My love for history began by pouring over various books in my fathers collection. Most of these centered around Naval battles and wreck diving. I would spend hours looking at the maps of various battles and fleet formations imagining what it would be like in the heat of battle. My father use to be a scuba diver and loved the sea. I think this is where I also got my love for maps. My dad's collection of maps with ship wrecks marked on them held my interest for hours.
My love for history, especially military history, naturally turned to playing with toy soldiers and spending hours recreating endless amounts of battles. In my teenage years, my mom remarried and my stepfather opened up a way for me to be apart of the history that I had read so much about. It turned out that my stepfather loved to play historic strategy games. One of the first games I played was Blitzkrieg. It as a made up continent and battle using the concept of lightning warfare as its basis. During this time, the Falkland Island war took place and my stepfather felt it would be fun to recreate the battle. He drew a map of the islands on cardboard which was saved from the back of note pads and taped together into a surface large enough for the battle we wanted to represent. Pieces were cut from card board and simple silhouettes were drawn on each piece to represent the vehicles we wanted.
Not long after this, I stumbled upon axis and allies. It was a really neat simple strategy game to play. It was hours of fun. Played it off and on over the years since then. After a long break, I have re-discovered axis and allies and found that they have created a version with a larger board and more types of pieces. The rules are still pretty basic compared to some strategy games, but still fun. Since I enjoy building models, i thought it would be fun to combine that hobby with war gaming. So I have begun collecting and painting GHQ micro armor and ships and Tumbling dice aircraft to eventually paint historically correct pieces for my axis and allies game.
My love for history, especially military history, naturally turned to playing with toy soldiers and spending hours recreating endless amounts of battles. In my teenage years, my mom remarried and my stepfather opened up a way for me to be apart of the history that I had read so much about. It turned out that my stepfather loved to play historic strategy games. One of the first games I played was Blitzkrieg. It as a made up continent and battle using the concept of lightning warfare as its basis. During this time, the Falkland Island war took place and my stepfather felt it would be fun to recreate the battle. He drew a map of the islands on cardboard which was saved from the back of note pads and taped together into a surface large enough for the battle we wanted to represent. Pieces were cut from card board and simple silhouettes were drawn on each piece to represent the vehicles we wanted.
Not long after this, I stumbled upon axis and allies. It was a really neat simple strategy game to play. It was hours of fun. Played it off and on over the years since then. After a long break, I have re-discovered axis and allies and found that they have created a version with a larger board and more types of pieces. The rules are still pretty basic compared to some strategy games, but still fun. Since I enjoy building models, i thought it would be fun to combine that hobby with war gaming. So I have begun collecting and painting GHQ micro armor and ships and Tumbling dice aircraft to eventually paint historically correct pieces for my axis and allies game.