Wednesday 14 July 2021

Five Games That Made Me The Gamer I Am Today: (1) Operation Warboard

There's an interesting little chain message going around wargamers on Twitter at the moment were, if you are tagged, you list the five games that made you the gamer you are today and tag five other gamers. A bit of fun but it did get me thinking and the old brain cells reminiscing. As you are limited by the number of characters on Twitter I thought I'd post a little more about my choices here...

1. Operation Warboard by Gavin and Bernard Lyall (1976)

I can't remember where I picked up this book but it was during my teenage reading frenzy of any book I could get on the subject of wargaming. I do vaguely remember my first wargame against my friend Andy on the floor of my living room using my HO/OO collection of Airfix figures and ROCO tanks and vehicles using (IIRC) some rules from a Donald Featherstone book. That however was a bit of a failure and never repeated and it was Operation Warboard which really launched me into wargaming with me painting up US and German forces and covering a table in railway terrain (including some wonderful plastic one piece hedges) for the first meeting of the Clevedon Comprehensive School Wargames Club in 1980.

Whilst the after school club soon folded due to industrial action by the teachers (seeing them not supporting after school activities) it was really here that my wargames journey began!

2 comments:

  1. Hello there Steve,

    I hope the other four will follow! Seriously though, I am not on twitter but if you did it on Facebook and via the blogosphere I would be all over it!

    All the best,

    DC

    ReplyDelete
  2. I remember persuading my mother to buy that exact book from an advert in Military Modelling; it showed the hardcover picture with a well painted second generation Airfix Africa Korps figure running with LMG
    I was underwhelmed at first but once I started reading it I was hooked! I remember making the MG cone and burst circle from clear plastic Airfix kit packaging and playing lots of games against my friend Stuart.
    I seem to remember becoming side-tracked by ancients and eventually getting hold of a copy of WRG 5th edition which was a culture shock!
    Neil

    ReplyDelete