I admit that I was a weird kid. In senior high school I was poor, had no car, and was thus severely handicapped in the dating game. What I had was a love of military history, a small income from summer jobs, and an older friend, David, son of my parents’ friends, who introduced me to paper war-games. Thus I had a subscription to SPI’s house organ, Strategy and Tactics, and an opponent who was happy to beat up on me on evenings when I should have been learning calculus (I never did). To this day, old hex and counter war-games, especially SPI titles and their distinct, slightly musty smell, are a Proustian gateway to the late 1970s.
Thus it was with great happiness that I discovered via Twitter a fellow who was selling off a considerable stock of old paper war-games. I took a bit of a risk in sending him money (I won’t disclose the sum but, while considerable, it was very fair) and then waited while the promised games were boxed. Once I got a legit tracking number, I figured he was a decent chap, and sure enough a box arrived last week, a sort of time capsule of SPI at the height of its powers in the late 1970s.
Two of these games are well known to me. I played Empires of the Middle Ages a lot in undergraduate days, and it probably cemented my desire to do graduate work in medieval studies. SPI’s Middle Earth trilogy was likewise something that I played, a LOT, though sadly I sold both titles during a period of youthful poverty.
The other two titles are ones I’ve wanted for a long time. Art of Siege features four famous sieges from Alexander’s siege to Tyre to Lille and Sevastapol in the gunpowder era. Never played, long wanted. Likewise, Campaign for North Africa is the Mount Everest of paper monster games. It has a legendary aura, as a ludicrously complex, unplayable white elephant, but as someone who once played Avalon Hill’s Africa Corps, it represents the extreme other end of the complexity scale from that legendary AH game. Will I play CNA? Maybe. Maybe I’ll die with it on the shelf. But I had to have it.
Did I say that these four games were unpunched?
Blessings to your die rolls.
MP+
Good scores, Michael! The only one of those four I have is Empires of the Middle Ages. It would be fun to see the whole collection you acquired. Not sure if I would ever play CNA either but it sure would be fun to have in the collection.
ReplyDeleteHi Jon: that's the whole acquisition, four games in one box. I thought they were worth every penny and the vendor was quite reasonable. I suppose I could sell them all on EBay for a lot more than I paid, but I won't. Maybe my wife will when I'm gone. ;) Empires was a great game, played it a lot in college, would love to try it with a full group of players but doubt I will. I'd love to try CNA at some point, there are lots of Excel files out there to help manage all the logistics.
DeleteA lucky find then Mike. And as for calculas, I can't even spell it!
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Have you every seen anyone out in the real world, DOING calculus? Me neither!
DeleteThose paper games have an allure all of their own. I admit to playing these very rarely, and I have a few SPI and other games I have never played. Two of those are SPI's 'Terrible Swift Sword' offshoots: Cedar Mountain and Pleasant Hill. I used the latter as the basis for a figure war game at the Club (which, for some reason I wot not, seems never have been posted on my blog).
ReplyDeleteI also have SPI's Desert Fox and, of all things, Global War (WW2) - which looks nigh-on unplayable. Everey now and then I might fetch the things out and have a look, but simply don't have the space to lay them out and play them.
Oh, well...
Ion
The TSS system had a life of it's own for a long time during SPI's lifespan. There was another monster game, Blood April, which used the TSS system for the battle of Shiloh. I've never tried it, though I do have TSS. You're right, the size and having a large playing area was always an issue with these monsters, I suppose that's what computer games were good for.
DeleteOh my! I was never much of a board gamer and only had a few, rarely played, but I did have the War of the Ring!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we ALL had War of the Ring back in the day, it was one of SPI's best sellers, Lord knows how they got permission from the Tolkien estate to do it.
DeleteI will happily try War of the Ring with you
ReplyDeleteIt's a crime that we can't get together more often.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be a great Compare and Contrast exercise to play both War of the Ring games.
I played the SPI game about 49 years ago: Elrond cheated, Sauron whined, and Frodo was confused.
Love both these posts, we really need to manage that, perhaps over the Christmas season. SPI's WOTR had a fatal flaw in the character game: Sauron could just park all his Nazgul and grizzlies at Mt Doom and wait for the Ringbearer and his friends to come along, then it was just one big brawl. The army game was better as I recall, but it was a while ago that I played it.
DeleteUnpunched!? Very nice find Mike! Here's hoping your duties allow you time and opportunity to enjoy/play these new additions to your hex-map collections.
ReplyDeleteFrom your keyboard to God's ear, my friend! :)
DeleteI had war of the ring , Sauron and Gondor all long ago sold on ebay but I liked Sauron and Gondor, never actually finished a war of the rings game! Nice chunk of nostalgia!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Over the last few years, I have re-collected many of the long lost SPI games of my wargaming origins in the 70s. They make me happy--I also think they more than hold their own as games, and not just as nostalgic indulgences.
ReplyDelete