How did you get into all this mini madness?!

[John Cook]

I suppose it started with a copy of HG Wells 'Little Wars' although I didn't wargame in those days, and I can't remember where it came from. 

One day, in 1962, I saw a copy of Donald Featherstone's book War Games in a shop in The Burlington Arcade in London.  Then it was a subscription to Wargamers Newsletter, followed by some Scruby metal 30mm Napoleonics from America, but mainly cheap Spencer Smith plastic.  All either too expensive or too big in the end.  They were replaced by Airfix 20mm, then by 15mm metal MiniFigs strips from about 1970, but other manufacturers too.

In the 1980s two things happened.  Ten High 10mm ACW appeared and my son started to take an interest in Warhammer 40K.  The 15mm have been unused in boxes, for the last 25 years, in my loft, destined for the recycling centre in due course.  I never really engaged with 40K and my son lost interest - his collection is in another box somewhere in the loft. 

I found 10mm to be the perfect compromise - I still have the Ten High and it has been 10mm ever since, in most periods from 11th to 20th Century.

So, 56 years of wargaming summed up in few sentences!

[d_Guy]

The Marx playsets in the 1950s, Fort Apache, Alamo, Robin Hood, and Ben Hur being the most notable. Tactics II and other Avalon Hill games. Finally putting it altogether with the discovery of Young and Lawford's "Charge, or How to Play Wargames" in the college library.
There were also the odd box of Airfix figures stuck in there as well.

The first armies organized for wargaming were Der Kriegspieler Napoleonic followed shortly with AIM/Minifig ECW.

[Terry37]

Like so many I seem to have always had an interest in military stuff, and also always seemed to have soldiers around. I played my first game in the mid-50's which was not even remotely realistic or any semblance of a game today. We had atomic cannons amongst other models, and filled a friends den with models and men and were having a great time....until his parents came home and seems he didn't mention having a group of young boys over to wage war in their den! So we had to pack up and go. But I still remember the game. I continued to build models, and we played a lot of naval battles in the living room using rubber bands bounced off the ceiling. And of course,  Airfix was a very big part, and yep, WW2. After finding a copy of the Life magazine with the article on the ACW which included two pages of uniforms, it was all ACW. Can't tell you how many Airfix French Foreign Legion became Zouaves!!!!

After graduating high school and going to college I again discovered the Life magazine with the article on the anniversary of Waterloo, again with two pages of uniforms and it was off to the world of Napoleonics. I still chuckle at my lack of knowledge at the time - I kept saying I wanted to do the Black Watch, but couldn't find any figures listed as "Black Watch", and could not fathom when more experienced people told me just to order highlanders and paint them as the Black Watch! Sort of hate to admit that, but it's true. As I continued to work on my degree I also spent untold hours searching the library stacks for military and uniform info, and found a book on the ECW which had a few b&w pictures and Scruby had recently released some TYW figures so I was ready! In the mid 70's, along with my youngest brother-in-law, wrote a fun set of skirmish type rules for the dark ages and for several years we played them as often as we could. Had an offer to buy them for publishing, but passed on it as the return didn't seem sufficient - 3%. Yep dumb decision, but can't change the past....well, except on the table top!

Then family and my career started and everything had to take a back seat, but I still had the interest and like so many I've read about here I kept getting books and magazines. Kids are grown, fully retired and I got back into it big time. I was amazed at how the hobby had changed while I was less involved. And of course the net has really opened doors. I stumbled around various rules, none of which really appealed to me until I was introduced to DBA and that lead to HOTT and for me that was perfect and that's where I am today.

End of story,

Terry

[Terry37]

PS - Bill, I still have my copy of "Charge" and my first wargame book - "Tackle Model Soldiers This Way" by Donald Featherstone, and keep the letter I got from him with it.

Terry

[Norm]

It seems that collectively we have much to thank Featherstone for. He showed us how to get off the floor with our Airfix and onto the table!

[paulr]

PS - Bill, I still have my copy of "Charge" and my first wargame book - "Tackle Model Soldiers This Way" by Donald Featherstone, and keep the letter I got from him with it.

Terry

You do realise that this revelation will get Nobby all excited

It seems that collectively we have much to thank Featherstone for...

Seconded

[fsn]

You do realise that this revelation will get Nobby all excited

I am very jealous.

My mother always wanted me to write to Jim'll Fix It to ask for me to meet the Blessed Featherstone, but Saville scared me. 

[FierceKitty]

So, 56 years of wargaming summed up in few sentences!

Disturbing that you're a lieutenant at your age!

[Orcs]

"Miny Madness"........ Heretic !!!     Its a serious study of military history using  accurately painted collections of miniatures, using carefully crafted rules  that with the randomisation caused by the use of dice allows us to recreate warfare.

Now I have corrected our dear friend:-

I always played soldiers starting with the 1/32 scale soft plastic soldiers in the garden, digging trencehes in the flower beds and using tufts of grass for cover.  I did not use dice, but sought to knock them over using Darts from about 10 feet away.  For Flame throwers I used paraffin in a squeezy "jif lemon" container squirting it through a candle flame. (for those not familiar the lemon is soft plastic and has a nozzle with a small hole so you can sirt the juice over your food)



I them progressed to using lots of Napoleonic Airfix figures ( with ACW ones to make up the numbers) and the "Charge" rules. I also use the "operation warboard" rules for WW2

I then progressed to Micro tanks and using "tank battles in miniature" by his grace Donald Featherstone

Then one day when I was about 15 a friend came round with a lot ( probably only 150) Mikes models renaissance figures, all nicely painted.  I was hooked.

My Mum said "you will have to give up playing soldiers when you meet a nice girl "  my response was that she would either have to accept my hobby as part of me or take a hike. All my girlfriends and partners have been fascinated by them.  So no problems there.

Nowadays Mrs Orcs is very positive often telling me to "go and paint something" when I am getting a bit tense. Apparently if I have not painted for a while I get tetchy.  When we go on holiday  she insists I take something to paint - I think it is so she can read in peace. 








 

[FierceKitty]

As long as she's winning my Little Lady enjoys it. She also loves watching my face if I've got a partner and she can see he's doing something idiotic. Hmmmph...Siamese sadist.

[Orcs]

As long as she's winning my Little Lady enjoys it. She also loves watching my face if I've got a partner and she can see he's doing something idiotic. Hmmmph...Siamese sadist.

Knowing your enjoyment of polyamory I read the sentence above I got to the "She also loves watching my face if I've got a partner" and initially thought "where the cr*p is he going with this!"

[FierceKitty]

Chuckle...not in such a public forum!

[Leman]

  As Quark might say, "Humons!"

[Cavillarius]

I only returned to it this spring, 2018, after a hiatus of 35 years. Back then I had both Prinz August molds to cast my own SWY troops, and an enormous collection of Airfix ACW, started by my brother. In the late eighties and the nineties it just wasn't en vogue in the circles I frequented. I did always keep reading about military and particularly imperialist history.
About two years ago, a colleague (very much with the same political war-not-en-vogue background) told me about his wargames passion, and that rekindled my interest. To my surprise, my (re)new(ed) hobby met with great support from my partner, again very much from that not-en-vogue scene. Meanwhile I'm starting on my 4th army, and having a whale of a time!

[Terry37]

Thought this might be a good place to share this picture, as long as we are talking about the "way-back Machine", here are some of the old journals and books I still have from my earlier years of official wargaming. Back in those days we did not have any such references or material available as we do today, so IF you could afford a journal (and for me it was always a decision between getting the journal or getting the figures!), then you waited anxiously for the next issue to arrive. Of course you devoured it immediately and then had another wait for the next issue. But Oh how we loved them!!! The Stadden issues of Tradition were teh super top of the line and I was never able to afford them although i would always enjoy looking at it when ever I had a chance.



Terry