Are you a wargamer?

[Jason Pipes]

Let us know a little about your interest in the hobby of wargaming!

[Jason Pipes]

I cast my vote... I have to admit, this section has been a long time in the coming. I am a full fledged wargame collector! I have a collection of over 400 tabletop wargames and I play very frequently. In fact my interest in researching the WWII German military stems from a very early interest in wargames. Wargames tend to appeal to the nut-n-bolts, what-unit-was-where-and-did-what kind of crowd, and I am very much in that group.

[Tom Houlihan]

I used to have a lot of games, but there was this fire, see...

Nowadays, on the rare instances when I can play, I prefer computer games. Much easier to set up and put away! Not to mention, fewer arguments about Line of Sight!!!

Back in high school, during one of the vacations, my buddy and I pooled our Squad Leader games, and his Cross of Iron game, and played it out on the pool table. We forgot to set victory conditions, so it turned into nothing more than a slugfest, but it was fun!!!

[Guest]

I did some boardgames years ago but right about that time the first computergames hit the market and I switched to those as they were set up on the same principles and computers were quite 'the thing'.
I still play some of those oldies once in a while and never looked back to the boardgames though I miss the arguments and cases of beer. Computers still don't laugh
What I would like to do is a wargame with miniatures, there are some very impressive playingfields and miniaturecollections out there!

[Paulus II]

Am I wargamer? Nope but sometimes I forget to log in and am a guest!

Cheers,

Paul

[Alex Coles]

Well, not really. I have the war game 'Operation Overlord' but I have one lousy diorama, a few paints and only the basics. They are just sitting on my pool table (where I place the battle) just sitting there and with nobody to play with, it is really kinda useless spending £49.99 on something i'll barely use.

[Jason Pipes]

Interesting to note is that although many people think of tabletop wargames as being from the golden era of the 70s and 80s and of being long since past, there are actually many brand new games being published every year right now as well. I believe there are a few hundred new map-based non miniatures tabletop wargames being published each year. Some are very, very easy to play and provide excellent tactical situations with a lot of historical flavor and options.

[Leo Niehorster]

I have very many "board" wargames. ("Board" with quotes, as many are S&T and Conflict magazine games, none of which came with a board-mounted map.) Speaking of which, I have all the S&T games from Vol 1 through Vol 168. Plus a whole slew of SPI, Avalon Hill, GDW , etc. games. The first wargames I had were DAK & Waterloo.

I also have thousands of 1:200 metal miniatures, comprising, at a one-to-one scale:
- about a German 1943 Panzer Division
- about a Russian 1943 Tank Corps
- about a US Army 1944 Combat Command
- about a British 1944 Armored Force
plus misc. German and Soviet vehicles of earlier and later dates, as well as 1940-42 French and British tanks. Started out with a 6-gun Stug Battery.

Furthermore, I have most of the waterline 1:1250 scale combat ships (at least of the Pacific combatants) of the Russo-Japanese war.

Misspent a large part of my youth and young adulthood playing war games, but ran out of opponents when I became a civilian here in Germany. Since then, inspired by research for SPI, I have become an OOB and organization nut. (Research for SPI was rewarded by with free games, markers - both blank and printed, extra maps, game boxes, etc., plus an occasional honorable mention for contributions, and a free meal when I dropped in.)

Computerwise, I used to play Empire (Deluxe) and various versions of Civilization (which are mostly wargames). They don't have the same feel to them as physically moving cardboard counters or metal tanks around. Call me old fashioned.
And wordsome.

Cheers
Leo

[Jason Pipes]

They don't have the same feel to them as physically moving cardboard counters or metal tanks around. Call me old fashioned.

I feel the same way Leo, and I'm only 33. I didn't grow up during the golden age of wargaming but I did start playing just before the true advent of computer games (1992). Although I enjoy computer games for what the can offer that board games can't, I enjoy tabletop board games more. Foremost is my passion for maps, and a computer game doesn't give you a huge fold out map that you can use, stare at, take with you, etc, etc. I love maps.

Also Leo, S&Ts are very much board games, board games aren't limited to games with mounted maps (like many early Avalon Hill games were). I *love* S&T and SPI games and currently am trying to find a number of them I once had but sold a long time ago (mid 90s) before I moved to CA. I'm trying to find a copy of Campaign for North Africa by SPI, for example, and a few other of the old big box SPI games.

Anyway, thanks for the posting Leo! Nice to know I'm in good company when it come enjoying tabletop wargames.

[phylo_roadking]

I never took to computer wargames very well. Dabbled a few times but it didn't seem to work for me. The ones that most nearly grabbed my interest were the truly hex-based ones, like "Gettysburg".

Big SPI fan from the late '70s and early '80s - being the perverse little bugger I was, I loved "Fulda Gap" and "Jerusalem", the first an excellent way to fill a day, the second a perfect tournament-length game. Liked Fulda Gap so much, years later that was my first foreign trip on the bike!

Dabbled a lot in miniatures - Ancients under the various incarnations of Wargames Research Group rules - Late Roman and Romano-British - but also BIG medieval period fan, fielded and still have a large Crecy-period English army.

Biggest area though was RPG - the original D&D from the beginning from TSR and the original Blackmoor campaign, Traveller and a whole host of others. Ran up a set of spaceship miniatures for a company here in NI that were big into 1:1200th wet navy and aircraft, WWII and modern, and were about to branch out, but they picked up a figure designer who was good and quick in wire and Milliput and produced a WHOLE range of Dark Ages armies when WRG 6th Edition put a BIG impetus behind the move to 15mm in the UK. Drat, missed my 15 mins of fame LOL

Got away from it all though - wargaming and bikes don't mix....not in the same wallet, anyway!

[Tom Houlihan]

I wish I still had the GDW Europa series. I remember one time I set up the maps (not the counters!) in the barracks. I had the Norwegian campaign, Poland, and Greece. Narvik was on one side of the room, and Athens was on the other. That 16 miles per hex scale was AWESOME! Or was it awe inspiring? I'm not sure which.

I always wanted to organize a massive game, with actual staffs for both sides. The High Command would each use a copy of AH's Third Reich for overall planning. They would then phone the orders in to their field commands. The field commands would use Europa maps to run their battles.

The way I figured it, the best way to do it would have been at a small college during a break. That way you could have each High Command in their own 'bunker,' and run each campaign in their own room. For some reason, I was never able to muster the requisite 15-20 people who all thought it was a good idea! Woulda been fun, though!

[Jason Pipes]

Well, it's indeed a small world Tom! I just recently (as in the past 3 weeks) became the proud new owner of a nearly complete collection of Europa modules by GDW! I had a few of them many years ago but sold them off and had a chance to aquire an entire collection of them from someone local. Needless to say I jumped at the chance.

What you speak of actually has been done many times by groups of dedicated hardcore Europa gamers! I've seen it done at various game conventions, including one this past summer. You have to poke around a bit but there are groups of people that gather together to game out Europe campaigns or entire fronts. It is indeed an awesome sight to behold. All of WWII at 16 miles per hex on the map and fought at the division level with thousands of counters. Not for the meek, but for those just insane enough it is simply... amazing.

[Howard]

Been at it since the so-called Golden Age when I got into it at school. Had a very realistic German force consisting of about 25 infantry and several Königs- and Jagdtigers, backed by Hetzers in 25 mm (HO/OO scale). These guys fought my friends' equally realistic forces, either Russians armed exclusively with JS IIIs or the Western Allies with Sherman Fireflies.

We then got into 1/300 scale armour and I still have a rather inaccurate late war German Panzer division and Soviet Tank Corps, once again rather overweight on the specials.

I then started in 15mm metal and am still adding to collection today. Main armies (almost complete) - Seven Years War Austrian and Prussian - Old Fritz needs some more cavalry this year, Baltic Crusade armies for Teutonic Knights, Lithuanians and Poles - contemplating a mixed Scandinavian army this year, several ancients armies - Early Imperial Roman, Republican Roman, Carthaginian, Dacian, Palmyran, Welsh, Feudal English, Anglo-Saxan, Norman, Pre-Mongol Russian.

Using a rule set I discovered last year I am also slowly assemblign battle group sized (and hopefully fairly realistic) German and Russian forces for the late war period fighting in Pomerania. Should start painting up Volksturm units soon.

DOn't know about the rest of you but I've dicsovered that as I get older I seem to get more fun out of collecting, researching and paiting than actually playing.....

[DXTR]

I myself am a boardgamer, although I was originally schooled in the the RPG section.... but time, and space makes it difficult to play. I enjoyed Empires in Arms, World In Flames, Flattop, Turningpoint Stalingrad.

But there is one thing I must bring to your attention.

http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php

is a site where all of us who can't find the space and time to meet, can play boardgames against eachother. All you need is to download the free vassalengine and the appropriate mods. Say you enjoy playing Squadleader, then you download the mods with maps, counters and so on. All you need is the rules. If you don't own the rules, you must buy them from the publisher, such as Avalon. However a great deals of rules are to be found on other sites. Vassal doesn't give you the rules, since this is probably the only way that publisher would accept their games being reproduced online. But as I said rules booklets are to be found for most of the games its just a matter of searching the web.

The map is reproduced in a java application. Its is not a simulated game like Close Combat, you can move the counters all over the board as you like, just as you can do that physically with a regular boardgame. As in real life however the players will have to know the rules.
The great thing is that Vassal keeps track on your movement and records it in a logfile. When you move one counter your opponent will see that counter being moved. It is up to you and the rules to make sure that the counter and combat is being resolved properly, there is even a dice included.

I hope my description makes sense. What we have done is that we first of all installed Vassal, as I said it is free to download and operate. Then we agreeed to what game we wanted to play, downloaded the mod and installed it. We then got the rules from our own boardgame and had that in hand when we started the computer. Then I log-on to vassal, set up a game and waited for my friend to have him join our game. Then we started MSN messenger and used the voice-conversation feature with our headsets. Personal experince tells me that it is virtually impossible to keep a boardgame flowing online through regular MSN texting. You need that headset to communicate in regards to rules and combat. - a great deal of fun with playing boardgame to me is debatting history as we re-play it.

Vassal is a great alternative to having a dusty board in a small appartment, where your girlfriend is threatening to break the stalingrad encirclement through her hoovering.

see the list for the games available:

http://www.vassalengine.org/community/i ... &Itemid=30
regards

[David W]

t is a great alternative to having a dusty board in a small appartment, where your girlfriend is threatening to break the stalingrad encirclement through hoovering.

If only Von Paulus had thought of that!