Who belonged to a wargaming club?

lord of the mark · August 25, 2003, 16:10

The old problem with board wargames.

Who to play with? No AI like in a computer game, or MP via internet. So that meant either playing "solitaire" - ultimately unsatisfying - or finding people to play against in real life. Not as easy for these obscure, often difficult games as for say Monopoly or Risk. ( I managed to get one neighbor kid to play Afrika Korps, but I dont think he ever really liked it) So inevitably it meant a club of some kind. At my high school we had a "strategic gaming" club, which met once a week. Hard to learn, setup and play a game and still get home for dinner, but fond memories nonetheless. (and an occasional field trip to SPI HQ, which was not far away)

Your experiences?

rah · August 25, 2003, 16:30

When I was at Bradley in Peoria, I joined the gaming club at the local junior college. When I went to check them out to see if it was worth joining, I walked into the room and saw a 20 foot x 20 foot area set up with 8 fleets of naval minatures. 8 guys with ranging rulers. I signed up on the spot. It was about 50 guys that played almost every boardgame know to man, every Wed. evening. Avalon hill games were dominent. A lot of minatures also. Some strange poeple, but a great group. A lot of the normal board games also. Risk, rail baron, etc, and a lot of obscure ones. Junta. Escape from Auswitz.

Urban Ranger · August 25, 2003, 23:49

You could always join the wargaming club at the local university. When I was an undegrad student we had a middle-aged man (40+ then) in the club who ran a game store in town. He's cool and we got along great.

Jon Miller · August 26, 2003, 01:59

I had one in undregrad

I usually got to play a board game of some type twice a month

Jon Miller

Standup · August 26, 2003, 09:20

Never been in an official one but we use play on a regular basis before we all headed off to univeristy. Friends parents had a carvan in the back garden which never went anywhere so we adopted it. Third Reich was a favourite and after a year or two we managed to own all the Squad Leader add ons/expansions between about six of us.

There was a roleplaying club but no wargames club at Aberystwyth (deepest, darkest Wales). Just a few old guys (mmh at least 30 y.o) who didn't want to play with us kids in case we damaged their precious games. Never quite understood their attitude although i guess at 18 we were probably pretty annoying.

rah · August 26, 2003, 10:40

The only thing worse then damaging their precious games, is never using their precious games.

Jon Miller · August 26, 2003, 14:05

squad leader kicks ass

I haven't played it (or ASL) in over a year though

I have all the SL expansions and about half the ASL ones

Jon Miller

Stuie · August 26, 2003, 15:16

I have played wargames solitaire for the most part, and was overjoyed when computers advanced to the point that they could provide some sort of opponent.

Beyond that, I had one friend that would play occasionally, but he moved, and my brother would play when he had time (he left for college when my interest began to peak and then moved out right after college).

The "wargame" club at my high school was more into Warhammer than historical wargames.

rah · August 26, 2003, 15:38

One nice thing about having a twin brother, there was always a skilled opponent. And we could play the Avalon Hill games and leave the board setup for days.

lord of the mark · August 26, 2003, 16:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Stuie
IThe "wargame" club at my high school was more into Warhammer than historical wargames.

we were not only into wargames, we even had one or two people who really got into grognard type stuff.

Keep Stuy High!

And that was the old campus on East 15th Street. SPI was on East 23rd St, off Madison Square, IIRC. So I got to actually buy my SPI games over a counter, instead of by mail.

Never met Dunnigan or anyone like that though. Probably should have organized a club event to try to do that.

Grumbold · August 28, 2003, 10:04

I was introduced to wargames when I was about 10. The school art teacher was a Wargame nut who also had a knack for inventing really simple rules for people to play out a battle in 2-3 hours which still kept the essential tactics true. We played endless Ancients, Napoleonic and WW II battles on 8' x 4' tables using those old plastic figures you could get. No way ere we allowed to touch his personal armies though, those were works of art.

A little while later we got some English Civil War figures and the first D&D and fantasy battle rules started appearing. Not long after that we all started having enough cash to buy some of our own armies and boardgames and the variety exploded.

ravagon · August 29, 2003, 02:15

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
One nice thing about having a twin brother, there was always a skilled opponent.

Is this another twin brother that we don't know about?

I used to enjoy a number of different wargames with friends in high school but unfortunately they were on the way out by the time I got to Varsity.
Replaced in many peoples minds with all the latest GW miniatures series. More cumbersome to prepare and less satisfying to play IMO...

rah · August 29, 2003, 10:04

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon

Is this another twin brother that we don't know about?

Not quite.

Our older brother is only 18 months older than us, but monopoly was about the limit of his board playing skils.

Ming · August 29, 2003, 10:20

And the odds are... he would flip the board if something bad happened...

I was in a "The Strategic War Gaming Society" when I was in college. We played games every Saturday.

Our best accomplishment was playing War in Europe.
We had 20 people playing the different countries with the larger countries with multiple generals. We set it up and took it down each week. It took us over a year to play.

Oh... and the Germans lost... and a year earlier than in real life

Cookie Monster · August 29, 2003, 11:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
And the odds are... he would flip the board if something bad happened...

I was in a "The Strategic War Gaming Society" when I was in college. We played games every Saturday.

Our best accomplishment was playing War in Europe.
We had 20 people playing the different countries with the larger countries with multiple generals. We set it up and took it down each week. It took us over a year to play.

Oh... and the Germans lost... and a year earlier than in real life

That was and still is my dream!!! To play a game such as mentioned above with many people.

It's too bad that things like family, children, and work get in the way but when I'm ready to retire I know what I'm gonna do!

There must have been some serious secret discussions going on during that game. Good stuff

Standup · August 29, 2003, 11:59

Played Atlantic Wall with four players and it worked really well. One of the German players refused to risk his Panzers and he felt the other German was trying to draw him into the battle. The allies also fell out as they struck out for different objectives and the Americans got stuck on the beach because the Brits didn't want to provide the extra support to help them get off it.

We were a bit concerned about the lack of specific objectives for individual players but didn't actually need them in the end as everyone fell out with their ally.

lord of the mark · August 29, 2003, 12:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming

I was in a "The Strategic War Gaming Society" when I was in college. We played games every Saturday.

We called ours "the strategic gaming club" - it was the '70s in New York City, and you didnt want "war" to prominent. Which led to considerable amusement when i discovered (much later) comp.sys.ibm.games.war-historical, and found out that they considered games like EU off-topic since you could win without fighting a war.

Tamerlin · September 5, 2003, 05:19

Some friends and I are regularly playing at World in Flames (we are about to start a new game) and we have tested Empire in Arms. I have never been in a Wargamer's club as I have a group of friends with which I can play regularly.

For those of you that still know friends with whom they would like to play but can't because you are now living too far away from each other I recommend Cyberboard.

rah · September 5, 2003, 08:19

CIV MP online has been a godsend for reuniting some of the old wargamer club members. We may have scattered across the US, but we can still get together to game. (25 years later)

Ming · September 5, 2003, 11:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Haupt. Dietrich
That was and still is my dream!!! To play a game such as mentioned above with many people.

There must have been some serious secret discussions going on during that game. Good stuff

While it was a pain to set the game up every week, and record the positions at the end of the day... It was the game of a lifetime. And yeah, no chance of doing something like that again.

The secret meetings were great... We had some spare rooms off the main gaming room what we used. When the German High Command would get together, people would lean over and try to hear stuff through the door

Knowing this... The Russian High Command (the team I was on - I ran the production end... insuring we would have air superiority when we counter attacked, and restructering the tank groups to be strong enough to handle the panzers), would get together and talk very loudly of things we WEREN'T going to do, figuring somebody was listening

It was the best gaming experience I ever had. It helped to be on the winning side.

Sarxis · September 5, 2003, 13:34

I wanted to setup a wargaming club who played a variety of war boardgames. But then I got my first PC, and that idea went out the Windows.

Heh, get it? Windows?

rah · September 5, 2003, 16:39

Anybody ever play the wargame
Amoeba Wars?

A fast paced war game. The rules were real tight, so arguments were few.

It would make a great PC MP game.

Urban Ranger · September 5, 2003, 22:41

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Anybody ever play the wargame
Amoeba Wars?

Excellent game.

I wonder why it has never been computerised. The rules are simple so the AI would not be hard to do.

Paddy · September 6, 2003, 10:23

I was in a 25 mm Napolenonic Club....

there was a lot of passion in the hall on meet nights... hahaha

dice flying everywhere...

to see my lines of British Red coats marching across the table... very inspiring

rah · September 6, 2003, 19:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Excellent game.

I wonder why it has never been computerised. The rules are simple so the AI would not be hard to do.

I wasn't even thinking of an AI, but you're right. It wouldn't be hard. THe rules were not only simple, they were tight.