In one tournement at Platteville WI, a buddy and I fielded 16 companies of mechs (192mechs) 9 companies of supporting armor and artillary and he even scratch built a Union and a Leapord class Dropship just so that they could be on the floor. We started at 7:30 am we finished at 9:00pm that night there were 15 functioning mechs/vehicles left on the board. The Union was grounded and the Leapord couldn't take off because someone had dropped a megascrapper in front of it (An Atlas was slugging it out with a Marauder II in the basement when the Marauder touched off the AC/20 mags and critted the Engine...it cascaded from there to the Hydrogen storage tanks for the Spaceport. One of the observing engineers (Platteville is an engineering campus) came back about 20 minutes later (we were still in the same turn) and wanted to know if we would include the probable results of the meltdown. The other GM and I asked what they were and a 400 story megascrapper came crashing down across the city. 22 mechs and 15 vehicles died because of an AC/20 ammo explosion.
Aside from being a die hard Battletech gamer, we also played Seekrieg. I could field a Free French task force, the IJN (yes all of it) and the Kriegsmarine (yes all of it) at 1:2400 scale.
Railroading games, 1840, Empire Builder, EuroRails, Railroad Tycoon I,II,III
Other RPG's, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, AD&D 1st edition, Shadowrun II & III, Earth Dawn, Star Wars.
Not to mention the computer games, but there were/are enough of those, plus the Xbox.
Table top. Supremecy with all of the expansions. "I launch a Nuke in the air...."
Since I got married I have made a conscience effort not to game. My wife, my kids, my family, my cats, my railroad, in that order. Do I miss it. Occasionally, but not much. Will I play battletech with the kids? When they are older.
cahrnbut does anyone else here have a background in miniature games
Guilty. Looks like we have a lot of company.
DM since 1977. I still have an original 3 vol D&D boxed book set and a LOT of dice. I occasionally use the dice in my classroom to select questions or students. Some have never even seen a D20 .
I think gaming teaches us to think creatively (or die). "A giant pizza falls onto Ron's head. He is suffocating." (No one rescued him. He was a bit of a jerk.)
Karl
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
I've really only played board games (Monopoly, Hotels, Risk, Life, etc.) for fun with family and friends. Electronic games (Nintendo, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Sega Genesis), on the other hand, are another story. When I get into one of those, I can play it almost constantly if I have the time.
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I was huge into AD&D in high school and college. I was the DM and created my own world with maps, religions, city maps, politics, oganizations, the works. It was great fun! I also played GURPS -- we modified it for our brand of fantasy and also played some futuristic settings. Twilight 2000 was another one. Here is an unusual one -- Dr. No. That was a lot of fun. It has been a looooooong time since I played any role playing games, but I think I'll see if I still have my old D&D stuff still up in the attic. A little trip into the past could be fun.....
Modeling the Motor City
Fazby Played at GenCon
Ah the memories.....
cahrnIRONROOSTERI have also played the Might and Magic series As in Heroes of Might and Magic? HOMM3 is my all time favorite computer game, and I still play it often.
IRONROOSTERI have also played the Might and Magic series
As in Heroes of Might and Magic? HOMM3 is my all time favorite computer game, and I still play it often.
Both, although the role playing M&M series seems to have ceased. The HOMM series is my favorite conquer the world strategy game. Enjoyable without getting bogged down in details.
Enjoy
Paul
Had a 4x8 table in my bedroom for a train set, but as it was all old Hornby and then Tyco it soon died and we started using the table for HO scale wargames using matchbox and airfix tanks. That then evolved to System 7 napoleonics, D&D and a plethora of AH, Strategy & Tactics and Star Fleet Battles campaigns that a group of 8-10 of us played pretty well each weekend. Returned to MR via N scale and haven't seen any of the the guys for ages (probobably 10 years) now. Still play some computer games and prefer strategic games like Europa Universalis, and some Sim City and Railroad Tycoon .
I was an orignal play-tester for Larry Bond with Harpoon way back at Gen-Con in Lake Geneva in the 70's. He still remains a good friend. Saw him this summer at Historicon. Lots of good memories.
mononguy63Also very much enjoyed playing the Avalon Hill war games, like Squad Leader & Third Reich.
CTValleyRRBoot Hill,
Did anyone play "Space 1889"? I didn't hear about it until it had been removed from the shelves. I never found enough of the pieces to put together how to play.
I played Avalon Hill, SPI, Victory Games, and related wargames from the 5th grade on. Still do, from time to time. My boys are now into Heroscape and Talisman.
I was also an early D&D adopter (1974) and had played Chainmail, D&D's forerunner, since 1972. I still have my armies of painted figures. For a while, I played just about every role playing game published by TSR (and a couple of others -- Gamma World, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Traveller, and Villians and Vigilantes). I still run an AD&D campaign for my boys and some of their friends. My very first train layout was constructed on my miniatures gaming table.
Even today, I use my model making skills to construct playscapes for my son's 25mm (HO) WWII toy soldiers, and have designed a "mission card" system of operating my model railroad, where you pick a serues of cards which tells you which loco and rolling stock to use and what to do with them (cargos and destinations).
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Old D&D player. Played at GenCon when it was at Uof W in Kenosha WI. First edition, Second edition and started Third edition when I just got fed up with gaming and the rules. Gave all my stuff to the guys who kept playing.
Fazby was the Cleric Mage I played. Usually a Th.D is tagged on as a Dr of Thaumaturgy. I had the character create a flashlight with continual light in a tube. The DM went along beautifully. Then I created a flashdark with the reversed spell. That blew his mind.
Well, the games got you to think outside the box......
I started with minatures when I was around 8 or 9. My brothers and I had large armies of painted lead soldier flats. Later I played Avalon Hill's Tactics II, Gettysburg (the original pre hex version), Dispatcher, Afrika Korps, Waterloo, and others when they were new. Later on there was Magic Realm, Titan, Merchants of Venus Rail Baron, Civilization, and 1830 plus many others I have forgotten. I still play board games with my sons when we get together including several of the 18xx games, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, etc. .
I have played various computer war games including the original Civilization by Sid Meier. I have also played the Might and Magic series, Baldur's Gate series, and others. I played the original Railroad Tycoon and later follow ons.
Rail Baron for light hearted fun and 18xx for more serious games are the best railroad games I have played.
I played some S&T games; I recall a very large version of DNO (Drang Nach Osten) that we played at the MIT Noreascon (some name like that) convention around 1977. Dim memories. I also recall flogging a couple of companies of 1/285 German armor across a field and being shot to bits by Russian anti tank guns hidden in the edge of the woods. I think I lost every game I ever played at a convention.
As for using war game scenery, yes, I have some sand bag revetments ready for the 120mm AA gun battery that will be protecting the airfield on my WWII era East New York Railroad. And come to think of it, a number of the HO structures built for war games are now on the layout, as they are humble barns and sheds which look American enough. Not to mention the 19th century brick brewery building which did duty as a generic factory in the war games, and is now part of my main industrial area.
Played the classic Avalon Hill games when they were "new" - like D-Day, Gettysburg, Jutland etc. Also played some of the S&T games and even had a subscription to S&T for a while back in the late 70s early 80s.
My two favorites were Battle Fleet Mars and Starforce Alpha Centauri!
Haven't played in years though...
-Kosmo
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
rekleinCahrn, Pillboxes and bomb craters might be good for a scenario based on Europe just after the war or whats that system of models based on the premise that the war contunued to the present or the future,with all those fantastic floating tanks etc.? BILL
Im not sure, I did play some variants of mechwarrior, but thats pretty new school stuff. Anyhow I like my Southern Pacific just fine as it is!
MisterBeasley Gee, I wonder if we ever met in an earlier virtual life. I was "Captain Barfbag" on the Flight Sim forum. I got very good at playing with Traffic Tools and getting airport ground traffic to go where I wanted it to.
Gee, I wonder if we ever met in an earlier virtual life. I was "Captain Barfbag" on the Flight Sim forum. I got very good at playing with Traffic Tools and getting airport ground traffic to go where I wanted it to.
It's possible. I didn't spend much time at FlightSim.com after Nels took his site commercial. I did know him from his BBS days and on the old IUP flightsim listserv. My stuff for MSFS has all been sold through a distributor for quite a while. CoPilot has over 65,000 registered users:
http://www.abacuspub.com/catalog/s715frame.htm
Cahrn, Pillboxes and bomb craters might be good for a scenario based on Europe just after the war or whats that system of models based on the premise that the war contunued to the present or the future,with all those fantastic floating tanks etc.? BILL
AlreadyInUse As did I. I ended up writing quite a few addons for it: Airport and Scenery Designer, CoPilot, CoPilot Pro, EZGPS, CAP Search and Rescue and a few others.
As did I. I ended up writing quite a few addons for it:
Airport and Scenery Designer, CoPilot, CoPilot Pro, EZGPS, CAP Search and Rescue and a few others.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Cool to see there are a lot of people that game or used to game. I dont know if building war game scenery helped with my model railroad scenery though, I dont have much of a use for burned out pillboxes and heavy weapons pits on my layout... but I am planning a new one... hmmmm
Wow...there seem to be alot of us...
My focus was on wargaming. Avalon Hill...Gettysburg, D-day, Squad Leader. And how many of you remember Simulations Publications, Inc's Strategy and Tactics magazine? I still have a shelf full of the games included with each issue.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
MisterBeasley Next was Harpoon.
Next was Harpoon.
Now there's a nice memory. I loved that game. I still have the board version around somewhere.
MisterBeasley MS Flight Simulator caught my attention, and I got way too involved in it.
MS Flight Simulator caught my attention, and I got way too involved in it.
As a teenager back in the early 1960s, I discovered the early Avalon Hill games - Gettysburg, Tactics II, DDay and Dispatcher. I even created my own game - 4 countries, all separated by water, so the game was dominated by naval fleet actions. I even included rudimentary logistics. The game was playable, but realistically it was way too complicated for the pre-computer age.
Next was Harpoon. This was originally a board game, but it was so detailed that I found it unplayable in that version. The computer version, however, was superb. Unfortunately, computer power wasn't up to the task back then, and ownership of the product was transferred between gaming companies, with bad results. A year or two back I picked up a modern update of the old game, which seems to run very well and is quite stable. (It's a modern naval simulation, by the way.)
MS Flight Simulator caught my attention, and I got way too involved in it. As with trains, I'm more of a modeller than an operator. I got into the detailed add-ons, both for planes and for ground scenery. My wife was annoyed at how much time I spent on the computer, and suggested that I pull my old trains out of the attic. About that time, my hard drive crashed and I lost most of my detailed Flight Sim setup, so I dropped it completely and switched to trains. Now, of course, my wife is annoyed at how much time I spend on the trains. I think she expected a 4-foot square Martha Stewart Christmas tree layout.
Just a few miles from my LHS in Chelmsford, MA, incidentally, is a gaming shop called "Three Trolls." They also have a significant amount of Woodland Scenics stuff. In the front of the store is a large flat table with a grid, clearly used for large-scale miniature gaming.
I started with Morschausers' basic WWII armor and infantry miniatures games around 1963, didn't really stop until 1995 or so. Eventually we built company level armor units in 1/35, and played outdoors (in every kind of weather, including falling snow). Our rules evolved to a placed-shot system where every tank round was figured for dispersion, and measured out on the tank models. We did extensive research into armor penetration mechanics, and wrote and published a book (WWII Ballistics: Armor & Gunnery by Lorrin Bird and Robert Livingston). I learned a great amount about physics and metallurgy researching that book. And, I still have all the tank models.
Also played medieval combat miniatures, using our own rules. And a version of D&D we made up before D&D became famous. Played a 1/1200 naval game with modified Fletcher Pratt rules, in which we had to learn how to estimate range to the inch.
Most of my gaming has been with miniatures, is research based, and isn't with canned rules. Today, there are several WWII tanks on flat cars on my railroad, including some captured German equipment being shipped to an evaluation facility, along with an American 3" AT gun for live ballistic testing.
As a model railroader, rules and procedures are the farthest thing from my mind. I am more interested in the look of a scene, and the working of a locomotive. My other hobby is slot car building and racing, in which I became very involved in writing rules for historically accurate building and racing in 1/32 scale, but so far the railroads have evaded the rule mania.
In started my gaming career with the Swedish version of D&D. Then played most other Swedish RPG's. Then I tried out Rollermaster.
After that I started playing World in Flames. When I moved away from my parents I bought an apartment big enough so that I had an extra room just for WIF. It needs it. After that I got hooked on Warhammer Fantasy and it was while looking for terrain material I stumbled on to MR. I bought some scenery stuff and of I went on another crazy way to spend money.'
My kids are now old enough that they have taken an interest in WFB, my daughter is collecting Vampire Counts now and I play a bit with her, I used to take part of tournaments and consider my self a rather good player. I own every army except WE and CD. Neither of which I have any interest in.
I do believe that there is a correlation between the two groups. I.e miniature gamers and MR. They Are quite similar and I do believe that a hobby shop could make quite alot of money by showing there stuff for the gamers. As it is now it's two similar worlds but they don't cross paths. MR could teach war gamers about terrain and building structures. War gamers could teach MR about painting, especially people. I'm often astounded by the LACK of quality painting on the people on the layouts. Most good mini painters would laugh at the quality.
Magnus
cahrn armor save? whats that?... I played orcs!!!
now datz proppa!
GTX765, a baneblade? please. I have a looted one, plus 3 Gargants.....plus an Armored Krumpany, plus a def squadron, all 40k scale, etc.
if you're interested, you can check out my old site...I don't update it anymore, but it's still high on the Google list. If you hit the conversion section (da mekshop), you can see where I was developing my model railroading skills! I even had a couple of models in WD, but that was back when GW actually cared about gamers.
'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go!
I'm trying to model 1956, not live in it.
Interesting thread.
I may be too old to dig into role playing games or any other of that sort. My son started out on this some years ago and it got him into modeling his own figures and "battle fields" - don´t ask me the name of this game.
He never developed an interest in model railroading in the time when he lived with us, but now he is getting more and more interested in what I do. Keeps on asking me on modeling techniques and I guess it won´t be much longer now for him to start with a train....
I was a Battletech player, and my college friends and I would get serious from time to time about it. The most incredibly insane thing we ever did was a battalion vs. battalion game with 16 maps plus artillery, vehicle, infantry, helicopter, and Aerotech support. Turns took forever! FYI: a battalion is 3 companies, a company is 3 lances, and a lance is 4 'Mechs, so we were playing 36 vs. 36 Battlemechs. The game took several weekends to conclude.
I still have all my minis, over 100 IIRC, and I have most of the sourcebooks, maps, & novels from the pre-Wizkids era. But no Wizkids "Clickytech" for me. That's when I checked out. Going from a Universe where the primary weapons were autocannons, lasers, and gauss rifles to one where chainsaws were predominant? Ugh. Even worse, you went from a game where the minis were optional (you had the paper records where the info was kept) to a game where not only where the minis required, you couldn't just buy what you want...you had to buy sealed boxes and hope you got what you wanted. IOW, they tried to turn Battletech into Magic: The Gathering. I don't think it's worked.
Not to say I don't like Magic. I have thousands of cards. The problem these days is that I can't win against new players. I don't have the old power decks of the past where 1st turn kills were possible (Lightning Bolt-Channel-Fireball, etc.), and these new cards these days are just incredibly fast. You know it's a fast game these days when a pure burn deck can't do much damage. The only old deck I ever got to work against new players was my old blue/white/black Millstone & Denial deck with Circles of Protection. Oh, they hated that. I was pulling cards out they had never heard of ("Maze of Ith"?).
The other card games I played was the Star Trek: The Next Generation game and the Battletech card game. Both interesting, but just never got much hold on me.
I tried Fantasy Warhammer once. Hated it. In fact, I don't like any kind of role playing game. For all the years I played Battletech or Magic, I never pretended to be a Mechwarrior or a wizard. I'm not an actor and have no interest in developing characters. Real Life is full of enough characters that I don't have to invent any new ones.
I tend to treat my model railroading operations the same. I'm not pretending to be an engineer or a dispatcher. I am one that just happens to control little trains compared to big ones. IOW, I don't have any interest in wearing overalls, a denim cap, or red bandanas unless it's for Holloween.
Paul A. Cutler III*******************Weather Or No Go New Haven*******************
I am a full blown historical miniatures gamer and also a board gamer. Part of a group that plays every Friday. My interests are ACW (land and naval), AWI, anything else Naval. When I started building my layout, the design was against the walls so I would have room to set up a game table for board games.