I must admit that you were probably the very last person on this forum that I would have expected to be a fellow war-gamer! I thought that you were far far too sane and sensible to occupy any of your time in such an entertaining and joyously insane and frivolous way!
To a large extent my time of such obscene (my ex-wifes judgement) pleasures is now limited to D and D once a forthnight!
And yes, I do have my sanity certificate. OK, it is over forty years old but I'm told it is still valid as long as I can avoid a re-examination!
Hi Owl.
Good grief, how you have me wrong, Owl. I suppose it's partly my own fault because I usually choose to comment on 'serious' subjects.
No, many a happy hour have I spent war gaming, usually Ancient battles with 16mm lead figures, occasionally Napoleonic battles. We sometimes had two people on each side, and an umpire of course, because it was essential in our case as we tried to get every ounce out of the Rules. Battles used to last about a day or 1 and 1/2 days in length. They often involved various members of our family(including my wife) and friends. I still have a fairly complete range of units(Balearic slingers, Cretan archers, Hoplites, Macedonian light cavalry, war elephants etc.) all most beautifully painted by my eldest son(who now runs a major graphic design business in London).
However you also mention D&D. We used to do that as well, taking it in turns to be the Dungeon Master. Whoever was the DM had to create their own dungeon, with all the traps, monsters, magic qualities etc. they wanted. We had some fantastic times. I remember once when my youngest son(he would be about 13 at the time) found a magic ring, put it on, and it forced him to say everything backwards(which, of course, we all insisted he should do).
We were in stitches. For some reason I was always Thorin, the Dwarf with my magic axe!
And, our company was usually led by Harpalychus(my brother in law, who had great knowledge of Greek mythology)
We also played other games like Cry Havoc. In one game, I managed to defeat all of the eight other players, apart from one other player and my wife,who was my wife also in the game and who also supported me in everything I did(in the game, that is). I was now assured of complete victory as the other player couldn't match me for power, when the umpire, who had been busily rolling dice quietly for some reason, suddenly said to me : "You have been poisoned by your wife and the dice roll says you are now dead.
" At that moment my wife punched the air and announced that she had been trying to do this for the last three moves. She then announced that she was now going to marry the only other remaining player. I lost, they won. I was shattered and gob smacked. I don't think I've ever forgiven her.
