I thought it was really cool how they made a competitive game out of such an asymmetric historical event.

Basically, Germany is going to tear through France; the allies win by slowing the invasion and running out the clock. It's virtually impossible to actually stop the invasion.

I could never win as the German unless my opponent made colossal mistakes. If he played a competent game, I could drive to Lenningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, even take one or two of the cities but then run out of gas for lack of adequte replacements and end up being defeated.

My first AH game was Alexander the Great, I still have it!

There's a thriving little niche/cottage industry of games like that still being produced and played all these years later.

And the Euro-style and modern board game hobby is enormous these days, of course.

The German units from one game worked in the other and I'd somtimes play a US/GB vs. Soviet scenario.

Where I dominated the board with an artillery piece I carted to the top of a hill in a horsedrawn wagon, having lost every other effective unit I had. My friend couldn't get rid of that thing no matter how hard he tried. The combat table just was never in his favor.

I gave that horse an Iron Cross for his heroism and service on the battlefield in turning the tide of war.

I loved those games. My friends and I used to loan each other the rulebooks for a week, so that we all could study them in excruciating detail before we began our next showdown.

My gamer friends have died or moved on, so these days, I play Memoir '44. It's nowhere near as deep or involved as those AH/SPI games of old, but it sort of recaptures the spirit of those games. And it's simple enough and fun enough that my wife (and even my mother-in-law!) will play it with me.

But only vaguely....

and it's fun but it, along with Munchkin, does suffer from what we called "Steve Jackson Game Syndrome"... Which is to say that the person after the first person to make a serious bid to win usually wins.

Played Traveller, have heard of Illuminati and Stellar Conquest!

Not familiar with Stellar Conquest, but I've played the others, including both versions (original and CCG) of Illuminati.

... they never got the market share that DnD got. Didn't get Illuminati, though, read the books instead. Stellar Conquest was fun, but I never heard of Cosmic Wipeout. One has visions of surfing the Solar Wind.

-- Mal

DnD.

I highly recommend Cosmic Wimpout. It is a dice game and at $3.50, there is no better game for that price. We carried it and played on backpacking, mountaineering trips, train trips, etc.

May be a bit obscure, I suppose.

I think it was after a kid broke a collar bone. Or maybe his arm. But we were fierce aficionados of the game.

Most schools would turn down flat a request of that nature.

There were a lot of injuries at schools that tried to play this game, but it's because they didn't follow the actual rules. Most of the injuries centered around the fact that the referee needed to flip a FRESH Spanish peseta to even start the game.

The only one I still play on a regular basis is Cosmic Wimpout.

These games were popular on college campuses in the mid-to-late 70s and early 80s.

Mayday...Mayday...we are under attack...main drive is gone...turret number one not responding...Mayday...losing cabin pressure fast...calling anyone...please help.

I learned algebra just to play Traveller and I'm familiar with Illuminati.