Re: Beginnings? Re: That Age Thing

In a message dated 2/20/01 12:02:51 PM Central Standard Time,
devans@uneb.edu 
writes:

> Weirder still, I've just realized the planetary assault campaign I'm
> working on now looks very similar to, minus some orbital mechanics, a
space
> war game friends and I developed using a chess board and two copies of
risk
> in the about 1971. ;->

We created a naval miniatures wargame using the plastic ships from
Milton 
Bradley's "Broadsides". Each ship had its own index card recording EVERY

DAMNED GUN on board along with flotation and rigging damage boxes.
Actually I 
discovered miniatures through Donald F. Featherstone's book around 1963,
I 
guess. It was in my branch library when I was a sophomore or junior in
high 
school. Airfix miniatures and plastic model tanks became the rage. I
sent 
away for a set of small plastic soldiers advertised in a comic book when
I 
was about fifteen - A few hundred red and blue AWI figures. They got
used for 
everything from AWI to ACW to Napoleonics and more. Airfix World War I 
figures, their Arabs and Civil war stuff all got drafted. After reading 
Churchill's The River War, we slaughtered a lot of plastic dervishes in
those 
days.