Eric, I'm getting to the point where I have to force myself to not gallop after all the new and interesting games pouring into the market. Besides approaching the limits of storage I just don't have the time to invest in games, particularly those with an unfamiliar system. And of course there is the issue of what the local group wants to play. (Vassal sometimes works out well but sometimes not so much.) After 6 decades of gaming I need to grow up and show some discipline, difficult as that will be. To paraphrase what I think is correctly attributed to Frederick the Great, "Who wants to play everything will play nothing very well".
Thanks Eric! I wish I had found this site sooner. I will definitely post my thoughts, in fact I'm up early today to work through more of the scenario book!
I should mention that I had to play these monster games by myself. Sigh. Not much has changed since my teens except now my wife and kids look at me funny when I go down to the basement to play with 'my games'.
I retire next year. Thirty years in the Navy, your sister service. Only in my case, I will have approximately fourteen years of active service and fifteen or so years of reserve services. I started my career as active, then switched to the reserve side after eight years. I am currently attached to Military Sealift Command, but reside in Maine.
Interesting parallel, I also teach as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law. I would prefer to be teaching full time so that I could devote more time to writing about conflict simulation design, as well as playing. Perhaps in a few years I will be able to switch to part-time along with teaching, so that I may pursue game development more seriously, which is my other area of interest.
Eric, I got into Panzer Grenadier early so now I've got about 3 lifetimes worth of scenarios to play. I'd at least like to make a small dent in that before my brainpower fades. And on Thursday I might get a playing of SpaceCorp in with a group of my colleagues on a business trip, in the evening after our daytime meeting. This may sound strange until I reveal that my business is Planetary Science and my colleagues are all NASA-funded Planetary Scientists gathering for a Venus advisory group!
Thank you, Eric. Like you, I enjoy a variety of games, be they smaller faster games or monster games. I started in this hobby over 40 years ago thanks to my mother and her purchase of the 1965 version of Avalon Hill’s Battle of the Bulge. I still have that game. I am blessed with a large old sea captain’s home that affords me the room for two large game tables. This luxury enables me to have two or three sometimes more games going at once depending on the game and availability of time.
I have been recently replenishing my collection of AH and SPI games. AK or Stalingrad (or The Russian Campaign) would be good Vassal games to start with since they're familiar. Let me know if you ever slow down and want a game. Have to confess most of my gaming is computer now. Playing folks from all over in Matrix and John Tiller games of WW2, American Civil war, and Napoleonic's.
Well it was current about 15 years ago, give or take... I've been in the SF Bay Area for the last 9 years. I revamped the pocket logo and made the one for the back and took it to a T-shirt maker to have the screens made.
Thought it might be you. Phoenix now? Last remembered you were going to the East Coast. You should look on that wargamer locator on Google for that area.
Despite buying and even playing :-) some newer games I continue to fall back on my old favorites. The newer games sure are nice to look at but many of them rely on a complexity that saps the fun out for me. But that’s one of the many great things about our hobby, there are games for every taste. Are you a Marine?
Too many games, not enough time! The Poland Defiant looks interesting because it is one of those subjects that gets little attention. It would seem a hopeless situation, given the terrain that the Poles have to try to defend behind, but with a strict timetable, maybe the Germans will have a tough time if the Poles can stop them somewhere, temporarily.
Unfortunately, Pendleton and Phoenix are long drives from here, so it's not in the cards to do that to play a game. So I'm pretty much a solitaire gamer. Unless I run into a USMC club here. Not yet. I haven't seen advertisements for it. Right now, OCS and Tunisia II is on the table. I like it a lot because the supply rules really make you act more like a general, rather than every unit attacking every turn.
Unfortunately, I sold my big collection of 100+ wargames back in 2000. Stopped wargaming altogether until the last 5 years or so. Some of them were definitely not solitaire. Waterloo was a joke, compared to the games out there now on the subject. Midway and Bismark, I remember that those games probably would still be fun to play... But two player games! Squad Leader was fun, but so many rules!
The Hexasim Austerlitz game is outstanding. I really enjoyed the system, the components and had lots of replayability. And the BCS series is great, I've spent many hours on that system, still playing Patton's counterattack. Haven't gotten my copy of Brazen Chariots. Funny, I'm more an East Front guy, so I'm learning a lot about the Western Front. If you are into modern games, the GMT series Next War is really good, although I think they need to work on the EW part of modern warfare. It is amazing how much this facet of combat has changed even in the last 10 years with GPS spoofing, jamming of artillery and drones!
I don't know of anyone playing out here, but I haven't really looked. To be honest, the vast majority of my gaming was solitaire. I suppose I could start looking. I'll try my first wargaming convention in PHX in June and maybe I'll get the bug to play man-to-man! Yea, I would think that there are many opponents out in VA, with Washington DC right there and the bases.
Eric Walters's Comments
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I am playing Case OCS (ongoing weekly adventure) and S'42; just finished a VASSAL A'44.
Cheers
Eric, I'm getting to the point where I have to force myself to not gallop after all the new and interesting games pouring into the market. Besides approaching the limits of storage I just don't have the time to invest in games, particularly those with an unfamiliar system. And of course there is the issue of what the local group wants to play. (Vassal sometimes works out well but sometimes not so much.) After 6 decades of gaming I need to grow up and show some discipline, difficult as that will be. To paraphrase what I think is correctly attributed to Frederick the Great, "Who wants to play everything will play nothing very well".
Thanks Eric! I wish I had found this site sooner. I will definitely post my thoughts, in fact I'm up early today to work through more of the scenario book!
I should mention that I had to play these monster games by myself. Sigh. Not much has changed since my teens except now my wife and kids look at me funny when I go down to the basement to play with 'my games'.
Where do you live?
I retire next year. Thirty years in the Navy, your sister service. Only in my case, I will have approximately fourteen years of active service and fifteen or so years of reserve services. I started my career as active, then switched to the reserve side after eight years. I am currently attached to Military Sealift Command, but reside in Maine.
Interesting parallel, I also teach as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law. I would prefer to be teaching full time so that I could devote more time to writing about conflict simulation design, as well as playing. Perhaps in a few years I will be able to switch to part-time along with teaching, so that I may pursue game development more seriously, which is my other area of interest.
Eric, I got into Panzer Grenadier early so now I've got about 3 lifetimes worth of scenarios to play. I'd at least like to make a small dent in that before my brainpower fades. And on Thursday I might get a playing of SpaceCorp in with a group of my colleagues on a business trip, in the evening after our daytime meeting. This may sound strange until I reveal that my business is Planetary Science and my colleagues are all NASA-funded Planetary Scientists gathering for a Venus advisory group!
Thank you, Eric. Like you, I enjoy a variety of games, be they smaller faster games or monster games. I started in this hobby over 40 years ago thanks to my mother and her purchase of the 1965 version of Avalon Hill’s Battle of the Bulge. I still have that game. I am blessed with a large old sea captain’s home that affords me the room for two large game tables. This luxury enables me to have two or three sometimes more games going at once depending on the game and availability of time.
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Sounds like a plan.
I have been recently replenishing my collection of AH and SPI games. AK or Stalingrad (or The Russian Campaign) would be good Vassal games to start with since they're familiar. Let me know if you ever slow down and want a game. Have to confess most of my gaming is computer now. Playing folks from all over in Matrix and John Tiller games of WW2, American Civil war, and Napoleonic's.
Well it was current about 15 years ago, give or take... I've been in the SF Bay Area for the last 9 years. I revamped the pocket logo and made the one for the back and took it to a T-shirt maker to have the screens made.
We should set up a Vassal game sometime of a SPI or AH game.
T-shirt we designed years ago off the original logo of yours.
Thought it might be you. Phoenix now? Last remembered you were going to the East Coast. You should look on that wargamer locator on Google for that area.
Despite buying and even playing :-) some newer games I continue to fall back on my old favorites. The newer games sure are nice to look at but many of them rely on a complexity that saps the fun out for me. But that’s one of the many great things about our hobby, there are games for every taste. Are you a Marine?
Eric,
Too many games, not enough time! The Poland Defiant looks interesting because it is one of those subjects that gets little attention. It would seem a hopeless situation, given the terrain that the Poles have to try to defend behind, but with a strict timetable, maybe the Germans will have a tough time if the Poles can stop them somewhere, temporarily.
Unfortunately, Pendleton and Phoenix are long drives from here, so it's not in the cards to do that to play a game. So I'm pretty much a solitaire gamer. Unless I run into a USMC club here. Not yet. I haven't seen advertisements for it. Right now, OCS and Tunisia II is on the table. I like it a lot because the supply rules really make you act more like a general, rather than every unit attacking every turn.
Take care,
Joe
Howdy back. Seems to be a lot of Eric Walters in the USMC. I knew one in my Game Club at Camp Pendleton who moved to the East Coast.
Eric,
Unfortunately, I sold my big collection of 100+ wargames back in 2000. Stopped wargaming altogether until the last 5 years or so. Some of them were definitely not solitaire. Waterloo was a joke, compared to the games out there now on the subject. Midway and Bismark, I remember that those games probably would still be fun to play... But two player games! Squad Leader was fun, but so many rules!
The Hexasim Austerlitz game is outstanding. I really enjoyed the system, the components and had lots of replayability. And the BCS series is great, I've spent many hours on that system, still playing Patton's counterattack. Haven't gotten my copy of Brazen Chariots. Funny, I'm more an East Front guy, so I'm learning a lot about the Western Front. If you are into modern games, the GMT series Next War is really good, although I think they need to work on the EW part of modern warfare. It is amazing how much this facet of combat has changed even in the last 10 years with GPS spoofing, jamming of artillery and drones!
I don't know of anyone playing out here, but I haven't really looked. To be honest, the vast majority of my gaming was solitaire. I suppose I could start looking. I'll try my first wargaming convention in PHX in June and maybe I'll get the bug to play man-to-man! Yea, I would think that there are many opponents out in VA, with Washington DC right there and the bases.
Eric, nice talking to you, take care,
Joe
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