perfidy

Birthday. Joy. Happy. Stuff. All the rest of that crap.

And about the gift card... yeah... you just wait RIGHT there. I'm headed to the store right now so don't go anywhere.

Well happy birthday, senor Buckethead.

Are you officially crotchety yet?

Ian

That thing is way too small for an Iowa-class Main Battle Tank! What they need to use is a modified Nasa Mobile Launcher Platform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Launcher_Platform).

Of course it would need to be converted to nuclear power. After the 16" turrents are installed, they can put phalanx systems and sea sparrows for air defense. Some 25mm chain guns and 120mm cannons along the sides would be useful for direct defense.

B,
What we need to do is hire Steve Jackson as a consultant on the BB(N) Iowa-class MBT. He thought it out pretty well 20 years ago.

Someone should get you the Buckethead poster for your b-day.

Ringo has single 16" gun mobile artillery.

I just happen to have most of the original Ogre games handy. Still fun to play if you can find someone geeky enough to want to.

Ted,
*Sigh*

I gave away all that stuff shortly before I enlisted. I felt like it was for children, and I was a grownup about to do grownup things. Now that I'm 35 and on the cusp of midlife crisis, I wish I had my toys back.

I had "OGRE", "GEV", "Shockwave" (and even "Battlesuit") all in original pocketboxes. I had "The OGRE Book", a collection of short stories, "Space Gamer" articles, and scenarios.

Matter of fact, in the same cardboard box I had...I think it was Victory Games' "Second Fleet" and "Seventh Fleet" games. "NATO: The Next War In Europe" also. Um, "Air Cav" prolly too.

I don't know what became of my "Car Wars" games- they were purged as well but I don't know if they were in that batch or not: "Car Wars", "Truck Stop", another pocketbox module I don't remember the name of, a referee's screen, maybe a half dozen issues of "Autoduel Quarterly".

Btw did you know that loyal Ministry minion Ian contributed fiction for the "Car Wars" universe? S'true:

http://www.ianthealy.com/Author.htm

GL, I had VG's NATO (still might) and Second Fleet. I know I still have VG's The American Civil War on my shelf.

GL, I still have all those games you listed, and a bunch more from SJ's Metagaming days (Rivets, Warp War, etc), including a whole box o' Car Wars stuff and mucho "The Fantasy Trip". Oddly enough, the only wargame I played before enlisting was Tactics II, a very abstract Avalon Hill game. Winter in North Dakota was conducive to game playing, and we'd get together with alcohol and games and just go for days.

I've played I don't know how many wargames. But you know what I miss? Axis and Allies. We used to play that in college, and it was a perfect blend of sufficient complexity to be interesting, without so much complexity that it was too much of a pain in the ass to play.

We'd play to all hours after we shut the coffee shop down, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and rolling lots of red and white dice.

We even made a complete set of extra tech rules. When the Axis got the orbital space lasers, it was all over.

Axis and Allies was never my kink. Not sure why. A little too much "Risk" maybe. And the one time I played it, the guy who was teaching me was utterly without mercy and handed me my ass in short order.

Now, VG's "NATO..." was a sick, sick game. Divisions the basic unit of maneuver. The map, Western Europe with some slices to the south and east, and north to include Denmark. All ground units sporting spiffy standard NATO symbology (a block of instruction I readily aced at my AIT a couple years later, naturally!)

The one time I played an entire game of "NATO" took something like 12 hours. If ever a game was invented that required a staff to play it, that was it.

Now, Ken and Ted, you can find a few NATO v Pact scenarios in The Operational Art of War. Buy it. I believe it's a Talonsoft product; the latest version is III- the only one that's WinXP compatible. The computer does all the number crunching, so you only have to maneuver and plan. Come to think of it, it still might take 12 hours to play if you agonize over decisions. But at least the machine is doing the paperwork.

Matter of fact, I just started one last night, a Nato-Pact rumble but set in 1962.

Damn how I loved Axis and Allies. I ran out and bought some s/w for the PC with the game. It just wasn't the same. I need the interaction and the dice rolling.

One of my other favs was when we did Risk with two boards. One the traditional Risk board, the other the "Castle Risk" board of Europe. We made all sorts of 19th Century "colonization" rules... It was fun... And geeky.
By the way...

Happy Day Mr. Buckethead.

We should have an Axis and Allies Saturday. Ted, ML, I'm sure we could find two other people who'd be into it. If the weather's nice, we could kick it old school, on my deck with some beers and cigars. I've got complete game, and I might even be able to find the tech rules...

Axis and Allies day! Woo hoo! Great idea.

How about Bastille Day? The 14th of July is clear on my calender, and we can mock the French role of wallflowers in the biggest war in history.

VG's 'Seventh Fleet' was it for me. My brother constantly went after the New Jersey just because he knew how mad it made me, victory conditions be damned.

Murdoc has (gasp) never played A&A.

But he cut his teeth on Panzer Blitz WITHOUT ANY RULES in the box. So Murdoc made up rules and we warred away. Interestingly, though I had never played anything more complicated than Risk, the rules were amazingly close to the real thing. As I recall, the combat results table (attack vs. defense values) was on the box (or maybe scenario cards) so we did have that as a starting point. This was when Murdoc was in 6th or 7th grade.

I could never figure out why EVERYONE wasn't making up their own war simulation rule sets at the time. Then Traveller arrived, followed shortly by AD&D, and Murdoc was never the same.

Oh, and happy BD BH.

Heh,

I played my first wargame in 1968. It was a set of rules by Brigadier Peter Young for WWII gaming. We used boxes of Airfix Afrika Korps, 8th Army and whatever else we could get, plus 1/72 scale model tanks. Tons of fun for us kids, since now we could REALLY play with our toys.

I've written a lovely beer&pretzels ruleset for viking-period games. Didi writing and playtesting for "The Companions" as well, both their Islandia and Behind Enemy Lines RPG systems.

Some of my favorite stiff was Ironclads, and pretty much anything else by Yaquinto, STAR GUARD by John McEwan, The Sword & The Flame, and the waykewl "SPACE:1889" series. Think "Zulus in Space" and you've got all you need to know. heh.

Never did much with Zombies, though. However, most of my current gaming is Warhammer 40K related. I like the modeling and scratch-build part.

Respects,

Oh...

Happy Birthday Buckethead!

Respects,

I have three different versions of A&A.

Had some fun playing, but the set-up takes an hour, and the game takes all night. Not many people want to play that late... it's a pity.

Hopefully I can arrange for us to start gaming in the morning one time so we can finish before everyone's ready to fall asleep.

Fun game though.