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Your First Wargame? - 10/27/2003 2:25:12 PM

AbsntMndedProf

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What was the first wargame you ever played?

For me, it was Kriegspiel by Avalon Hill. I got it for Christmas when I was 15. It was really more of a card game with a board and unit counters. However, it did get me into wargaming and Avalon Hill, may its departed wargame incarnation rest in peace. (Unless some entrepreneur buys it back from the heartless corporation that bought and killed it.) :)

Eric Maietta

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- 10/27/2003 4:52:47 PM

Marc von Martial

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it was called "Matchbox/Airfix soldiers meet firecrackers in the sandbox"

Now honestly, the first two (got them same time) I also seriously played where "Kampfgruppe" (SSI) and "Panzergrenadier" (SSI). Both on the C 64. Btw, I�m desparatly looking for the game "Panzergrenadier" for the C64.

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- 10/28/2003 1:00:49 AM

Spickle

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[QUOTE=AbsntMndedProf]What was the first wargame you ever played?[/QUOTE]

This is going to sound lame, but it'd have to be Diplomacy, if you can call that a wargame. Failing that, Empires in Arms. But to be honest that isn't a true wargame either. Again its based around diplomacy and backstabbing. I'm so glad to see it getting a PC conversion, although I'm always going to compare it to Europa Universalis - the computer game since I never played the board version.

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- 11/3/2003 1:20:01 PM

KGrob

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Avalon Hill's Afrika Korps (or however it was spelled). It was a boardgame -- long before they had personal computers guys. I was hooked.

Now, I'm a total life-long Grognard geek dweeb -- and proud of it.

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RE: - 2/6/2004 12:07:57 PM

Firefly

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Airfix minis using Don Featherstone's rules.

The first boardgame was SPI's Napoleon at Waterloo, which came free with a subscription to S&T.

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RE: RE: - 2/6/2004 2:54:43 PM

Nickel

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The board game Richtofen's War by Avalon Hill. WWI aerial combat. Had fairly realistic representations of air to air combat including deflection shots, attacking from above, below, behind and in front. Damage effects were cummulative and could affect performance during the current mission. Tactics of fighting in flights came into play. Climb and dive were based on the airplane. When I was fifteen... oh sorry did I fall asleep?

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RE: RE: - 2/6/2004 6:39:51 PM

showboat1

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I'm pretty sure it was an old grigsby game, Carrier Force I think it was. You could play the Battle of Midway, Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, or Santa Cruz. I was like 11 and my Dad and I would play it for hours and hours.

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RE: RE: - 2/6/2004 6:56:52 PM

riverbravo

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We have a cool cement wall on the beach that we would play "D-Day" on with our plastic tommy guns coming out of the water to rid the mississippi gulf coast of fascist

Other than that I think it was Squad Leader.

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RE: RE: - 2/6/2004 7:27:57 PM

ratster

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First board wargame was AH's Original Gettysburg, with the square grid.

First computer wargame was Chris Crawford's Eastern Front for the Atari 800XL, came on a cartridge. Those were the days...

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RE: RE: - 2/6/2004 8:42:22 PM

Maliki

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I would have to say Axis and Allies,though i had ordered a couple miniature games out of comic books(but can't remember their names).

The one thing i didn't like about the game though was it didn't give you enough pieces for a couple countries to start the game properly.You had to use these stupid chits that came with it to represent the excess troops..or you could send away for "extra" troop packs at additional cost

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RE: - 2/6/2004 8:44:31 PM

mbatch729

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Board Game - Axis & Allies

Computer - Second Front

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RE: RE: - 2/7/2004 12:55:43 AM

2ndACR

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Board game - Squad Leader

Computer - Overrun (?) by SSI (not sure about the title, Modern Warfare) C64
Battles of Napoleon
Battle of Gettysburg

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RE: RE: - 2/7/2004 2:14:55 AM

W Thorne

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My first was Close Combat 1. Never played board games but have always been a big history buff. So I have Doug and Eric to blame for the mess I'm in.

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RE: RE: - 2/7/2004 6:02:52 AM

FlashfyreSP

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First board wargame: Of course, it had to be RISK.

First computer wargame: Tanks! The forerunner to this great series of Steel Panthers.

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RE: RE: - 2/7/2004 6:09:35 AM

Sleeping_Dragon

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1st board game: Risk 1st 'real' board game Avalon Hill's 'Bull Run'

1st comp game... something on the Commadore64, can't remember the name, but never got into it.. 1st 'real' comp game The 'V for Victory' series

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/7/2004 6:35:35 AM

David Sandberg

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My first board wargame was Avalon Hill's Tactics II. A primitive one, to be sure, but I still found it interesting enough to get me to try some other AH games, including Panzerblitz, which was the one that REALLY got me into the genre in a big way.

I don't recall the first computer wargame I got ... it may have been one of the V for Victory series games, but I can't be sure about that. Actually I was into combat flight sims on the PC long before I re-entered the world of wargaming, and certainly remember the first software of THAT sort which I bought ... it was the original Falcon, which I thought was so unbelievably cool on my 10Mhz AT with the high-res monochrome Hercules card. :)

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/7/2004 7:30:16 AM

Custer1961

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I grew up playing with my brothers. Our first was PanzerBlitz. We skipped school and played in our tree hut. Within a few months we had taken a huge 6' x 8' piece of scrap plywood, painted it white and drawn a map on it. We bought extra counters from Avalon Hill and the three of us had a war going. Sometimes it even became physical between us and even 25 years later we still know shorthand words like "The Hill", "The Island" and "the Hummels in the forest" that instantly decribe a particular time of that war.

I can remember gazing thru those gorgeous full color Avalon Hill catalogs. Amazingly, we played for over three years before we even found out about other wargame companies such as SPI.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/7/2004 7:34:16 AM

Tom Stearns

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Question can be answered a couple of different ways.

1. First war type game played/owned? Risk and Battle Cry

2. First "real" war game played? Third Reich and Luftwaffe

3. First "real" war game owned? Panzer Blitz

When I was about 10 years old a friend introduced me to the Avalon Hill games above. I then bought my own. I now own approximatley 100 or so. I would much rather sit down at a table face to face with a human and play a war game than play a computer game. Unfortunately, the realities of adulthood, parenthood, and husbandhood make board gaming virtually impossible. Luckily my young boys are growing older and I have the past couple of years been able to introduce them to simple war games. Hopefully I will be able to grow their interest and win out vs PS2.

Here's to the return to the good old days of board wargaming.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/7/2004 8:59:51 PM

Airborne82nd

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First Wargame ever: AHs Luftwaffe
First SPI wargame: Fast Carriers

First computer wargame: Hmm, not really sure. Had a C64 with the original Carriers at War and Gunship (sim).
First CD rom game: Panzer General

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/7/2004 11:12:26 PM

MikeH1952

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First board game SPI's Waterloo in 1974, my wife of 2 months beat me!! She never played again, quit while she was ahead
Played with miniature figures from about 1965 onwards, still got them all.
First computer game was Austerlitz played on an Atari 64.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/8/2004 8:10:14 AM

stevemk1a

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Like a few others here, I had great fun with toy soldiers as a kid ... first the big clumsy green, tan, and grey ones and later the 1/72 sets. Later, my brother and I used Micronauts and Star Wars toys as armies, killing them with elastic bands! Then one Christmas my parents bought us AH's "Third Reich" and the sophistication began ...

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/8/2004 5:04:38 PM

Slick91

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"B-17 Queen of the Skies" by Avalon Hill. Although it was a solitare game, I played that thing four hours on end.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/8/2004 6:39:55 PM

stevel40831

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First computer wargame - East Front by Chris Crawford

First non-wargamers wargame - Risk

First real-wargamers wargme - Tactics II

First miniatures wargame - one my brother and I "invented" before we knew there was such a thing... we called it, interestingly enough, "war". We had a huge hard canvas tarp (10' x 6' or so) in the basement and we'd pile junk under it, creating hills and valleys. We'd then pick a side of the battlefield/canvas and deploy our 1/72 unpainted troops that we bought with our meager allowances. It made for interesting match ups as the local hobby store had a very limited selection of soldiers. One of us would have a nice mix of Japanese soldiers and American Marines and the other would have U.S. Civil War cavalry and German Afrika Korps infantry. We'd then take turns moving the guys around, a few inches for each soldier, and then you were allowed to "shoot" a certain number of times with a ping pong ball... if an enemy guy fell he was dead. The carcasses had to stay on the battlefield to simulate reality.... ah, those were the days!

First naval miniatures wargame - another brilliant invention of mine... we'd take the models that I'd spent hours building and duke it out. I had probably 40-50 ships and we'd each pick one out and stand about 20 yards apart and begin firing... to simulate "firing" we'd throw darts at each others ships. Pieces would fly off upon impact and we'd laugh like hell... when you were luck enough to get a critical hit (i.e. the dart stuck in the ship) you were allowed to pour model cement over the hole and you could put a match to it for a certain amount of time. The owner of the ship had to sit idly by for that time and then, after that time, he could put it out. You could not use water though, you had to blow it out... man was that fun! I can still see us laughing so hard that you couldn't blow out the fire and the whole ship would be a black hulk by the time it was over! Such fun...

Steve

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/8/2004 7:04:14 PM

HerbMaine

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First board wargame was Avalon Hills original Gettysburg game. Then Avalon Hill's D-day, Bulge, and Panzerblitz.
First computer wargame was Panzer General.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/8/2004 9:20:17 PM

norsemanjs

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Avalon Hill's "1776" a christmas gift.

After that AH's "Jutland". It was fun pushing those little cardboard ships all over. Drove my mother nuts.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/9/2004 7:31:33 AM

Veldor

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Avalon Hill's "Blitzkrieg". Came across it at a flea market my parents drug me to and begged them for the $10 I think it was to buy it. I was 10 I think or thereabouts. Very young as by 12 I was writing what I would imagine now to be annoying letters to Avalon Hill and Don Greenwood suggesting ideas, begging to playtest games and so forth.

What I remember most is being in such a hurry to play that I overlooked the stacking limitations rules and as I otherwise had absolutely no concept of how to play a wargame, I happily pushed around 3 or 4 stacks per side of what had to be 12 to 15+ counters per stack and it was the most fun I'd ever had.. :(

Is it possible that it still stands as the only wargame to ever have a majority of the counters (or indeed any) colored pink??? :)

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/9/2004 8:13:39 AM

TheGreek

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My first boardgame was "Bismarck" by Avalon Hill. This was in 1963 (showing my age). I was immediately hooked and wargaming became a lifetime obsession.

My first computer wargame was something called "Torpedo Fire" by SSI for the Apple II+.

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RE: Your First Wargame? - 2/9/2004 8:26:28 AM

TheGreek

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In response to Veldor's question about pink counters, in just about all of the early AH games, one side had blue units and the other had red (pink). This probably came from AH's first game, "Tactics II" which, like "Blitzkreig" was an abstract game between two hypothetical countries called Red and Blue. About the only exceptions were "Gettysburg" and "Chancellorsville" where the counters were blue and grey. I remember when I got "Waterloo", the French were blue, the Anglo-Dutch were pink and the Prussians were green. I think it was the first time a game had three different colors for the armies.

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RE: RE: - 2/9/2004 12:07:51 PM

EricGuitarJames

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1st wargame would be Airfix figures using Brigadier Peter Young's 'Charge' rules.

1st board wargame was SPI's 'Normandy'.

1st computer wargame would have been 'Close Combat 5'.

RiverBravo, I hope those Laneys are working well

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RE: RE: - 2/9/2004 5:47:17 PM

riverbravo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames

RiverBravo, I hope those Laneys are working well.

All tubes are burning bright!!!

I made a string order from musicians friend and they sent me the wrong Dean Markleys,crummy blue steel junk.Those nickel plated strings are fret burners man.