AT-TEN SHUN - Energizing the Parade Ground section

[Merlenoo]

So I've been busy posting in a few Parade Ground sections to stir up revived interest in this part of the forum.

Hopefully members are inclined to take a minute or two starting threads - the topic sections are very inviting which puzzles me as to why they are not constantly busy with activity.

Post away, we're interested to reply.

What are your preferred interests in wargaming? What were your most fun games to play.

Mine started off with airfix toy soldiers half a century ago, then progressed from SPI tabletop counter games, then lead miniatures and onto counter-games again. Finally computer strategic games.

My most fun game used to be the boardgame, 'Campaign'

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Airfix toy soldiers and model tanks, 1/72 scale. Then AH, SPI and VG in that order. Sold 80 at an auction at Dallascon because we needed the money after a house fire that took everything except one room that had all my books, games and stereo with tapes and LPs and some 45s. Got my first computer in 91. Haven't looked at a boardgame since. They have been in boxes for thirty years. The most important thing that comes with puter games is Fog of War.

[Scud]

I miss the Avalon Hill board games my brother and I would play as kids, spread out on the floor of the living room with cardboard markers piled high, instruction manual and assorted result charts spread out on the carpet. The horror when, returning from a break, finding our cat spread out on the board taking a bath, an artillery marker stuck to his back leg. Or worse... our mother's approach...

Good times.

[Sgt Jasper]

First wargame was Avalon Hill's Tactics II, ca. 1958. I was in 6th grade. I only knew one other guy into the AH games in my town, so we played each other over and over in various campaigns - Gettysburg, several versions, Chancellorsville, Bulge Stalingrad, et al., and even non-war board games: Dispatcher, Grand Prix, Football - all through junior high and high school. Stayed with board games, playing off and on whenever I could find an opponent as I moved around, both in person and by snail mail, and for a while, by office mail when an opponent and I worked in different departments of the same company, until somewhere in the mid-90s discovering the Leadeaters group on AOL, mostly playing AH's Stalingrad. Around that time I discovered Tiller games, beginning with Gettysburg 1.0 - which didn't support email initially, but could be played by sending the text-file turns back and forth. No replay, but you could see what your opponent had done to you. Have pretty much stuck with Tiller ever since, through Talonsoft and the Battleground games to present day. Only playing Panzer Campaigns and FWWC right now, but that could change.... So that's me. I'm very fortunate to be married to a woman who can put up with a septuagenarian 12-year-old. I also waste lots of time and money building scale models. Have I mentioned how fortunate I am in my spouse of 50 years?

[LordDeadwood]

Started with Avalon Hill's "Luftwaffe" in the early-mid 70's. Quickly accumulated many more AH and SPI games over the next 5-6 years, playing with my brother and occasionally a cousin. Quit playing wargames after college until, by the grace of COVID, I discovered JTS just about two years ago and I've been hooked ever since. Like Sgt. Jasper, I am blessed with a wife who doesn't mind me spending several hours a day in front of the computer and doesn't ask how much I've spent in the last two years! Right now I'm strictly Panzer Campaigns and Panzer Battles. I tried a bit of black powder titles, but just couldn't get the hang of it, so I'm sticking with what I know!

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

First wargame was Avalon Hill's Tactics II, ca. 1958. I was in 6th grade. I only knew one other guy into the AH games in my town, so we played each other over and over in various campaigns - Gettysburg, several versions, Chancellorsville, Bulge Stalingrad, et al., and even non-war board games: Dispatcher, Grand Prix, Football - all through junior high and high school. Stayed with board games, playing off and on whenever I could find an opponent as I moved around, both in person and by snail mail, and for a while, by office mail when an opponent and I worked in different departments of the same company, until somewhere in the mid-90s discovering the Leadeaters group on AOL, mostly playing AH's Stalingrad. Around that time I discovered Tiller games, beginning with Gettysburg 1.0 - which didn't support email initially, but could be played by sending the text-file turns back and forth. No replay, but you could see what your opponent had done to you. Have pretty much stuck with Tiller ever since, through Talonsoft and the Battleground games to present day. Only playing Panzer Campaigns and FWWC right now, but that could change.... So that's me. I'm very fortunate to be married to a woman who can put up with a septuagenarian 12-year-old. I also waste lots of time and money building scale models. Have I mentioned how fortunate I am in my spouse of 50 years?

Congrats on your 50 years.  I'm playing with 40 come August.  People say you have to work at it.  I say, if you have to work at it, you're doing something wrong. 

[Andrea G]

My first wargame at the begniing of the eighties has been a Waterloo game edited by International Team (a small italian publisher).


It was a gift from my father, an accomplished military figure painter, that wished for me another napoleonic hobby, but not his same 
The board was unique because, instead of a hex grid, it sported a mixed octagons/ square grid; never understood why.