Are you a Grognard?

[Wik]

Ah, Star Fleet Battles... I've played it far too many times against my dad, who has ALWAYS beat me with his fuggin' Kzinti battle cruisers. I think everytime I hear the word "Drone" a part of me deep inside goes into a panic.

Good game, though.

I've played that and DIPLOMACY, but not really too many of the others. I think "grognardism" isn't really my thing...

 

[diaglo]

Ah, Star Fleet Battles... I've played it far too many times against my dad, who has ALWAYS beat me with his fuggin' Kzinti battle cruisers. I think everytime I hear the word "Drone" a part of me deep inside goes into a panic.

Good game, though.

I've played that and DIPLOMACY, but not really too many of the others. I think "grognardism" isn't really my thing...

Captain's Log Stardate ENWurld 052006 -- the Gorns were demolished by the Kzinti yet again...

 

[Mark]

So are you a Grognard?

Yes.

So what war games have you played? What kinds do you enjoy? Miniatures? Historical? Board games?

I've utilized the excellent database at BoardGameGeek.com to put together a list of wargames I have owned and/or played over the years, my first being Tactics II in the very early 70s. I used their advanced search function and chose "wargame" as the only parameter. Some of the games that come up by that method might not qualify as a true wargame for some people but I will defer to the judgement of the database. I tried to avoid including expansions of games that are on the list, though I suppose with many of the games I have played with other people an expansion or two was included even the first time I tried them out. Naturally, there are a lot of games that aren't on that list that I have played as well.

I may have overlooked a couple on that list that I have played but I didn't want to be all day about it.

(The year is that when the game was first published, included to possibly distinguish it from other games of the same name.)

Stratego (1947)

Tactics II (1958)

Gettysburg (1958)

Risk (1959)

Battle-Cry (1961)

Broadside (1962)

How To Play War Games in Miniature (1962)

Dogfight (1963)

Stalingrad (1963)

Afrika Korps (1964)

Blitzkrieg (1965)

Confrontation (1967)

Jutland (1967)

Combat (1968)

Anzio (1969)

Panzer Blitz (1970)

Centurion (1971)

Chainmail (1971)

Luftwaffe (1971)

Breakout & Pursuit (1972)

Conquest (1972)

Decline and Fall (1972)

Don't Give Up the Ship (1972)

Winter War (1972)

Battle Cry (1973)

Panzer Leader (1974)

Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (1974)

Battle of the Five Armies (1975)

Caesar's Legions (1975)

Dreadnought (1975)

Punic Wars, The (1975)

Siege of Minas Tirith, The (1975)

Sorcerer (1975)

Spartan (1975)

Viking (1975)

Wooden Ships & Iron Men (1975)

Yeoman (1975)

Cromwell (1976)

Invasion: America (1976)

Lankhmar (1976)

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1976)

Swords & Spells (1976)

Lords & Wizards (1977)

Squad Leader (1977)

War of the Ring (1977)

Dragonlords (1978)

Mayday (1978)

Demons (1979)

Ironclads (1979)

Wizard's Quest (1979)

Ace of Aces (1980)

Barbarian Kings (1980)

Dragon Pass (1980)

Raiders and Traders (1979)

Adventure Gaming (1981)

Attila (1981)

Civilization (1981)

Cradle of Civilization (1981)

Cry Havoc (1981)

Demonlord (1981)

Ragnarok (1981)

Richard I the Lionheart (1981)

Broadsides and Boarding Parties (1982)

Car Wars (1982)

Dawn Patrol (1982)

Dragon Rage (1982)

Dragonhunt (1982)

Ambush! (1983)

Bug-Eyed Monsters (1983)

Axis and Allies (1984)

Battle of Five Armies, The (1984)

Demonwand (1984)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Battlesystem (1985)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Battlesystem Skirmishes (1991)

Greyhawk: Wars (1991)

Dungeons & Dragons Chainmail (2001)


Most of the wargaming I have done since the mid-eighties has been miniatures based or computer based. Still, I sometimes enjoy an old tabletop wargame and have added some I found while making my list to another list of games to seek out and play.

 

[pogre]

Grognard here. I remember fondly the days of going up to the Foreign Language Building at the University of Illinois to play the latest game Frank Chadwick and the boys from Games Designer Workdhop were cooking up. It's hard to believe, but those CITTW meeting (Central Illinois Table Top Warriors) meetings were weekly.

This week's game was the latest release a few months later. I have very fond memories of playing extended Blue Max campaigns - before the altitude rules of course. I was never a big fan of Command Decision but I was in the minority on that count.

I still play some miniatures games, but the only historicals I do these days are at cons. Champaign has a great little con called Winter War and all grognards in the midwest should come check it out. Frank is usually there along with Greg Novak and lots of other designers. Best of all there is table after table of historical miniature games!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nice list, Mark!

I loved Ace of Aces, and even have the fantasy combat game that was derived from it, Lost Worlds, in ALL of its incarnations! Even the Battletech and Knights of the Dinner Table ones...

 

[Thunderfoot]

Nice list - But you forgot
Shogun (aka Samurai Swords)
Fortress America
Conquest of Empires
Wooden Decks and Iron Guns
(and probably a whole list I'm forgetting in there some where)

Grognard - yeah

PS in the definition #2 is grunt - which is where the modern day slang for Soldier comes from (as in New Ugly Grunt (NUG))

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Shogun (aka Samurai Swords)

A buddy of mine just introduced me to that game in December- pretty sweet!

 

[Mark]

I've utilized the excellent database at BoardGameGeek.com to put together a list of wargames I have owned and/or played (. . .)

Nice list - But you forgot (. . .)

Your listed games were not ones I have owned and/or played.

 

[The Shaman]

Little Wars is the only true Wargame. All else pales in comparison.

Darn skippy!

Our LGS had a set of homebrew rules that were typed up (note: not on a word processor, but an actual IBM Selectric), slipped into acetate covers and a binder, and chained to one of the two sand tables in the back of the store. There was a module for Napoleanics, and a module for Colonial Africa - the latter was my favorite by far.

We also played Starfleet Wars - my Terran fleet was regularly humiliated by my friend's Carnivorans... :\

I also owned and played most of the Avalon Hill bookcase games - my favorite, then and now, is Tobruk.

 

[Hedgehog]

Yes, I'm a grognard (enough of one to feel bitter about Davout not getting a Corps command during the Hundred Days...).

I have a grognard cousin, 4-5 years older, who introduced me to wargames and RPGs.

I've played or owned:

Magic Realm (the grognard's RPG).

Tobruk

B-17 Queen of the Skies

Midway (my first wargame---with that double-blind fog of war search system--awesome!)

The Siege of Jerusalem

War and Peace

SPI's 'War of the Ring' with the Siege of Minas Tirith (called 'Gondor') and 'Sauron', a game depicting the battle at the gates of Mordor that had Elrond and Isildur in attendance

Squad Leader (my cousin's group still plays ASL, but I can't take it!)

Star Fleet Battles

I understand, but don't share, the negative sentiments sometimes directed at RPG-ers and D&D-ers by 'historical' gamers. I get in historical moods where I become so deeply fascinated by some historical period that the make-believe stuff seems trivial or silly. It's too bad for those who don't appreciate a good, epic D&D campaign; I think that they're missing out. Personally, I think guys like H.G. Wells and Lieutenant von Reisswitz would have liked D&D.

Interesting that the wargamer nickname (grognard) comes from the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic period. Here's a couple really interesting books:
Sister Revolutions by Susan Dunn -- compares the American and French Revolutions
(Red, White, and Blue versus Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge!)

The Fall of Napoleon : The Final Betrayal by David Hamilton-Williams

Worth a look if you're interested in the political issues that lead to warfare.


"War is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means." ---you know who said this if you're a grognard.