Which 80s wargames and adventure games do you still play?

[pukunui]

I played the same games in the 70s.

The games we are talking about were not mass market, they were niche and usually found only at the local hobby shop, where they sold historical pewter miniatures for wargames, speciality trains, model cars and RC planes. TSR's D&D was the Trojan Horse that opened the doors for other non-historical indie companies to sell their games there.

I didn’t discover the existence of such games until I was a bit older in the early 90s. I remember getting a war game that was about re-enacting the battle of Gettysburg. I also got a game that was about B-17s going on bombing runs but it was far too complicated for me, and I never played it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

If you pull in the 90's and pull in card games, I still regularly play Vampire the Eternal Struggle CCG (fka Jyhad). I'm in ~25 asynchronous online games right now, and have played roughly 10-15 IRL games this year.

The one game I really would like to play from the 70's is the one that got me into this nonsense - Magic Realm. We played in summer of 1977 felt like every single day. Then one of us got the AD&D MM, another got the PHB in 1978, and that's all she wrote.

I wonder if Magic Realm holds up. Also, I'd have a hell of a time getting Rick Dave, and Jason all back together in Dave's basement with his older sister yelling at us from upstairs

 

[The Soloist]

I wonder if Magic Realm holds up. Also, I'd have a hell of a time getting Rick Dave, and Jason all back together in Dave's basement with his older sister yelling at us from upstairs

Read about it, never played it. Intriguing. Love the hex tile concept. The rules have been somewhat revised by fans. You can find the PDF in the files section of the game on BoardGameGeek.

 

[dbm]

There is a new ‘retro clone’ of Magic Realms - Dragons Down. Much easier to get hold of, and the rules have been cleaned up, too.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

There is a new ‘retro clone’ of Magic Realms - Dragons Down. Much easier to get hold of, and the rules have been cleaned up, too.

Certainly getting a bump from the 7.3 that MR has to 8.2. May have to track that bad boy down.

 

[SkidAce]

This has always been a favorite.

 

[MGibster]

you never heard of Car Wars? 1980 Steve Jackson Games it was inspired by Deathrace 2000 and in turn inspired GURPS Autoduel. It also had a 2002 update and card game.

I'm not surprised someone born in 1981 might be unfamiliar with Car Wars. I think it's heyday was actually in the 1980s and by the 1990s it's popularity had seriously started to decline until Steve Jackson Games stopped supporting it. I don't know if I ever played a game of Car Wars after 1991 or 1992 though it still has a place in my heart.

Star Fleet Battles was a popular game with my group. Recently found my SFB stuff and bought the updated rule book.

I stopped looking for SFB players about twenty years ago. I have a ton of material my friends gave me and was never able to find anyone interested in playing.

I'm hard pressed to think of a single game from the 1980s I still play. I last played BattleTech back in 2019. I own a ton of BT stuff, painted all sort of minis, but I haven't found the time to play it.

 

[MGibster]

This has always been a favorite.

This was a game my friends loved to play and I think we had all the expansions. It's biggest flaw was the game was pretty much over once someone got nukes. All the other players would attack that country before they could build an arsenal. Failing to defeat him, the player with nukes soon dominated the game.

 

[SkidAce]

This was a game my friends loved to play and I think we had all the expansions. It's biggest flaw was the game was pretty much over once someone got nukes. All the other players would attack that country before they could build an arsenal. Failing to defeat him, the player with nukes soon dominated the game.

We always wanted a 5 star win. My evil friend would research nukes and vuild just one, threatening to use it if we didnt agree to his politics. Cause if even one nuke goes off, the best you can have is a 4 star win.

 

[payn]

Anybody ever played Merchant of Venus by Avalon Hill and Richard Hamblen? I ask because I did a good amount of playtesting the FFG revision that came about 10 some years ago. Normally, I got one or two rounds of a playtest in before FFG was off to the printer. Though, as FFG was about to print their revision of the game, a lawsuit dropped. Apparently, Hamblen the designer thought he had rights to it. Hasbro bought Avalon Hill and so it was sort of a mess. I believe Hamblen was going to release his own revision, but that didnt happen. As a result of the lawsuit an agreement came about where FFG would release both their revision and Hablen's version in the same box (board is doublesided).

This ended up being an interesting experience as I got both FFGs idea of it, and the original intent. FFG version still had buying and selling, but pimping out your spacecraft suddenly became more what the game was about instead of a buy/sell trade route optimizer.

I ended up liking both versions, although I felt the original was better. It was cool to get two games in one, and wish that was more common.