Tuesday, January 17, 2012
A Portrait of the Wargamer as a Young Man
Reader Peter Byrne pointed me towards an excellent blog entitled Vintage Wargaming, which recently had a post about wargaming in the Twin Cities in 1966. The post included the following scan, which is from April 17, 1966 issue of the picture supplement to The Minneapolis Tribune:
If you blow up the image above, you'll be able to read the caption, which identifies the participants in this Napoleonics battle, two of whose names regular readers of this blog will definitely recognize.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Now those are some nice sweaters.
ReplyDeleteOriginal Gamestas.
ReplyDeleteJames, can't enlarge the photos. May I suggest deactivating the "Lightbox" feature in Blogger?
ReplyDeleteSetting tab> scroll down to "Showcase images with Lightbox"> Select "no".
In fact, all bloggers should do this! :)
Mr. Arneson as a young-ish man! - Interesting.
ReplyDeleteWot no beards?! :o
This is pure, uncut, history. Love it. Thank you for sharing this and the link!
ReplyDeletevw: warizat "war is at ... 936 W Hwy 36, St Paul, MN"
Love those glasses. :)
ReplyDelete(Pic enlarged for me just fine, fwiw.)
Looks like Walt Disney and pals planning out Adventure Land on a model prototype.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think there would be at least one cool Don Draper type in the mix. Some scotch and cigarettes is sorely needed there.
I like that they are all dressed up, a sort of gentlemen's club in the real sense of the term. I'm guessing there's classical music in the background and everyone has cherry vanilla tobacco in their pipes.
ReplyDeleteWarhammer 1.8K
ReplyDeleteNot only do you have the two Davids in the photo, but David Wesely got in touch with the Vintage Wargaming blog a little after the photo was first posted and mentioned that the table and scenery was later repurposed as the setting for his original "Braunstein" game.
ReplyDeleteLooks pretty much like what American Civil War wargaming looked like when as a kid I helped my uncle setup for his games in my grandpa's basement in the early 1980's. Ping pong table by day, battlefield by night. :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't know that they dressed up so much as that they just wore their everyday business or University attire. I have tons of shots of my Dad from this time period and he was always well dressed as well.
ReplyDeleteHow the times have changed.
The Vintage Wargaming site is amazing, who would have figured that there were OSR Wargamers too!!!
Okay, that's an awesome photo, but I have one question. What is that poster on the wall? Is it some kind of history poster showing different kinds of military uniforms? Inquiring minds want to know...
ReplyDeleteThe Vintage Wargaming site is amazing, who would have figured that there were OSR Wargamers too!!!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, there is a vibrant old-school wargaming community. For fans of Grognardia that are interested in seeing more classic style wargaming, could I recommend The Grand Duchy of Stollen - it's rife with eye-candy, the writing style reminds me of James's, and he may be starting soon on a refight of "the Battle of Sittangbad" (which is to wargaming what Keep on the Borderlands is to D&D).
This is like the exact opposite of Woodstock.
ReplyDelete@PCB - Great link!
ReplyDeleteIt may have been a case of dressing up for the news photographer....
ReplyDelete936 W. Hwy 36, St. Paul, MN -
ReplyDeleteThat would be not far from Victoria and Hwy. 36 - see here. Highway 36 probably got widened and walled since this article was written, so the street view doesn't show that much. As I recall from Dave, he said that finding other gamers was something of a hit-or-miss activity back then. This was probably a relatively large gathering for that time. Thanks, James!