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strange question yes. but im not sure when i started wargaming.

i do however remember some of the things that were going on when i was a new player.

1. the 1st tau dex was out.
2. i can remember the nids getting thier new dex
3. i can remember the Black templars before they had a dex
4. i belive i started playing during the transition from 3rd ED to 4th ED rules.


it has been bugging me lately not knowing the year i started. so i thought i would post, and let all the old timers have a ball with it.

When I was a kid, I used to draw a map representing buildings as seen from above. Each
side had an equal number of buildings, and some of the buildings had special abilities. My
friend's received pennies, which could be upgraded to nickels or downgraded to dimes. I
don't know if I could afford to give my friends quarters.

Each turn one player would "bomb" the other player's city by flipping the coin in the air.
Wherever it landed destroyed or damaged the building that it hit, removing whatever
bonus the other player received from that building.

Good times.

Do Americans play the game Battleship and do you consider it a wargame?

Not counting Battleship and the eminently cooler Submarine, my first board game would have been 3rd grade. The one, the greatest, the terror of Panzerblitz.

I don't know if it counts, but I blame Risk for starting me down this path. It was soon after getting bored with that when I discovered second edition Battlesystem. That was first game that I actually painted miniatures for. It wasn't until after I got my entire circle of friends sick and tired of that that I discovered warhammer fantasy battles, back when all of the army lists were in one book.

Frazzled wrote:Not counting Battleship and the eminently cooler Submarine, my first board game would have been 3rd grade. The one, the greatest, the terror of Panzerblitz.

I have some great memories of Panzerblitz.

My first proper wargame was an SPI game about one of the wars between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations. I can't remember its name now.

Old game called Samurai Blades.

Still have it somewhere with 100% Of the counters. Bloody good fun that was!

Cry Havoc, Samurai Blades and Siege. Fantastic games, especially when you combine them in SAMURAI SIEGE HAVOC!

All my copies are lost.

The same company did a rather fun wild west game called Thunderin' Guns.

I remember in 8th grade a friend brought a copy of Rogue Trader up to school and some gaudy craptacularly Testor's drenched Space Orc's (back when they were spelled like that on the pewter tab) and I thought how cool that was. We all chipped in and bought 2 boxes of Space Marines and 4 or 5 blisters of Orks. Then when the Squat box came out I bought that and the old plastic IG box and I have been hooked ever since.


Anyone else remember Freebootas? The 1st ed ork book that had about a million and one ways to kit out an ork? We HATED when the ork guy showed up to play as it would take an hour for him to make a 10 man squad...


This is all of course ignoring your bread and butter "board games" of course.

1990.. First year of High School.

1st ed 40k


3rd ed WHFB


Dungeons and Dragons

Im in the same boat, im not sure when I started. I bought my first minis in 98, but cant remember if I played a single game with them. First memory I have of gaming was in 05, so I really can't be sure.

I too blame risk for making me the gamer I am today. God was that game frustrating, but you cant spell frustration without f-u-n.

anyone play axis and allies? I love that game, and it's sitting right next to me... collecting dust... grumble...

but my first wargame was 40k, 2nd/3rd edition, back in 1999/2000. first unit was a bloodthirster, second was a dozen khorne berzerkers. back when they had funky rules...

First model was the nazi headed , pot bellied, cloven hoofed Plague marine with plague knife, back in 96.

Real plague marines carry butter knifes!

sexiest_hero wrote:First model was the nazi headed , pot bellied, cloven hoofed Plague marine with plague knife, back in 96.

Real plague marines carry butter knifes!

To cut there plague butter and scrap plague butter over the toast of plagues and eat it on the plate of plagues.

Well,if we are counting games such as Risk,Battle ship,Stratego (remember that one?) then I've played "War" games for as far back as I can recal .
However,my first encounter with 40K was in '95, a friend of mine played both Chaos and Space marines and I played a few games .
I enjoyed it and wanted to get an army of my own,however at the time I was newly married and my only job to speak of was playing bass in a local heavy metal band,so extra money for " little plastic men" was not an option.
Skip ahead a few years ( and one divorce) to '99 (or was it '98) and my then girlfriends brother had just purchased the 3rd ed box, the one with the Dark Eldar , he gave me the Dark Eldar minis and away I went,within 6 months I had 1500 points of DE and was gaming every week.
10 years later (and several girlfriends) I'm still hooked on 40k,lost 3 armies in hurricane Katrina and have rebuilt 2 of them with 2 more on the way.

I loved stratego! My first Wargame with minis was some Game that had a Large floor mat and groups of models on Hexagon bases..... Does anyone know the name of this game? I would love to buy it again!


After that I worked at a haunted house for two months just to afford the WHFB starter and some paints! To bad I found out that all the people at my local hobby shop played 40k So I scrounged up some cash over the next 6 months and bout a used tyranid force of about 750 points (1000 if I really stretched it) this was all second ed. and I alway got hammered by those damn Vortex grenades!!

Good times!