Yes, I am doing a write-up about the decade that I became a wargamer, and not just that, but a historical wargamer and how a “kid’s eye view” of the hobby can differ from a grownup’s. This is going to be a bit more nostalgic than most of my pieces, but I wanted to discuss this because a lot of wargamers I know wistfully miss the 1980s. Let’s face it, there was a lot to choose from, and the gaming hobby was exploding as a whole. This won’t be every game I ever owned…heck, I can’t remember them all! But this is a way to describe the games that made an impression and are still meaningful to me today! Every wargamer has such a list, and I wanted to share mine, maybe to inspire new generations of wargamers.
So, where did I start?
I was eight years old in 1983. And though I was too young to recognize most of it, there were a lot of historical things happening - KAL 007, Able Archer, and the Day After. But for me, my most significant event of that year was none of those things. Instead, it was my grandfather doing something he came to regret later: He bought me a copy of Avalon Hill’s Tactics II.
Tactics II is an old game, it was 30 years old when I got it as a gift in 1983, but the truth was, Avalon Hill produced the game for years as an introductory game to get people into wargaming. And it worked. I played that thing to death as a kid. I am not sure I got even half the rules right, but I will say it taught me more about math than most math classes! That said, I was happy overall with the game, and I was hooked. (Incidentally, I also procured at one point the original Tactics 10th-anniversary edition!)
Well, as they say in the hobby, one game usually follows another, and before long, my mom bought for my 9th birthday the 1981 Avalon Hill edition of Battle of the Bulge.
To me, it’s still one of the best Bulge games around. I’m on my second copy now, and the game’s a lot simpler than I remember, but as a young man, I remember the joy of figuring out just how in the world the SS Panzers were going to cross the Meuse. I can’t say I ever succeeded, which is a good thing from a historical retrospective!
I soon graduated to more tactical games and more esoteric subjects, and for a while, was playing such games as Panzer Leader and Luftwaffe. Panzer Leader was a great game and still is, though I wish the guys at Compass or MMP would update it. I suspect they already have, and I am just ill-informed?
As I got older (11) and more into the tactical arena, I discovered the game all tactical WWII aficionados discover sooner or later? Yep, Squad Leader. I also discovered how much I loved Eastern Front games, especially Stalingrad (I think the Tractor Factory map in Squad Leader was probably getting worn out based on how many times I played it). Yep, I had all four modules, and one summer, I spent it playing every single scenario I had and then made up some for a “campaign” I made up for France ’40.
You’ll note that I stuck a lot to Avalon Hill. Yeah, that was pretty much the wargaming company back then, and I did a lot of World War II, but as I hit my tween years, I was about to discover…there was another and that there were other periods besides World War II! That year, I purchased and played to death NATO: The Next War In Europe and enjoyed it immensely. I even used it for a later school paper in Junior High!!!
1985 was a formative year for me. I discovered one of the substantial gaming obsessions of my life: Twilight: 2000. Now, the game isn’t historical (We haven’t had a civilization-ending nuclear war between the US and the Soviets, did we?), but it used then-real-life gear and postulated how things might look in the 1990s. I was hooked, and the company, Game Designer’s Workshop (GDW) became my new go-to company. I think the list of games I bought from them in the 1980s was staggering.
In short, I think I bought a lot from the GDW catalog, and I still collect what I can when I can (I didn’t list most of their science-fiction offerings as we’re not about that here at Epoch Xperience!) I will say beyond that, there were other games as well, as my Cold War Gone Hot obsession took over.
West End Games also had some good games on the topic, and I especially loved Air and Armor as well as Eastern Front Tank Leader (I’ve shamelessly stolen the C3 system from Eastern Front Tank Leader for my own miniatures rules efforts).
But as the 1980s waned and the Cold War ended, so too did my obsession with things Cold War Gone Hot. It wasn’t long before I discovered the joys of miniatures, with my first being a set of Airfix US Paratroopers and German Infantry, using Command Decision for the rules!
I eventually discovered like-minded friends through a little game called Battlewagon! That game was played to death by yours truly, and I even made a campaign for it too! (Yep, I was a game designer even before what I really knew what that entailed!)
That soon had me writing my own rules, entitled “Take Cover.” I can happily say the rules were influenced by way too many viewings of Cross of Iron by an impressionable 12-year-old. I still wish I had the photos of the game aftermaths!
The rest continues in the 1990s, also known as, “watch all the companies I loved go poof!”
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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)