Have you looked at the Sub-Board "In the Line of Fire" in the "Intro's and Welcomes" Board yet, SV52? Anyway, here is a brief summary of my experience.

• "Real Wargaming" starts in early teens with Airfix soldiers and homespun rules.
• Don Featherstone's "Naval Wargames" opens up new horizons. ACW games played using Featherstone's rules.
• First painted figures (previously only tanks, planes and ships) and first conversions cannibalising other figures and using plasticine and banana oil.
• To "grow up" and focus on career, etc., Airfix ACW, AWI and Napoleonic collection given away to cousin. Career, amateur football, hanging out with friends disinterested in wargaming, marriage, family, etc., follows. But inwardly longing for wargaming fix so continue to buy magazines (including Strategy & Tactics with free board game), and 'commercial' rules, go to shows and play computer strategy games over the next 25 years.
• Meet old wargaming acquaintance by chance on train. We both buy and paint up 6mm ECW and Napoleonic armies, play many DBR and Shako games and run two demos at shows.
• Our short-lived little wargaming 'club' is dissolved when I discover my acquaintance has a secret lifestyle we fundamentally disagree over and which results in his incarceration(!).
• Another period in the wargaming wilderness during which my 6mm armies are sold (but terrain retained - hence the 'Wendy' houses, Ithoriel).
• Family grows, finances start to get slightly better and decision made to start a new collection. SYW chosen. Talk to Dark Lord at Claymore in Edinburgh who flashes his wares. 10mm chosen.  
• Now have opposing SYW and ACW armies in 10mm and 15mm (ACW started before Pendraken's new ACW range). Joined the Pendraken, Honours of War and Peter Pig forums. Have more rules than I can ever play (currently Honours of War, Field of Battle, Black Powder mostly played). I play solo and sometimes with others (e.g., Greenock Wargames Club). Don't have an unpainted figure mountain - more of a "heap."
• Read more than play or paint nowadays (like most of my life, I suppose) but, having recently started a new ECW project, the addiction is still latent within.

I am Westie and I am a Wargame-a-holic.  

p.s. @Nobby: It's 'Augsburg,' old chum.  

Quote from: mad lemmey on 17 July 2018, 11:25:47 PM
Okay...
I started young, aged 11, and got into early 1st edition Warhammer. Then I got introduced to 6th Edition, WRG WW2, DBA, DBM, and from there...
Never stopped.
The wife just shrugs it off, but it pays for her sewing lessons...
My most lax period was during 1998, where I didn't paint for 9 months as I was working away, and during teacher training when I only painted three tigers and 150 Amerindian cavalry.
I appear to paint more often for friends these days than myself, but actually, I'm just ahead this year...

Like it, another nutter.

Quote from: petercooman on 18 July 2018, 06:02:42 AM
So for me:

Good choices again, envious of friends group.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 18 July 2018, 06:55:34 AM
Started in big Airfix plastics with trashy rules in the 1970s; discovered 6mm in the 80s; cut back severely to 15mm pike and shot and 6mm SYW in the 90s; and discovered the One True Scale in the new millennium, with 6mm houses and 1:1200 ships in supporting roles

Yup, another sufferer.  Better not to ask the last question. It's like thinking about how much money you've spent on cars over the years.

Quote from: mad lemmey on 18 July 2018, 09:05:58 AM
How about 'Desert Island Discs' time?

A Day of Battle David Ascoli

Don't know that one, like the choices.

Quote from: Leman on 18 July 2018, 09:16:52 AM
Book: A Day of Battle David Ascoli

Electronic medium:  absolutely no chance!

Italian Wars Spanish
Italian Wars French

Ascoli again, hmm.
Luddite
Oh yeah!

Quote from: petercooman on 18 July 2018, 09:45:16 AM
Tablet or phone. It's practically the same. Without reception, a modern day phone IS a tablet so..   

After a week the battery will be dead anyway. Just need enough time to carve some of the special rules/tables in a rock or something.

Not convinced, wind turbine available for power (the bits are there, all you gotta do is build it) but no phone service.

Quote from: Orcs on 18 July 2018, 10:24:32 AM
I think that's a bit like the George best quote "I spent a lot of money on Booze Women and fast cars the rest I just wasted. "

In your case

"I spent a lot of time and money collecting and painting these figures the rest I just wasted"

Indeed.

Quote from: Orcs on 18 July 2018, 10:41:46 AM
By sundries I am assuming rules to match your period of Armies

1 Book (history or hobby)
A History of the art of war in the middle Ages - Oman.

1 Example of electronic medium
I pad with Solar charger holding painting guides

6 Armies of your choice
Marlburian French and Allied
Italian Wars - Two Armies as  I can use nearly all units on either side
WW2 France 1940 Allies and Germans

Nice range again.  Sundries - glue, brushes, stuff like that.

Quote from: fsn on 18 July 2018, 11:27:15 AM
Donald Featherstone's "War Games".
Solar powered Kindle

If it's a desert island, I thought I should use the available terrain:

Britsh & Italo-German, 1943 Tunisia.
Anglo-Allied & French, 1813
Greek & Carthaginian, very old timey

A sandtable and a half.  Very themed selection.  The Featherstone one I know, got too.

Quote from: Malbork on 18 July 2018, 02:55:09 PM
Well, SV52, your post comes just as I am contemplating sorting out what was once the guest bedroom but has gradually become something of a dumping place for my hobby stuff, plus the coffee table in the dining room, the top of the freezer in the garage and the shelves at the back of the garden shed; I was looking for a recent order yesterday and just couldn't find it in all the chaos; Well, I found part of it but not most of it...

A good read, another incredible collection.

Quote from: SV52 on 18 July 2018, 04:09:53 PM
Not convinced, wind turbine available for power (the bits are there, all you gotta do is build it) but no phone service.

Ok laptop it is then. Holds more books, music and can play cossacks european war!

Quote from: SV52 on 18 July 2018, 04:02:40 PM
Like it, another nutter.

Ok, I resemble that remark!

Quote from: Westmarcher on 18 July 2018, 04:00:56 PM
p.s. @Nobby: It's 'Augsburg,' old chum.  

I know, but for some reason it never quite comes out right when I type it. 

I really don't understand all these cries of heresy when anyone mentions anything other than 10mm when talking about wargaming in general. Let's remember where it all started and how it initially developed. I began in 1966 and never saw a 10mm figure before 1992 - that's the best part of thirty years.

Well I suppose it's because we're all now devoted followers of the Dark Lord, but even he, sorry He has dealings with 28mm and 15mm.

Truly, His ways are unknowing. 

>I really don't understand all these cries of heresy when anyone mentions anything other than 10mm when talking about wargaming in general Let's remember where it all started and how it initially developed. I began in 1966 and never saw a 10mm figure before 1992 - that's the best part of thirty years

Indeed and before that, the terracotta bloke had a huge army in a really big scale or in his words  'the one true scale'.

It seems likely that budget, storage space, playing space, associates and health (eyes, hands, backs, necks etc), plus a little bit of what you fancy will influence scale and army choices as much as anything else.

Then there is the 'going beyond the point of return' argument, so you have so many 15mm ACW figures with matching terrain, that you can't now contemplate up / down scale changes because of the current investment.

There is an advantage in one scale for everything, particularly for terrain, which is potentially the most bulky aspect of our collecting.

I have always wished that I was one of those people who has that smug certainty that they have terrain, scale, game size, period and rules right and tight and have no desire to think or look beyond that boundary ...... but I am all over the place and see the advantage and disadvantage in everything. Everything is too big and too small, Everything is too small to paint or takes too long to paint, everything is either too complicated and can't be remembered or is too easy and bland, Everything I sell because I will never use it, I want back a month later, but at least I am consistent in being short of storage space! yes, I am quite good at that.

Indeed. I would love to have some skirmish sets in 25/28mm, but can't be faffed with the scenery. That's why I stick to 10mm, and can even skirmish in that scale.

10mm is a discipline that I actually can stick to - except where I'm doing air or sea and they don't need scenery in the same way. When I bought some PzIV's for my 1:600 Seibel ferries, I was soooo tempted to have another look at micro-armour, but I resisted largely because of the scenery requirements. 

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I am an old guy in my 70's and played my first wargame in the mid 50's. And my first real game as we know it toady about six or seven years later after getting Donald Featherstone's "Tackle Model Soldiers This Way' Book. That opened a whole new venue for me and it's never stopped since. I am probably more of a modeler and painter than a gamer, but do love HOTT and DBN, so play a lot of that with the local guys. I started with Revell and Mongram army figures and models, but in the early sixties learned abut Bussler and Scruby miniatures so got lots of them. I also started doing 54 MM figures and that was my main interest for a good while as I never saw much fun in the WRG and CLS rules that required dozens of figures for a single unit.

After graduation from the University of Texas at Austin, I was devoed ot my career in Corporate America. However, I still kept actively pursuing uniform research and information. After retiring I was able ot once again jump back into gaming and locals David Crenshaw and Paul Potter introduced me to DBA and that was all it took. I have been devoted to DBA based gaming ever since. Foe m, i's perfect small armies but still a fast fun game. However, I must be honest and say I do not care at all for the new DBA, 3.0. Not the same game, so I am a dedicated HOTT and DBN gamer now.

And so here I am over 50 years later still playing with toy soldiers, and with not a single regret!

Terry

Quote from: petercooman on 18 July 2018, 04:57:15 PM
Ok laptop it is then. Holds more books, music and can play cossacks european war!

Have you tried Cossacks III yet?  The Scots are separate faction so scenarios for the '45 and Montrose are possible.