What got you into wargaming?

[thetourist]

I started as a D&D gamer, painting up Ral Partha miniatures and using a flexible (read cheating) rule set with my cousins. As I got older I discovered my dad's collection of GHQ micros and got hooked. I collected my own for most of junior high and high school. I went to Brookhurst Hobbies or the War Store in the LA area every chance I got. They fell out of favor during my college years but I kept playing historical wargames both paper and computer based. World in Flames, Close Combat Series, etc. Eventually I came back to collecting micros in my early twenties and haven't looked back. I have more than I can count now.

[scopemaster]

I started with AH back in the early 1970's, In 1973/74 I found GHQ miniatures and other wargaming item, AFV modeling and figure collecting items at Valley Hobby Plaza.
I purchased my 1st 25 packs of GHQ, I then found a place on the Burbank Mall called the Last Grenadier and they had a great Friday night game crew for Micro Armor.
I have been as happy as a pig in mud since then, only set back has been here in Kansas City no one seems to use micro armor.
Oh well solo gaming is fine by me.
Dave "The Scopemaster" Clopp

[groundlber]

What got me into wargaming? When I was a kid I had a variety of Airfix figures and Roco Minitanks. Milton Bradley had a series of military games : Broadsides was a sailing ship raid on a port, Dogfight! was World War One air combat (thinking back, the planes were about micro scale), and a strategic level Civil War game (I can't remember the title) that I played with a slightly older friend. Then came high school and my gaming friend off to college. Girls, sports, and cars were my interests for that period of my life.
A couple of years later I was looking for a model of the ship my father served on during World War Two. I went into a Hobby and Game store to see if they had said model. They didn't. But what they did have was a group of people in the back room laughing and talking about trolls and elves. I had read Lord of the Rings, so I looked in to see what was going on. There was a fantasy miniatures battle taking place. I didn't understand the rules, but I could see the players were having a lot of fun. They invited me back next weekend when they were having a World War Two game. By the end of that game, I was hooked.and have been for the past twentyfive plus years.
I started collecting GHQ mini's somewhat by happenstance, the other members of the game group already had such huge collections of mini's in different time periods that I didn't need to buy scads of them (despite the evidence on my basement shelves). Also, I could see the GHQ mini's at the store, I don't like buying anything sight unseen. Last point, microscale miniatures are a lot easier to transport than say, 25mm British colonials. Besides, the quality of GHQ mini's is so high they are my usual choice when I'm looking to buy something new.
So, GHQ, you've let me embrace my inner geek, kept me out of bars, and allowed me to meet some really great people, both face to face and online in this forum. Thanks.
Groundlber

[DodgeM37]

Well Im brand new to the forum and brand new to the miniatures hobby. I just placed my first order for micro armour two nights ago. And at 22 I've found that Im one of the younger generation of people who enjoy wargaming.
I grew up with Legos and the little green army men. With Legos I would build towns, and then armies to take over those towns and battle other armies of Lego men. With my green army men I would put them in small "squads" One leader, two rifle men, machine gun man, bazooka man and a grenade throwing man. Then I would come up with missions for them to complete. Looking back I even came up with a very very very simplistic war game. When I could convice my brother or dad to play (I never had any friends interested in playing war) with me I would divide up my hundreds of army men and make scenary arranged on a playing area (the floor) Then alternating turns we could either move a man a certain distance or fire one of the men. My inovative firing system was a bouncy ball that was rolled across the floor from the firing unit or flicked in the air from a mortar or ary unit and whatever it knocked over was a casualty. Later I used the plastic tanks which took three hits to knock out.
Along with Legos and green army men I loved playing a game called Stratego and learned Risk as I got into middle school. By the end of middle school I had discovered Axis and Allies and fell in love with it. In highschool inspite of school and sports I found time to getting into computer wargames starting with Sid Meirs Civil War, Talonsoft's East and West Front and Combat Mission. As far as I knew there were no gaming groups of clubs at my school or in my immediate area and the nearest hobby store was about 2 hours away. One of my history teachers had a civil war board game and WWII board game that we played once in class but I can't remeber what they were called. Then I went to college and got my BA in History (still trying to figure out what to do with that All during college all my friends where getting the latest and greatest First Person Shooters and RTS games. I couldnt find anyone interested in wargames even among the other history majors. But I continued to find war computer games like Hearts of Iron and more Combat Missions and TOAW. Well I graduated this past May and just recently moved to NJ, got an apartment and a job and wanted to seriously getting into wargaming. I've got the computer games but there is something about a playing surface and actually pushing your units around. I've also always loved terrain from the days with my dad's HO train layout. So in my search on different history and wargaming forums I realized I would really enjoy some sort of miniature gaming. I looked into Axis and Allies minis but realzied I wanted more depth and would appreciate playing more with my units if I painted them and created the terrain. That along with my lack of space in my loft apartment led me to GHQ and the beginning of my foray into micro armour gaming. So wish me luck and I can't wait for my units to get here so I can begin to paint and game!!

[Gompel]

What got me into wargaming? This freaking world that seems to enjoy killing eachother
Who got me into wargaming? My brother. We used to play with Matchbox plastic soldiers and metal tanks. Later we converted or made our own WWII boardgames.

What got me into micro wargaming? The internet! (google micro armour and you get back here) The -most often very nice- pictures in the catalogue of GHQ got my attention. Who o who is responsible for them?
Who got me into micro wargaming? Guys who made websites and showed their fantastic stuff! To name just a few where I first stumbled across: IanH's wargame pages, World War II Micro Wargaming, 6mm wargaming and Ritterkrieg.

Why am I still interested in micro wargaming and WWII in general? Good question; I don't know the answer yet.

[Donald M. Scheef]

For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in military hardware. I started building plastic scale airplanes and tanks in grade school.

For actual gaming (as opposed to just zooming a 1/72 Spitfire around my head), I was walking through the Student Union at Purdue University and just happened to glance through an open door into one of the meeting areas. A small group was running the Battle of the River Plate with 1/1200 models using Fletcher Pratt's rules. I walked in, was invited to take over as captain of the Achilles (the previous captain had to leave for a class), and have been an enthusiast ever since.

Don S.

[pmskaar]

I have always had an interest in history and military things. I remember watching Twentieth Century when I was 6 years old and actually started putting models together at that age as well.
I always enjoyed playing with my soldiers when I was a kid - I had some of the old Marx WWII Germans and Japanese and then when I was 10 or so I graduated to Airfix figures and Roco Mini Tanks. I think at one point I had at least 1 pack of each of all the different boxes of Airfix figures and in some cases several of each.
When I was 18 I got hooked on Avalon Hill games and shortly thereafter I learned about SPI as well. This was in 1970-71. There were numerous battles and historical periods to fight and I was interested in all of them so my boardgame collection grew by leaps and bounds in the 1970's and even into the present.
I was in the army from 1976 to 1987 as an Armor Officer. It was while I was at the advanced course in 1980-81 that I got to play with modern micro armor. We used it for training purposes in sand table exercises and I thought it was really cool. I bought my first T-62's, BMP-1's and BTR 60's at the Cav Store and gave them a very basic paint scheme of some kind of military green color. I actually still have some of these. I bought a few WWII items from the Cav Store as well but didn't do much with them.
I was stationed in Germany from 1981-85 and while I played my boardgames, I didn't do much with micro armor at all.
When I returned to the States in 1985 my next duty posting was with Readiness Group Los Angeles in Los Alimitos in the greater LA area. It didn't take me long to discover Brookhurst Hobbies and a couple of other places that sold micro armor. This was right at the time GHQ was greatly improving their sculpting and casting techniques and I looked forward to each new addition to their growing line of great miniatures. I had an interest in East Front WWII so started buying the new T-34's and KV's coming off the production line and then buying some of the German pieces as well.
That was over 20 years ago. Since then I have bought most of the WWII lines - at least some representative pieces, Soviet, U.S., Israeli, and some British micro armor,both WWI and WWII Micronauts, some 10mm ACW and Napoleonics, and even a couple of 1/1200 sailing ships. These are all fine models but my current emphasis is painting WWII North Africa.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

[paynetoor]

Greetings, Fellow-Model-Gamers: As a 1st post on this enlightening forum, I will submit for your perusal a brief intelligence report of my entry into the model genre of Micro War Gaming. 1953-1956: I lived north, and northwest of Munich, Germany. There I began reading comics @ WWII subjects, cartooning imaginary war scenes, and fighting imaginary battles with green plastic warriors. 1956: Upon returning to the USA, I began building Revell and Monogram plastic models of tanks, jeeps, and war planes; building suitable battlegrounds in the vacant field opposite our home (where Mitchell bomber rock-bombs devastated armor, soft skin vehicles, bunkers, and soldiers); and mighty solo-battles were waged amidst a cacophony of guttural sound effects. 1957-2004: occasional modeling building and painting. 2004-Present: While wandering around the internet in 2004, looking for some metal WWII ETO figures, with which to make a chess-set for my son, I blundered upon the magnificent world of miniature wargaming!

Wow! Shortly thereafter, I discovered a wargaming convention-happening which was to commence in a few weeks, just @ 120 mile drive up the freeway from my home. I attended, I delighted, and I joined-up. I settled upon 15MM as the scale of my liking, designed a WWII skirmish game, and was officially baptized into the hobby (at 60 yrs old), when I hosted my game @ Strategicon in 2004. Presently, I am about to embark on a project in which I will be utilizing GHQ miniatures to reduce the game scale from 15MM to 10MM.

I am very appreciative of this forum, in which many veteran Micro gamers have provided me with a treasure of constructive-info concerning conversions, and painting.

Thanks!

Jay

[Theodore]

A yard sale! I was about 8 and found a copy of Avalon Hills Tactics 2 at a yard sale. Dad tried to talk me out of it cause the pieces would be missing and it said 12 and up. Loved it even playing solataire, had my little brother playing before long. Got into roleplaying in junior high and then back into wargaming in highschool wiht a buddy that had a copy of The Russian Campaign. Then moved onto Team Yankee and Harpoon with the counters.
While at Ft Bragg in the late 80s a gamer had a bunch of minitures to play Harpoon with and that started my miniatures with Modern Micronauts and then Microarmour.

[cbovill]

As a kid growing up in the late '70's and early '80's there were these crazy things called neighborhood toy stores. After school we would walk home and stop in and spend our hard earned paper route and snow shoveling money to buy 1/72 scale plastic models of WWII tanks, half-tracks, guns and infantry, and aircraft too. Then we would all get together and war game with these plastic models. It was great fun and we just made up the rules as we went along.

We also got into gaming with big plastic model ships of a variety of scales too. It was always interesting with a 1/600 scale King George V next to a 1/350 scale Fletcher class destroyer.

Of course we all got older and got rid of the models by shooting them up with BB guns, or blowing them up with fire crackers, or in the case of the airplanes, fitting them to string tied between two trees and shoving a model rocket engine into the tail and lighting it. When that got boring, we poured rubbing alcohol inside the ships, turned out the lights in the basement and set them on fire (could only see the blue flame with the lights out). Then we discovered girls.

A few years later and I wandered into a neighborhood hobby store (because even in the late '80's there were many around) and discovered these packages of tiny metal ships and tanks - GHQ MicroArmour and MicroNauts. I could not believe the detail, I just had to have them. I took a few home and put them together without painting them, never even occurred to me to try and paint such small models - I was afraid it would hide all that incredible detail. It was also about this time that I had discovered board war games such as AH's famous "War at Sea" and "PanzerBlitz." These games with all these ships and tanks on map boards were so cool. I thought about using the GHQ models to replace the counters, but that would have cost way too much money.

So the miniatures slowly grew in number until one day I discovered a hobby shop that had a game room in the back and people were all gathered around playing with the same miniatures I had been collecting for the past few years but hadn't figured out exactly what to do with yet. I was so impressed with the big tables of terrain and organized rules systems and all the vehicles put into units. This is when I discovered true wargaming and that I really needed to do some research if I was going to organize my miniatures. It was also at this time that the internet took off like a demon and all the stores rapidly started to close.

Just as I had discovered this hobby, it seemed like its very existence was being threatened by a lack of venues in which to meet and game. And that's pretty much the way it seems to be ever since. So I now spend most of my time researching and painting and very little time actually gaming since that part has been made so inconvenient by the lack of venues. Still hoping someone comes up with a business model for a hobby/gaming store that can turn a profit.

Chris

[opsctr]

My uncle sent a huge box full of Britians for my 4th birthday (long story). That was the beginning. My father and I gamed on the dining room table with "O" Gauge buildings and scenery for many years before he finally let me take them outdoors to use with the Revel and Monogram plastic soldiers that were close to the same scale.

The military intervened for several years before I moved to the Chicago area to attend University in Evanston, IL. My history professor introduced me to mini-tanks, 1/72nd scale tactical aircraft and 1/144 strategic aircraft for large one-for-one outdoor games on a lot between two steel mills where the brush was very close to scale. Gary, IN provided us a place to fight huge battles complete with airfields, cities, everything a wargamer could want except "warmth" during the fall, winter, and spring.

I met Greg at the Hobby Chest in Skokie, IL shortly after he began producing his line. I thought the vehicles were way too small until the group I gamed with wanted to do the Afrika campaign and went together, as a group, to purchase enough equipment to do the units in question on a one-for-one scale. We produced our own rules that worked fairly well. We made "overhead" view counters for everything not yet produced and played on the floor of a community center for our first big games, followed by some convention games and weekly games on our 18 X 6 sand table. Great games. Mini-Planes by Bachman filled that need even though they weren't exactly in scale.

Since our initial purchase (still have all the early tanks, etc.) all the vehicles have been upgraded and re mastered. Infantry and support equipment has been added as well as aircraft. And now, ...the best part. Our Government pays me, and a few close associates, to put on TDG wargames for the military. What a life...

Will
http://commandoperationscenter.com/

[Sudwind]

My interest in military history got me into wargaming. I started out reading WWII and WWI history books in the school library when I was about 8 years old. It wasn't long before I was collecting toy soldiers and vehicles and doing my own version of wargaming with them....I divided them into units and shot rubber bands and spring-fired little plastic shells at them. The real revelation came at about age 11 or 12 when one of my friends got Avalon Hill's Tobruk. After that, I played board games for many years!! Eventually, I was exposed to miniatures and I think that the visual appeal hooked me. Probably because it allows you to play like a child, but with dignity (well, sort of). When I got older and had more disposable income, then miniatures gaming became a much more enjoyable and expensive hobby!!!

[8ball]

Back in the late 50s, I bought a set of minis through the mail. It was called "Task Force" and it was from the Helen of Toy Company, in Lynbrook, NY. It iincluded a couple of trees of tiny tanks, planes, pill boxes, and ships. I drew a map of Normandy, and using the Task Force minis created a very simple wargame.

A couple of years later, a friend introduced me to AH Gettysburg. Soon after I purchased AH D-Day. The rest is history.

[Beriothien]

Played a lot of squad leader and stuff like that as a teenager. I became an adult and started "designing" a WWII naval game and also fell in with a group that had come up with a non-map version of "Star Trek" that we played on a huge living room floor.

My son (who did not live with me) turned 12 and wandered into an Independent retail game store in South Plains Mall in Lubbock, and got a demo of Warhammer Fantasy. I had been wondering what would keep us together as he got older, and I was smart enough to buy two starter sets on the spot (one for each of us).

Since then the boy (now 20) and I have fought a million games of Fantasy, 40K, and FOW, and each of us has made friends we game with (together sometimes even). We still play 40K and FOW together, he does some "wild west" semi-rpg stuff with his friends, and I play naval games and modern combat as well as FOW and 40K.

Do I need a 12 step group? Nah, and I would be a rich man today if I had invested all that money rather than spending it on a hobby...richer financially, but poor in things that really matter.

[BaronvonFrank]

When I was a kid in the late 80s, my father purchased a train set for my birthday to p*ss off my mother (classic dad!) and we set up the D-cell plastic monster that afternoon. After it went around the track few times, we started derailing it, etc., like kids do. Then, we added a few green GI Joes and after a hour or so of open combat, the wargaming bug bit me. A few years later it was an HO set that brough me to 25mm, and now I'm down to 1:285 and loving it- without the train set.
Cheers,
FM