Ah, the wargames of the Dim Days.

As much as we like to think that Avalon Hill began wargaming, it was alive and well in England earlier.

My dad brought back a set of board games from the UK, sometime around 1952.  Dover Patrol, L'Attaque, and Tri-Tactics.

My brothers and I played them a lot.  They were all Stratego variants, but he said you could find them in any large store near the book sections.

Also, as much as we want to focus on the wargaming, Avalon Hill had many titles of a non wargame nature, such as Squander, Journeys of St. Paul, and Neuchess.  According to the AH General Manager, Tom Shaw, they paid the bills.  The wargame selections was the love of the company, but it was too niche, not enough buyers.  Tom also put together the General and wrote most of it.

And there was a limited run of a boardgame, Tactics.  It had round headquarters chits. 

Ahead of its time, there was no interest in the title.  It had problems, which were addressed, sort of, in Tactics II.

Thanks for the walk down "memory lane".  As a kid in the 60's I played ALL of the wargames mentioned above - often by myself (playing both sides) because at that time there were not a lot of other kids into taking the time to learn how to play.  I still have most of the AH games I played as a kid.  The first computer I purchased (late 80's) was done so strictly to play AH's computerized versions of their wargames.  I thought I had died and "gone to heaven".  Since then I play wargames exclusively on the computer platform against the computer "AI" or another human opponent, but still have very "fond" memories of the AH board wargames of the 60's.

Tom

"As much as we like to think that Avalon Hill began wargaming, it was alive and well in England earlier.

My dad brought back a set of board games from the UK, sometime around 1952.  Dover Patrol, L'Attaque, and Tri-Tactics.

My brothers and I played them a lot.  They were all Stratego variants, but he said you could find them in any large store near the book sections."

Quite - L'Attaque 1909, Dover Patrol 1919 & Tri-Tactics 1932. Avalon Hill eventually caught on...

Originally Posted By TomTSims (18 JUL 2012 9:16am)

Thanks for the walk down "memory lane".  As a kid in the 60's I played ALL of the wargames mentioned above - often by myself (playing both sides) because at that time there were not a lot of other kids into taking the time to learn how to play.  I still have most of the AH games I played as a kid.  The first computer I purchased (late 80's) was done so strictly to play AH's computerized versions of their wargames.  I thought I had died and "gone to heaven".  Since then I play wargames exclusively on the computer platform against the computer "AI" or another human opponent, but still have very "fond" memories of the AH board wargames of the 60's.

 

Tom

 

There are definitely things a computer can do well--fog of war and taking care of complicated mechanics are the biggies.  The computer can also facilitate long-distance gaming.

On the other hand, a well-designed tabletop game is such a joy to play with real people, particularly if it is dressed up with a snazzy War Room and period music. 

I am looking forward to showcasing SPI's games in the Golden Age.  There are a lot of great, forgotten classics out there.  And if I don't play them, who will?

Wonderful article. Avalon Hill's Afrika Korps still captures my imagination & enthralls me all these years later just seeing a picture of the game. Thanks very much.

Did you collect all these old games?

While you mentioned Kriegsspiel and H.G. Wells, you seemed needlessly dismissive of commercial miniatures, no doubt unintentionally. It's interesting to note that Jack Scruby and Donald Featherstone were publishing entire books on military "war games" during the early years, and there was an entire community of "war gamers" well established in advance of Charles Roberts. Modern commercial board wargaming has much more of a symbiosis with that hobby than most realize, and quite possibly commercial board wargaming as we know it may never have existed were it not for the pioneers of commercial miniature war gamers. Certainly the first tactical games such as PanzerBlitz were influenced heavily by miniatures (look at the rules for T-34, which were printed by S&T, who had also developed TacGame3, which eventually became PanzerBlitz, the first tactical level board wargame set in the 20th Century). PanzerBlitz became the all time top seller according to Jim Dunnigan. Squad Leader and its follow ons is probably second, and John Hill was a miniatures designer (famous later for Johnny Reb!). In fact, if you look at original print ads in the 1977 time frame that Squad Leader was released, it actually references miniatures gaming in the copy, and the first editions of Squad Leader were marketed directly to miniatures players.

There are other examples - the Panzer/Armor/88 trilogy by Yaquinto, for example, heavily influenced by miniatures rules and in fact rewritten later, as I recall, into miniatures rules.

Jack Scruby was publishing War Game Digest as early as 1957 and the term "war game" was synonymous with table top, or miniatures, gaming. It was only later, as Avalon Hill grew and the number of board games and the companies that produced them made the enterprise profitable and socially acceptable that the term 'wargame' became immediately associated with boardgames, kind of the same way we now refer to a wristwatch as a "watch" whereas 100 years ago, the word "watch" would have immediately called to mind what we now call a "pocket watch." As things become more frequently encountered, word meanings evolve to capture the most common associations. There was definitely a battle, whether they would have recognized it as such or not, to decide what type of gaming would be most commonly associated with the term "wargaming". In many ways, I suppose, there still is, as we now have computer gamers thrown into the mix, and on a daily basis, people debate in various media the question "What is a wargame?"

I think you're right, and I apologize for sounding dismissive.  The two hobbies are definitely intertwined (though their seems to be a fairly wide divide these days). 

I don't know that T-34 is really a fair example, though.  PanzerBlitz was a full-fledged hex and counter wargame.  The adaptation for miniatures was not a successful one and was an attempt to bridge the gap between board wargamers and mini wargamers.  It was not successful (mostly because it was lame). 

Originally Posted By Michael Dorosh (4 AUG 2012 7:29am)

While you mentioned Kriegsspiel and H.G. Wells, you seemed needlessly dismissive of commercial miniatures, no doubt unintentionally. It's interesting to note that Jack Scruby and Donald Featherstone were publishing entire books on military "war games" during the early years, and there was an entire community of "war gamers" well established in advance of Charles Roberts. Modern commercial board wargaming has much more of a symbiosis with that hobby than most realize, and quite possibly commercial board wargaming as we know it may never have existed were it not for the pioneers of commercial miniature war gamers. Certainly the first tactical games such as PanzerBlitz were influenced heavily by miniatures (look at the rules for T-34, which were printed by S&T, who had also developed TacGame3, which eventually became PanzerBlitz, the first tactical level board wargame set in the 20th Century). PanzerBlitz became the all time top seller according to Jim Dunnigan. Squad Leader and its follow ons is probably second, and John Hill was a miniatures designer (famous later for Johnny Reb!). In fact, if you look at original print ads in the 1977 time frame that Squad Leader was released, it actually references miniatures gaming in the copy, and the first editions of Squad Leader were marketed directly to miniatures players.

 

There are other examples - the Panzer/Armor/88 trilogy by Yaquinto, for example, heavily influenced by miniatures rules and in fact rewritten later, as I recall, into miniatures rules.

 

Jack Scruby was publishing War Game Digest as early as 1957 and the term "war game" was synonymous with table top, or miniatures, gaming. It was only later, as Avalon Hill grew and the number of board games and the companies that produced them made the enterprise profitable and socially acceptable that the term 'wargame' became immediately associated with boardgames, kind of the same way we now refer to a wristwatch as a "watch" whereas 100 years ago, the word "watch" would have immediately called to mind what we now call a "pocket watch." As things become more frequently encountered, word meanings evolve to capture the most common associations. There was definitely a battle, whether they would have recognized it as such or not, to decide what type of gaming would be most commonly associated with the term "wargaming". In many ways, I suppose, there still is, as we now have computer gamers thrown into the mix, and on a daily basis, people debate in various media the question "What is a wargame?"