I know this is an electronic gaming site, but I'm not having much luck with boardgamers on this topic, so I thought I'd try here. Feel free to direct me to another forum or site if you feel it's appropriate.

I'm looking for a board game that I played around 1980.

It was a strategic level game of a Tolkienesque or Conanesque fantasy/war situation. But, I do not recall that it was associated with any particular book. It might've been, but not the ones I was familiar with at the time time: Tolkien, Conan, Elric, Stephen Donaldson, Earthsea.

Basically, a wargame, with mythical countries, and some fantasy components. A vaguely European style continent occupying most of the board, with an ocean to the west with some islands. I believe it was hex based.

I was pretty familiar with the Avalon Hill and SPI catalogs at the time. Definitely not AH. Probably not SPI. Something more obscure, like GDW (??).

Mapboard was unlaminated paper, with no cardboard. I believe the countries had colors, terrain did not. Terrain was marked by symbols (for trees, mountains etc). in each cell. I remember thinking that it looked like someone had hand drawn an original map in india ink, and then had that mass produced.

Suggestions?

Was it Divine Right?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23/divine-right

That's the best suggestion I've gotten so far ... but the board looks too vivid. Boardgamegeek notes that the photos are a later edition. Anyone have a photo of an earlier edition?

Looks like there was an Elric one, with a few version, from 1977

Elric

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1628/elric

Barbarian Kings 1980

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3251/barbarian-kings

Dragon Pass

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1720/dragon-pass

War of the Ring

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2228/war-of-the-ring

*shrug*

Just dug up a few oldies.  Don't think there was a huge amount of hex fantasy wargames in 1980 was there?

Definitely not one of those four.          

I guess it couldn't have been Red Arrow/Black Shield, nor War of the Lance, as those were based on specific properties and the map descriptions don't sound right. (Also they had higher quality maps.)

For War of the Lance do you mean Dragons of Glory. If yes, then this isn't the one: it didn't come out until 1986.

As to Red Arrow/Black Shield, isn't that a role playing game? The one I am looking for is definitely not role-playing. The one I want is more wargame with fantasy elements, than fantasy RPG within a wargame.

The more I look at Divine Right, the less I think it is the game I'm looking for.

What I see as different is the way trees are used to mark forests.

In Divine Right they are conifers.

In the game I am recalling, they were mostly bare, deciduous tree. So the forests look very withered and gnarly.

P.S. I am also still recalling something with a board where the colors were less bright and vivid than in Divine Right.

I know you ruled out Avalon Hill, but are you sure it's not the old fantasy wargame Wizard's Quest?

If it was Avalon Hill, it would have a mounted mapboard.

Does that sound familiar.

Beast Lord? I think I still own that game - have to check in storage for it.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2709/the-beastlord

My friends and I had a ton of fun with that game when I was a kid. We really liked it.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/163986/barbarian-kings

SPI game but republished by others later.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/89725/barbarian-kings

This latter had a different map.

Definitely not AH. Not a mounted board ...

Not "The Beastlord" or "Barbarian Kings" or "Wizard's Quest".

"Divine Right" is the closest anyone has come yet, but it doesn't look quite right to me.

Also, circa 1980, I was fairly familiar with the TSR catalog ... and when a friend produced this new game they'd just bought to play with the group I recall that I barely knew the name of the company and was curious about their other products. This makes me think it was not a TSR game, and thus not "Divine Right".

Knights of Camelot

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1780/knights-of-camelot

List of boardgames in 1981 TSR Catalog

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/6230/gateway-to-adventure-1981-tsr-catalog

Well ... I've looked at all of these.

And ... Divine Right seems the closest to my memory ... so I'm content to close down this thread with that answer.

Thanks for all the suggestions. If anyone comes up with a new one, feel free to add it to the list.

Originally Posted By drtufte (22 FEB 2012 1:10pm)

For War of the Lance do you mean Dragons of Glory. If yes, then this isn't the one: it didn't come out until 1986.

 

As to Red Arrow/Black Shield, isn't that a role playing game? The one I am looking for is definitely not role-playing. The one I want is more wargame with fantasy elements, than fantasy RPG within a wargame.

(For Great Trivia! {g})

Yes the board game version (as I had forgotten) was called "Dragons of Glory", but the computer version of the same exact game (produced by SSI) was definitely called "War of the Lance". Since it was more convenient for my brother or I to play that version (whether solo or against each other), it took over duties from the boardgame, which no doubt explains why I remembered its version of the name.

RA/BS was also a role-playing game but the RPG was utterly incidental to the wargaming portion. My brother and I routinely played it without RPGing at all. (The largest computer program I ever wrote was a multi-thousand line monster converting the combat rules to a format for quicker resolution, and so that my brother and I couldn't accuse one another of doing the math wrong. {g})

Back to suggestions: I was going to suggest "White Bear & Red Moon", but that was reworked to "Dragon Pass", and you thought that was definitely not it. And DP fit your description better than WB&RM anyway. (Both had paper maps with hexes and deciduous tree art, but DP had the nations colored in instead of the terrain, while WB&RM featured minimum color mostly involving the terrain. On the other hand I wouldn't have described the trees either way as "gnarly"--the trees are fluffy foiliage with no trunks to speak of.)

Here is a site with the pre-DP editions of WB&RM anyway, just in case: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10884/white-bear-red-moon

And here are photos of Dragon Pass again from the same site, just in case: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/87306/dragon-pass

I'm happy to keep replying if you're enjoying the trivia ...

1) I don't see a board anywhere for Red Arrow/Black Shield. If there was a wargaming aspect to it, do you have a link?

2) I looked over White Bear & Red Moon, and that's definitely not what I'm looking for.

3) Now, Dragon Pass has possibilities. I wish I could get a closer look at the board than the URL you sent.

I am still leaning towards it having been Divine Right, but from an earlier version than what is shown on BGG.

I think you're a little confused about what I said: the game I recall definitely had colors for countries not terrain. It's just that 1) the colors were much drabber than in the Divine Right images I've seen, and 2) Divine Right has only conifers, and I distinctly remember bare deciduous trees in the terrain marking some place where you didn't want to go if you didn't have to.

Originally Posted By drtufte (26 FEB 2012 12:10am)
2) Divine Right has only conifers, and I distinctly remember bare deciduous trees in the terrain marking some place where you didn't want to go if you didn't have to.

The trees in DR are definitely deciduous (green leafy, not pine needly) trees, as the closeups from the site linked indicate. However, they're leafy and not bare (in fact practically no trunks or branches are shown at all), so definitely not gnarly. So not what you're looking for.

RA/BS used a paper map and tons of chits. No link at the "boardgamegeek.com" site; Wikipedia briefly mentions the wargaming aspect. Back when SSI held the D&D license, they more-or-less ported it over, in a very very very much simplified form (and minus any of the RPG plot), to "Fantasy Empires". (Which my brother and I also played the hell out of.)

At the time we got the game, I'm not sure I had even heard of "Dragonlance", but due to the cost involved in working up the map and the chits very little original artwork was provided for the game (except portraits of the Desert Master and his chief subordinate, modelled pretty clearly on the Ayatollah Khomenie and Muammar Qaddafi), so the cover shot features obvious draconians taken from an early Dragonlance milieu project!

I can't find any mapshots of the game online yet; I may try to take a snapshot at the house (I'm at least 80% I know where it's at) and upload. But it's based on an existing property (it's actually the culmination of one of the ongoing plots of the X series of D&D modules, the first modules created for the Expert Series rules.) So it can't be what you're looking for. (Also, I'm reasonably sure that the terrain is what is primarily colored, not the nations.)

I have looked over the original map for Divine Right, and concluded that this is the game I played with friends one Saturday afternoon circa 1980.

I was thrown a bit by the vivid 25th anniversary map, and didn't spend enough time initially looking over the photos of the earlier map.

Also, after blowing that up and looking around, I think the bare trees I recall are the "Thorn Flats" just below the center of the board.

FWIW: the image is not very sharp, but I'd call most of the trees on the board conifers. I'm not sure what you're seeing Jason?

I have no recollection of the game mechanics though: I look at those cards and counters, and none of them look familiar.

Anyway ... I think I'm good to go ... thanks folks!

Originally Posted By drtufte (27 FEB 2012 11:34pm)

 

FWIW: the image is not very sharp, but I'd call most of the trees on the board conifers. I'm not sure what you're seeing Jason?

 

Sorry, I hadn't noticed you had switched back to talking about Divine Right. I haven't seen that board (in any iteration). I thought you were still talking about Dragon Pass (although following your topic switch I used "DR" as the abbreviation!)

That explains it. I did see the DR in your post and thought you were talking about Divine Right (you can see the board at BGG if you're interested).

I never played Dragon Pass, but I do see the deciduous trees there.

Even so ... thanks your help and interest!

You could be thinking of something that was a free givaway in Dragon magazine or other similar mag of a game like the one you described.

I recall one such strategic free game that was included in an issue. Beyond that -I have no idea.