Re: An introduction

Beth Fulton wrote:
> Anyways
> Derek happened to be at the bottom and he asked me out etc. 5 days
later I
> stumble across his Starfleet Battles minis (carefully hidden so as not
to
> cause me to panic and flee) - a door was opened, other people play
too! 

My wife felt much the same way. It was only on the second date that I
found she had her own model railway set, and the third before she
admitted to owning a copy of Panzerblitz.

My own history:
1967 - Played a few games with Airfix Romans & Ancient Britons as part
of the history lessons at boarding school. Learned about Pila etc
1968 - Hiatus, family emigrated to Australia.
1970 - New School (in the CBD, near shops). Picked up a copy of Donald
Featherstone's Naval War Games. Became interested in Fletcher Pratt
rules, looked up many stats about various ships. Located Fred T Jane's
original rules in a musty old copy of Jane's Fish and Chips of 1899 in a
local library. Started carving balsa ships (badly).
1972 - Having dropped History at school (I was too interested in it to
be  confined by the curriculum) it was some time before I found that the
School I now attended had just opened up a Wargames Club. Napoleonics
only, first with Donald Featherstone rules, then Wargames Research
Group. 
1973 - Joined the NSW Wargames Confederation (now a mere branch of the
Sydney Wargames Club). Had my first game of Ancients (WRG 2nd ed).
Bought SPI's Napoleon at Waterloo. Mainly into Paragon's WW1 Air Wargame
at this time. Started collecting GHQ Microarmour for WWII.
1975 - Had a look at D&D. Wasn't impressed at first sight. By this time,
had been involved in double-blind games (CinCs in a different room from
the one the table was in, subordinates requesting artillery etc
support).
Bought NORAD (Conflict Games), Battle for Hue, and had written my own
Vastly complicated modern air rules (involving great quantities of
look-up tables, cardboard analogue computers/circular slide rules etc
1976 - Went to Uni. First game of D&D. Got hooked. Later on, introduced
Phil McGregor (author of Space Opera) to D&D.

I've worked on various Combat Team Trainers, which has meant that I tend
to shy away from things too realistic and contemporary (been exposed to
too much classified material, so I know what some of the real
innaccuracies are). SF and Fantasy takes up most of my time now. In
boardgaming, I've gone from Air War down to Settlers of Catan in terms
of preferred complexit, but still like a good game of World in Flames
whenever I can get it.
   
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