PERSONAL NEWS: Our Gaming Histories!
Hi Guys,
I'll join in! It's always interesting to hear about the gaming histories of others and to share your own.
This thread can be found here:
EpiComms » Extra Boards » General Discussion » Gandalf the Grey's Gaming blog
http://www.epic40k.co.uk/epicomms/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=10;t=4990;st=0
My Gaming History:
The 1970s - My Beginning in Gaming:
- I started out wide-eyed and ready to play anything. I didn't have much money at that time so any miniatures I could get my hands on were cool by me. I mostly took hand-outs or bargain bin specials in the 1970s.
- I really got into fantasy when Chainmail came out and wanted to play all the great battles of Tolkien's hobbit. The Ralph Bakshi movie really inspired me and is still a favorite despite its shortcomings.
- Starfleet Battles was another big interest and I was determined to build a viable Hydran fleet (Never happened...).
- I was also lucky enough to discover OGRE around the time it came out and still think it's an amazing game!
- I also got in at ground floor with Traveller and acquired a number of the famous LBBs!
The 1980s - A Time of Microarmor:
- I went wild in the 1980s and built up a sizeable 25mm fantasy collection, started a microarmor collection and started building up a sci-fi collection as well. I probably painted well over 300 25mm fantasy figures during this decade... mostly Grenadiers.
- Around the mid 1980's, I realized that I probably had at least four or five different scales of miniatures in my collections and came to a decsion that making five different sets of terrain was not a good idea so... I wrote some pros and cons and I decided to settle on one MAIN scale and minimize all other scales in my collection. I ended up deciding on 6mm AKA 5mm AKA 1/300 AKA 1/285. My favorite pieces were in this scale and it made the most sense. In retrospect, I'm glad I did this.
- I played a lot of microarmor games in the 1980s and probably tried almost every rule set that came out at the time.
- I concentrated my modern collections around the Arab-Israeli Conflict and built up some WWII collections as well... mostly for the early Blitzkrieg scenarios and Eastern Front.
- I also wrote a modern microarmor ruleset that became quite popular. I still see gamers playing it at cons and have even seen it sold at flea markets despite it not being much more than a set of fancy Xerox photocopies.
- Car Wars was one of the big games of the 1980s and I practically played it to death along with all of the later expansions for it. It is still one of my favorite games. I started building a x1 or 6mm car collection during this time.
- Some of the big sci-fi games came out too and I loved them all. I remember Battledroids, Battletech, Silent Death, Renegade Legion, Centurion and so many others. I'm not sure which of those games came out in the 1990s, but I liked them all. My 6mm sci-fi collection began to grow and quickly became my largest and most favorite collection. The early Martian Metals OGRE minis were amazing!
The 1990s - The Epic Generation:
- The 1990s were a golden time for me. I finally had enough disposable income to buy games & minis and I did!
- Adeptus Mechanicus, Space Marine 1rst edition, and Epic Space Marine 2nd Edition / Titan Legions dominated this time for me. I built up large Epic collections and this is still one of my favorite collections and by far the largest part of my treasured 6mm sci-fi collection.
- Dirtside II also came out at this time and is still a game I love. I bought a lot from GeoHEX and GZG and was sad to later see GeoHEX go out of business.
- FASA also sadly went out of business and Battletech and Centurion went with them.
- I also decided to take some chances and joined the service enlisting in the USAF.
- Oddly enough, I found a Traveller group while in the USAF and we played a campaign game for a several years.
- I later went overseas and primarily worked in esatern Europe and Russia. I also spent a little time in Israel.
- When I got back to the USA, Epic had been gutted and E-40k had both come and gone leaving E-40k miniatures in the bargain bins of gaming shops everywhere. It was sad to see yet another Epic game get superceded or otherwise poo-poo'ed. I picked up as many E-40k blisters as I could.
- I spent most of the late 1990s working full-time jobs and taking heavy course loads at university eventually ending up with several degrees. This really killed my gaming time in the late 1990s.
The 2000s - "Planetfall" & Enjoing Gaming Again! :
- I decided to get a teaching credential and started teaching in the early 2000s. I spent a lot of time either at work (hospital pharmacy) while I was earning my teaching credential or in classes.
- The best thing about the 2000s was that I let myself go and began gaming again.
- I found a local game store called Hobby Workshop and spent a lot of time there. I made a lot of friends and walking into Hobby Workshop felt like going into Cheers... we all knew each other and we all loved playing games... whether miniatures or board games. Sometimes we brought movies and watched them together.
- I played in a BFG campaign during this time.- I also played a ton of Epic games.
- The owner, Bill, is a great guy and I have very fond memories of his business. Games Workshop later drove him out of business when they decided to form a monopoly on Internet sales, which was most of Bill's business. It was a sad day the day that Hobby Workshop closed its' doors.
- I later earned my teaching credential and went on to teach in the classroom, starting with highschool science & mathematics and later moving to general elementary education.
- This was a wonderful time and I dedicated a lot of my time to helping others, but the whole education system frustrated me. It wasn't other teachers, but the infernal school district administration and the terrible CTA, one of the worst, most corrupt unions in existence. I left the teaching career behind in early 2005 and decided to move on.
- I moved on to a variety of side jobs in 2005 and decided to pursue a dream of mine... to publish my own game and do a good job of it.- I had been collecting notes and discussing ideas with small publishers for ages. I had researched small printers and acquired skills with desktop publishing. After speaking with Patrick Sweeney of Firefly Games, I decided to finally do it.
- "Planetfall - The Generic Universal Science Fiction Miniatures Wargame Engine" was born.
- It had started back in the 1980s as a set of house rules and scribbled ideas in a notebook and had evolved over the past two decades or so. It became a microarmor ruleset in the 1980s and a set of house rules for Epic in the 1990s. Now it is ready to become its' own game and I've put it into playtesting and development. I should be able to publish it in early 2006 or maybe even in late 2005.
- I now game at a local shop called Hobby Monkey and play whatever my friends do.
- Eric "Chern" Royer is one of my closet friends and we started playing Epic together in the early 2000s at the now defunct Hobby Workshop. He is well-known for his "Epic Army Card" website and we playtested much of the early Epic-Armageddon materials with each other.
- We formed a local Epic gamer's group and I started an e-group called CA-EA-Gamers to support us. The Epic fervor has died down, but the same Epic folks are still around.
- Eric unfortunately has burned out on Epic with all of the damned changes and indecision at Games Workshop and doesn't want to play it again for along time.
- He is a big Babylon-5 fan so we play the B-5 space game pretty often. We're currently in a campaign. I'm playing the Shadows and Eric is playing Earth Force. There are also Centauri and Drazi players.
- Eric also runs a Warhammer Fantasy cmapign so I'm actually playing RPGs again as well.
- Hobby Monkey also started a Formula De league and I decided to play in that as well.
- One of the highlights of 2005 was that I played a "Star Wars: Battle of Hoth" game using my "Planetfall" rules. It was blast and made my feel good because I'd made a New Year's resolution to do it. It always feels good to meet a vow and keep a promise. I spent a good part of Summer 2005 working on the Hoth minis set and am very pleased with it.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
I'll join in! It's always interesting to hear about the gaming histories of others and to share your own.
Primarch: It's been the other way around for me. In the beginning of my stint as a wargamer, I played everything and anything. I played Kyromek (...which has resurfaced), Leviathan (...from the defunct Grendel company), Warzone 1st edition, second and the latest (...probably the ONLY skirmish game I have ever cared for), Battletech, Silent Death, Heroquest, Space Hulk and Blood Bowl.
As time went by I have narrowed my focus to one dimension 6mm, mainly Epic with only 6mm WWII gaming squeezing itself in. I have virtually lost interest in skirmish 28mm games. They bore me to tears. I like feeling like a general when I game, skirmish games dont do it for me.
It is also a question of time. I have little of it. I no longer have the drive of attention span to get into a multitude of games and remain with just one.
Of course, outside wargaming I play D&D and DM a game for my old gaming group. So with these two things I pretty much satisfy my gaming needs.
This thread can be found here:
EpiComms » Extra Boards » General Discussion » Gandalf the Grey's Gaming blog
http://www.epic40k.co.uk/epicomms/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=10;t=4990;st=0
My Gaming History:
The 1970s - My Beginning in Gaming:
- I started out wide-eyed and ready to play anything. I didn't have much money at that time so any miniatures I could get my hands on were cool by me. I mostly took hand-outs or bargain bin specials in the 1970s.
- I really got into fantasy when Chainmail came out and wanted to play all the great battles of Tolkien's hobbit. The Ralph Bakshi movie really inspired me and is still a favorite despite its shortcomings.
- Starfleet Battles was another big interest and I was determined to build a viable Hydran fleet (Never happened...).
- I was also lucky enough to discover OGRE around the time it came out and still think it's an amazing game!
- I also got in at ground floor with Traveller and acquired a number of the famous LBBs!
The 1980s - A Time of Microarmor:
- I went wild in the 1980s and built up a sizeable 25mm fantasy collection, started a microarmor collection and started building up a sci-fi collection as well. I probably painted well over 300 25mm fantasy figures during this decade... mostly Grenadiers.
- Around the mid 1980's, I realized that I probably had at least four or five different scales of miniatures in my collections and came to a decsion that making five different sets of terrain was not a good idea so... I wrote some pros and cons and I decided to settle on one MAIN scale and minimize all other scales in my collection. I ended up deciding on 6mm AKA 5mm AKA 1/300 AKA 1/285. My favorite pieces were in this scale and it made the most sense. In retrospect, I'm glad I did this.
- I played a lot of microarmor games in the 1980s and probably tried almost every rule set that came out at the time.
- I concentrated my modern collections around the Arab-Israeli Conflict and built up some WWII collections as well... mostly for the early Blitzkrieg scenarios and Eastern Front.
- I also wrote a modern microarmor ruleset that became quite popular. I still see gamers playing it at cons and have even seen it sold at flea markets despite it not being much more than a set of fancy Xerox photocopies.
- Car Wars was one of the big games of the 1980s and I practically played it to death along with all of the later expansions for it. It is still one of my favorite games. I started building a x1 or 6mm car collection during this time.
- Some of the big sci-fi games came out too and I loved them all. I remember Battledroids, Battletech, Silent Death, Renegade Legion, Centurion and so many others. I'm not sure which of those games came out in the 1990s, but I liked them all. My 6mm sci-fi collection began to grow and quickly became my largest and most favorite collection. The early Martian Metals OGRE minis were amazing!
The 1990s - The Epic Generation:
- The 1990s were a golden time for me. I finally had enough disposable income to buy games & minis and I did!
- Adeptus Mechanicus, Space Marine 1rst edition, and Epic Space Marine 2nd Edition / Titan Legions dominated this time for me. I built up large Epic collections and this is still one of my favorite collections and by far the largest part of my treasured 6mm sci-fi collection.
- Dirtside II also came out at this time and is still a game I love. I bought a lot from GeoHEX and GZG and was sad to later see GeoHEX go out of business.
- FASA also sadly went out of business and Battletech and Centurion went with them.
- I also decided to take some chances and joined the service enlisting in the USAF.
- Oddly enough, I found a Traveller group while in the USAF and we played a campaign game for a several years.
- I later went overseas and primarily worked in esatern Europe and Russia. I also spent a little time in Israel.
- When I got back to the USA, Epic had been gutted and E-40k had both come and gone leaving E-40k miniatures in the bargain bins of gaming shops everywhere. It was sad to see yet another Epic game get superceded or otherwise poo-poo'ed. I picked up as many E-40k blisters as I could.
- I spent most of the late 1990s working full-time jobs and taking heavy course loads at university eventually ending up with several degrees. This really killed my gaming time in the late 1990s.
The 2000s - "Planetfall" & Enjoing Gaming Again! :
- I decided to get a teaching credential and started teaching in the early 2000s. I spent a lot of time either at work (hospital pharmacy) while I was earning my teaching credential or in classes.
- The best thing about the 2000s was that I let myself go and began gaming again.
- I found a local game store called Hobby Workshop and spent a lot of time there. I made a lot of friends and walking into Hobby Workshop felt like going into Cheers... we all knew each other and we all loved playing games... whether miniatures or board games. Sometimes we brought movies and watched them together.
- I played in a BFG campaign during this time.- I also played a ton of Epic games.
- The owner, Bill, is a great guy and I have very fond memories of his business. Games Workshop later drove him out of business when they decided to form a monopoly on Internet sales, which was most of Bill's business. It was a sad day the day that Hobby Workshop closed its' doors.
- I later earned my teaching credential and went on to teach in the classroom, starting with highschool science & mathematics and later moving to general elementary education.
- This was a wonderful time and I dedicated a lot of my time to helping others, but the whole education system frustrated me. It wasn't other teachers, but the infernal school district administration and the terrible CTA, one of the worst, most corrupt unions in existence. I left the teaching career behind in early 2005 and decided to move on.
- I moved on to a variety of side jobs in 2005 and decided to pursue a dream of mine... to publish my own game and do a good job of it.- I had been collecting notes and discussing ideas with small publishers for ages. I had researched small printers and acquired skills with desktop publishing. After speaking with Patrick Sweeney of Firefly Games, I decided to finally do it.
- "Planetfall - The Generic Universal Science Fiction Miniatures Wargame Engine" was born.
- It had started back in the 1980s as a set of house rules and scribbled ideas in a notebook and had evolved over the past two decades or so. It became a microarmor ruleset in the 1980s and a set of house rules for Epic in the 1990s. Now it is ready to become its' own game and I've put it into playtesting and development. I should be able to publish it in early 2006 or maybe even in late 2005.
- I now game at a local shop called Hobby Monkey and play whatever my friends do.
- Eric "Chern" Royer is one of my closet friends and we started playing Epic together in the early 2000s at the now defunct Hobby Workshop. He is well-known for his "Epic Army Card" website and we playtested much of the early Epic-Armageddon materials with each other.
- We formed a local Epic gamer's group and I started an e-group called CA-EA-Gamers to support us. The Epic fervor has died down, but the same Epic folks are still around.
- Eric unfortunately has burned out on Epic with all of the damned changes and indecision at Games Workshop and doesn't want to play it again for along time.
- He is a big Babylon-5 fan so we play the B-5 space game pretty often. We're currently in a campaign. I'm playing the Shadows and Eric is playing Earth Force. There are also Centauri and Drazi players.
- Eric also runs a Warhammer Fantasy cmapign so I'm actually playing RPGs again as well.
- Hobby Monkey also started a Formula De league and I decided to play in that as well.
- One of the highlights of 2005 was that I played a "Star Wars: Battle of Hoth" game using my "Planetfall" rules. It was blast and made my feel good because I'd made a New Year's resolution to do it. It always feels good to meet a vow and keep a promise. I spent a good part of Summer 2005 working on the Hoth minis set and am very pleased with it.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
Labels: Microarmour, Personal history, Primarch
posted by MaksimSmelchak @ 10:08 AM
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