the Esci set with the same name from the gift store. I painted them an collected 1/72 figures with my pops for a few years, gradually shifting the focus to other pressing matters as I discovered Grunge music and the opposite sex, alas the old Esci and Airfix figures ended up collecting dust in boxes for a quarter of a century.
I only rediscovered the hobby 10 years ago when the old plastic soldiers resurfaced in a garage cleanup and I did a google search to see if anyone still made Napoleonic figures (!!!!).
Fell in love with the AB range and now I have many thousands of 18mm Napoleonics (alongside the old 1/72 plastics).
I am hooked for life in this hobby now!
Next up to join the ranks is Murats army of Naples (hows that for madness!!??:)

61, and started playing wargames (AH and SPI) at 15. Miniatures came later at 17. I still own the very first game I ever bought in 1974, SPI's USN.

73. Did a little with "army soldiers" in the '50's and didn't start figure-based wargaming until the late '70's in Ann Arbor using CLS and some other 7YW rules at the Armory?? Played in Dutchess county NY for 10 years or so and then a dry period due to family and 60+ hour weeks for a decade or so.

oldbob-
I now live in Visalia, where the younger wargamers have no idea who Jack Scruby is (I'm 36 years old and run a miniature soldier company). I've been wondering. What building did Jack make his models in? Was he producing them here? If he was making figs with rubber spin molds and white metal, that would make this town the birth place of modern wargaming miniatures, the way I see it.

And where was his house?