To All the Wargames I’ve Loved Before (Part 1)

Last week on Twitter I talked about all the different wargames I currently own in anticipation for the arrival of A Song of Ice and Fire. Now that it’s in my hands, I thought I’d take a look back on my wargaming history and all the wargames I’ve played in the past.

Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar. I got involved in Warhammer Fantasy as my first wargame with 5th edition. The first minis I purchased were a box of plastic wood elves, and then I moved onto Brettonians and Dwarves. Today, I own a Brettonian army and Dwarf Army, as well as High Elves and Skaven, as I work at getting them all converted over and painted for Age of Sigmar. Unfortunately, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE ARMIES are unsupported for Age of Sigmar, so I’ll be playing them for casual games. I do own the Warhammer 6th Edition rulebook, but I honestly do like the AoS rules, as well as the round bases.

Mordheim. I ended up getting into this one with my best friend. He took the Skaven, and I ended up with the humans, the buildings and rulebook. I ended up playing a TON of this. We would get together every couple of days with a bunch of friends and run big 10 person all-vs-all games, chopping off miniatures hands when they’d lose hands, greenstuffing eye-patches on when they’d lose eyes, etc. I’m actually going to be heading back to Mordheim this fall with my friends as we play once again. Still trying to decide on my faction.

Warhammer 40k. I have been playing 40k since 3rd Edition, and played 3rd, 4th and 5th. I own about four thousand points in Space Marines, specifically the Celestial Lions, which I’ve been playing since I discovered them in the Armageddon Codex, which my brother and I played in, making one of the most fun summers of wargaming ever. When I got a copyediting job at FFG for a couple of months, I spend a ton of that money on an Imperial Guard army, which then spent a ton of time on a sprue before I sold a bunch of it. I now own a collection of IG, Sisters of Battle and Eldar in addition to my Space Marines.

Pirates of the Spanish Main. I ended up getting into this one when I worked at Getaway Games, when it first came out. I was picking up a ton of the stuff, and I continued through the Pirates of the Revolution set, so I have whole shit ton of ships, from the first four sets or so. I can probably put a hundred sailing ships on the table at once. The game is nice, simple, and so fun.

Rocketmen: Axis of Evil. I loved this one, despite the fact that there was only two releases. I picked this one up working at Uncle’s Games. The game plays like Pirates, but with 1960’s style spaceships.

Wizkids Crimson Skies. I own everything for this clix-based game except for the Black Swan’s squadron, which is impossible to find online. The game had a cool system for simultaneous movement and different speeds. It ran quickly and had a lot of cool-looking ships. Plus I love the lore, and would love to run an RPG in that world sometime.

Confrontation. I remember back in high school finding this French website for a game called Confrontation which had some cool werewolf-looking creatures. We were able to translate the site (this was in like 2001,) and figure out how to order a couple of Wulfen. It took MONTHS for them to arrive, but they were very cool metal minis. We never had the rules. About 2 years back I saw Troll & Toad was selling the starter box for the game with two factions, one of which was the Wulfen. The minis were prepainted and plastic, but I snatched it up for like 20 bucks. I now own the rules and those minis, but haven’t ever played the game. I just use the minis and terrain for RPGs mostly. The rulebook sits on my shelf. If I could get a hold of more minis, I’d probably take a look and play it.

X-Wing. I started picking this up when it first came out, and continued to buy. I own a bunch of it, including the big Rebel Blockade Runner, but I prefer the more strategic Armada-style battles. Speaking of…

Armada. I own a bunch of Imperials with about enough Rebels to form a standard force. I also bought two different Blockade Runners off of Shapeways, one of which has a hangar bay, the other is the Sundered Heart. Modifying some others, I’ve got enough CR-90’s to make a force of them on their own, which is pretty cool. I love the idea of the rebels having no identical ships, but the Imperials should always be their boring grey. I’ve been thinking of picking up a couple more Interdictor Cruisers to add to the one I have already, since they’re cheap on Amazon right now.

Heroclix. I can’t even number the amount of this I have. I worked at a game shop, and would buy up any commons and uncommons came through that interested me, since we’d open up a couple of cases for individual sale upon release. My stuff is mostly Marvel, and I also own a TON of different maps. At this point, you could probably lay out the whole of Manhattan in my house with the maps to play across. I’ve played it since first release, took a break from it for a while, then got back into it back in 2008 or so, where we actually built some 3D tables to play on, my preferred method.

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I’m gonna stop there for today! There’s still a ton of games to cover! We’ll wrap this up later this week!

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