Twenty Years at the Blitz

[Steel God]

I was fortunate enough to find a boardgamer in my area through the old General Play by Mail Opponent Wanted ads.  
Anyone else remember looking up stock numbers in the paper to determine the die roll results for attacks ?  

Dave saw my ad for an opponent and looked me up in the phone book and we've been playing board, miniature and pc wargames for 47 years now and have found a number of others who play board and miniatures in the area.

Over the last 30+ years I have been a member of several online wargaming clubs and between the ACWGC and the Blitz I get plenty of pbem gaming.  Between them and my weekly games at the local gaming store and my miniatures group I keep my wargaming habit satisfied without playing the AI except for some playtesting I do.

Yes I do _ I recall their AREA player rating system, and I did try to use it a few times in my youth back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but back then I lived in NY and had an easier time picking up opponents by going to the local gaming store and playing in one of the back rooms.

In the 1990s when I moved to Georgia I was blessed to stumble into a co-worker who heard me discussing Steel Panthers with a third co-worker and he asked me if it was a war game.  When I told him it was a PC war game he replied with, "Oh I thought maybe it was a REAL war game".  I was like; "You mean Avalon Hill, and SPI?" and he lit up.  We became the closest of friends, he eventually became the Godfather to my youngest child.  Although he never ever (despite my encouragement) became a PC gamer, we played board games regularly until my personal life became too demanding for any gaming (about the same time I was forced to back out of The Blitz in 2011).  When I retired and got back into gaming in 2020 we resumed our weekly board game nights and had 2 good years of reliving the dream when I lost him to Cancer.  The friends I have made through gaming are nearer and dearer to me than any I have made in life through other common interests.  I have many facets but have always been a gamer first and foremost and it is only other gamers who can truly understand me as a person.