Games that Define Us

I was reading AHunt's blog today (http://ahunt-dulceetdecorum.blogspot.com/2012/06/games-that-define-us.html) in which he talked about games that define us. That of course got me to thinking about the games that have shaped me over the years. These are certainly not all the games that I have played over the years, but they are the games that heavily influenced my personal interests and have moved me in directions that I would never have expected. I don't have a lot of pretty pictures to insert so (at least for now) you will have to use your imaginations to visualize box covers (Okay, now I have found cover shots of all the games, although I couldn't find a picture of the 1st edition Civilization game and had to use the AH version). I also realize that some of these games really date me.
And here is a link to the blog that started it off: Frontline Gamer

First up; Gettysburg by Avalon Hill
At this time I lived in Murray KY, a small college town in western Kentucky. If you watch college basketball during March Madness, this is the town were the Racers come from. My dad bought this for my birthday and I think regretted it ever since as it was definitely my gateway drug into this hobby. I still have my copy of this game. It also introduced me into the world of military simulation games and I would read that catalog over and over and wondering where I would ever even see a store that carried the likes of Panzer Leader and Luftwaffe.

Two; Dungeons & Dragons by TSR
By this point and sometime in 1975 or 76 after we moved to Boulder CO I found an article in the local paper (the Daily Camera, still in publication) about this new type of game being played by students at the University of Colorado. I found a copy of it at Three Wishes Toy store which actually carried games. For the next several years all my games came from there. I toyed with it until I found some new friends when I changed schools (we moved from the north end of town to the south end of town) and that was all she wrote. I still play every other week.

Three; Squad Leader by Avalon Hill
I was torn at this point because I loved Tobruk which was released in '76 but when Squad Leader was released in '77 that was pretty much it for Tobruk. My friends and I played constantly and typically would alternate between D&D and Squad Leader all the way through high school. I have all the supplements published for Squad Leader and I have some stuff for Advanced Squad Leader, but I lost heart with ASL pretty quickly. I think I had to choose between two complicated systesm, ASL and Star Fleet Battles and SFB won out in the end, probably because miniatures had loomed on the horizon for my historical gaming needs.

Four; Traveller by GDW
I know you were expecting different game here but '77 was a watershed year for the gaming industry and Traveller burst on the scene and we quickly gravitated to that and soon we were alternating between fantasy, history and science fiction games. We played lots of other boardgames during this period but these were the three dominate games other than Fight in the Skies by TSR (originally by Guidon Games). We played this at the high school club because it was quick and we could get 2-3 games in before they kicked us out.

Five; Tractics by TSR
Squad Leader kind of drove us to this in about 1978. We all had built 1/35th scale tanks at one time or another and we played Tractics with these for a while (scaling ranges up appropriately) this lead us to the discovery of Micro Armor from GHQ and we played many games of Tractics using micro armor. We played enough that we no longer even need to consult most of the charts. Our Tractics days went on for a long time as we meet other groups that played when the area's first game convention started up, Genghis Con in 1979 (and still going strong today).

Six; Fire and Steel and System 7 by GDW
We had toyed with Napoleonics a bit at this point but the investment in miniatures was a bit much for us back then. System 7 changed all of that and soon we were playing made up possible engagements and then even researching historical engagements and trying to play them out. This, of course, lead us directly to fully embrace tabletop gaming.

Seven; Empire Builder (1980) by Mayfair Games
I had always played and enjoyed Rail Baron by Avalon Hill, but it lacked something and seemed more akin to Monopoly. Empire Builder changed all that and I really love and still love what has become known as train gaming. In fact this would lead my wife and I (now ex-wife) to form the TGA (Train Gamers Association) in the late '80s.

Eight; Civilization by Francis Tresham
I heard about this game in the then new magazine Adventure Gaming (and long since defunct). I was at the Origins held in San Francisco that year and saw the game up close and personal. When I got home I managed to convince the owner of the FLGS to import some copies in and soon it was mine and expensive though $30! A lot of money at the time. Eventually AH would buy the rights to produce it in the US and it became another favorite game for many years. Its interesting to note that this game started off as a boardgame, then became an award winning series of computer games (now up to CIV V) and has since managed to spin off two more boardgames. For me the original is still the best.

Nine; Johnny Reb by Adventure Games (John Hill)
Adventure Games produced four games right off the bat, but Johnny Reb was by far their best. We tried it because we were interested in the period and how could you go wrong with a set of rules written by the designer of Squad Leader? Although they have long since been supplanted for me, this was a great set of rules that opened up yet another period of history for us and one that didn't require massive uniform research!

Ten; 1830 by Avalon Hill (Alan Moon)
1830 was Avalon Hill's attempt to use Francis Tresham's system for 1829 to simulate the robber baron railroad period in the US in the Northeast. In the end it became a very different game in some ways from 1829 and was more generally available to US gamers. Personally I prefer this style of what is now known as the 18xx system. The number of home published games that these have spawned off is truly amazing and the yahoo group is still very active. In fact during the heyday of the TGA by ex-father-in-law and I developed two self published 18xx games; 1869 the Golden Spike, and 18GM (GM for game master) which created kind of a generic 18xx game without a specific setting. The idea was to create something like a kit that you could use to help create your own 18xx variation or as an actual game on its own. I really like 18GM since every game is different and you get to decide what 18xx rules you want to use.

Now I couldn't stop at ten so I went to twelve with this, mainly because these are games that had a heavy influence on what I do today.

Eleven; Napoleon's Battles by Avalon Hill
This was the big break through game for us in table top miniatures and we were quickly re-basing our many units to play. Despite hundreds of Napoleonic rules that have been published since then, this is the game we still come back to play.

Twelve; Fire and Fury by Rich Hasenauer
For the ACW this was it for us and I have played Fire and Fury ever since it was introduced in 1990. No other system has been able to replace its simple mechanics which have lead to many great games being played over the years. This is another one that I keep coming back to time after time. It has also greatly influenced the other tabletop rule sets that I enjoy.

I have played and owned a lot of games over the years. But these are the games that shaped what I did after them. I find the list of publishers a little interesting as well; TSR, GDW and AH definitely dominate the scene. These also directly lead to my involvement with the Denver Gamers Association (DGA) and the local convention scene. In fact I managed Genghis Con from Genghis Con IX through Genghis Con XXI as well as Tacticon '89 through Taction '2000. I married a gaming girl (very, very rare) back then and since her father did the game auctions I ended up doing them starting with Genghis Con V, that's an aspect of the hobby that I really enjoy and I have been able to be an auctioneer for a number of other conventions other than my own. We also helped found the TGA with Darwin Bromley in '87 or '88 and published the TGA newsletter for a number of years (and each issue had a train game variant in it), through this I meet a lot of game designers like Alan Moon and Reiner Knizia. Johnny Reb lead me to Dave Bab and Stone Mountain Miniatures and I designed and sculpted Stone Mountain's award winning ACW building line (that's one of my truly treasured plaques from over the years). Although I'm not as active in the hobby as I was and have moved more towards the painting aspect of it that lead me over to Reaper Games and some really good friendships there.

So that's it, the twelve games that not only affected my gaming preferences but my life in general and it all started with a $5 game for my birthday from my father.

 Thanks Dad!

Coal Train from the afternoon commute

I'm sure most of you are aware that I get to ride the light rail to work. Every now and then there is a coal train on the BNSF mainline. Usually I only see the coal cars themselves but on the afternoon of May 30th I caught the head end as I was heading home. BNSF 9204 (SD70AC3) and BNSF 9499 (SD70MAC) were heading up this southbound train.

Maverick Models Thirty Years War (TYW) Danish Flags Arrived - Awesome Service

I'm not sure how I missed this envelope, and I was watching for it too because one had already gone astray. However, one of my boys placed this on my work desk yesterday and upon opening it I discovered the flags that I had ordered from Maverick Models (and be careful googling that one because the first link will most likely be for a bunch of real life human male models, although perhaps if there are any women reading this that's the link you might want to see first). Stuart and I recently had a conversation about the Danish flags from the Thirty Years War. At the time he said he would love to do some if he could find some references, something I have had a hard time coming up with. He then mentioned that he had a dozen or so Imperial flags that he wanted to put up but couldn't identify. I mentioned that the Danes were among the first (if not the first) to include a national emblem on their flags, the red field with the white cross. Sure enough the flags that Stuart had featured this emblem and within a day or so he had them up and ready to go on his site. I mean can you ask for better service than that?

Of course I had no choice but to order one of each (in 28mm)! After one mishap in the mail, they arrived sometime last week and apparently into the mail stack for one of my sons rather than my stack (I'm not sure why they though they should be getting any mail from the UK, maybe I should check into that). They came out great and that's going to push me to get at least one unit of Danish troops painted up soon (along with all my other soon projects), just to use these flags.

The only one I might question as a regimental flag is the one for "unknown infantry regiment - 7". This certainly looks like the coat of arms for King Christian IV and I'm thinking this might be used as a second flag issued to actual Danish regiments. Finding good references for the Danish military during this period has been very difficult. If someone else out there has been researching this period and has some good sources please drop me a line or leave a comment.

Anyway a huge thank you to Stuart at Maverick Models for the high quality flags and really taking the time to work with me on this little project. You can find his website here: Maverick Models

USMC HMMWV - Revell 1/72 M966 Tow, M977 Maxi Ambulance

I feel like I'm finally making some progress on something. I finished my first two HMMWVs for my modern USMC force for Force on Force. Since I finally managed to score the 4 M1114 versions made by Dragon I figured I better practice on something first. These are secondary vehicles and will only appear in a couple of the Scenarios for the Road to Baghdad. So I wasn't to concerned with how rusty I am putting together plastic kits. I had forgotten just how many pieces they can manage to cram into one of these kits. There is one more box with these two models to put together and hopefully by the time I'm done with that the others will have arrived.
These are Revell 1/72nd scale kits so I threw in an Elheim modern US Marine and the S&S Cougars just to give a visual on sizes. I think the 1/72nd scale kits maybe a little on the small size, but it won't be a problem for the game.
Revell M966 TOW Missile Carrier and M997 Maxi Ambulance

Revell M997 Maxi Ambulance

 

Revell M977 Maxi Ambulance and Elheim US Marine

  

Revell M966 TOW Missile Carrier

 Revell M966 TOW Missile Carrier and Elheim US Marine

 

Revell M997 Maxi Ambulance and S&S MRAP Cougar 4x4

 Revell M966 TOW Missile Carrier and S&S MRAP Cougar 4x4

 Revell M997 Maxi Ambulance , Elheim US Marine and S&S MRAP Cougar 6x6

   Revell M966 TOW Missile Carrie , Elheim US Marine and S&S MRAP Cougar 6x6

Review Villers-Bocage by Henri Marie

Villers-Bocage, Normandy 1944 by Henri Marie
Copyright 2010 (2nd Edition)(1st Edition 2003)
Heimdal

Although Henri refers to this as an a battle unknown to many, I'm sure that is certainly not the case with avid WWII gamers or especially those that play Battlefront's Flames of War, since they dedicated one of their Normandy books to it. Henri uses his original 1993 book as the springboard for this one. I don't have that book ("Tigers in Battle", 1993) but this new one builds from that original work.

Henri is a resident of Villers and has a pretty unique perspective on this particular battle and it is his goal to get as close to the historical truth as possible. I believe that he has pretty much succeeded in that endeavor. The covers the battle as a whole from the original clash in June through the eventual taking of the town from the retreating Germans in August, 1944. It is presented in both French and English usually side by side on the same page. Once you get used to skipping a column of text its pretty easy to read and the translation is excellent.

He does a good job of stripping through the propaganda and getting to the historical facts surrounding the battle in general and Michael Wittman's attack on "A" Squadron 4 CLY of the 22nd Armored Brigade and "A" company of the First Rifle Brigade on June 13th, 1944. Overall he treats this as an element of the battle but most of his focus is really getting to the heart of this particular attack and its affect on future events. I do feel that there is definite desire to discredit Wittman something that definitely comes up in the conclusions at the end of the book. He also contradicts himself in a couple of places. In the end decisions have to be made on the spot by the men on the ground, with 20/20 hindsight its easy to discredit some of those decisions now.

At the end he puts forth a number of conclusive statements, some I agree with some I disagree with and a couple I think are flat out wrong. As the reader that is my prerogative after all. The book has a fair number of eye witness accounts. In fact this book is the result of visiting British soldiers on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. It is filled with pictures from the battle itself (many of which I have seen before) as well as pictures form both before the battle and what some of those sites look like today. There are a whole series of excellent maps that show all kinds of interesting details.

This is really an excellent book and I highly recommend it.