Your first cardboard wargame?

[Shad]

I'm a relative newcomer. My first wargame purchased was Ambush!, and first played was Into a Bear Trap (Against the Odds magazine) both in 2006 December when I was hospitalized for 6 weeks to have knee surgery in Japan (they make you do rehab in-hospital over there...)

Having grown up an avid videogamer, I turned to cardboard to get away from the computer for awhile... for the tactile draw.

What was your first cardboard wargame? and do you still own it?

[broadsword]

Avalon Hill's Jutland -- although it didn't get much actual play because you needed a huge floor to deploy the ship counters. The real first game that grabbed me was AH D-Day.

[Michael Murphy]

My first three games were AH's Afrika Korps, D-Day, and Stalingrad. I first encountered them back in 1972 when I first entered the US Navy. I bought myself copies of these within 6 to 8 months after playing them with my roommate in Hospital Corps School.

[waynebaumber]

1972?? I thought I was old, . Actually my first one would only be 2 years later and that was AH's Tactics II. Long gone now, I gave up hording games some time ago and now only have about eight games and really only play PG and that "other tactical WW2 game".

[Matt W]

AH's Gettysburg, the first edition with the squares, before game designers found hexagons. 1968 or so...

[vince hughes]

I'd played miniatures since I was 8 or 9 (72/73) but my first 'proper' board game discluding 'Escape From Colditz' and the like would have actually been Squad Leader bought in 1977 when I was 13 years old. But 12 scenarios was just not enough. I was so eager awaiting COI.

My main passion in wargaming was figures until perhaps recently from 2008 where I found I just could not be bothered to paint them and the like.

Incidentally, having been out of wargaming for many years from perhaps 1992 till 2008, it was PG that got me back into boardgames after I decided ASL was now just too heavy and voluminous to learn (OR re-learn).

[broadsword]

Actually, now that I think of it, my first wargame was even earlier than AH Jutland -- it actually was the American Heritage series of historical board wargames from the mid-1960s. I was absolutely hooked on a game called Broadside, a nicely done little game of the Naval War of 1812 using little red and blue miniature ships on the board (you lost a mast for every hit). I'd enjoy putting my head down at table level and squinting at the ships, seeing masts and imagining the smoke and belching cannon...I especially remember the beautifully researched and illustrated glossy historical booklet that told all about the real ships and battles -- nicer than most of the background materials that came with S&T or more serious wargames in later years.

[Shad]

My main passion in wargaming was figures until perhaps recently from 2008 where I found I just could not be bothered to paint them and the like.

Have you considered prepainted minis like AT-43? I was really interested in that but don't have a reliable opponent and I get the impression that minis are even less fun solo than cardboard!

EDIT - they're also really freakin' expensive!!!

[zaarin7]

Summer 1977 and it was second ed Squad Leader and Third Reich. My mom got them for my birthday because the box said book case game on it.

[dirk]

Waterloo - Avalon Hill - 1967. I liked reading about Napoleon and could not pass up a game on the subject.