In the beginning....

Just to add a bit of backstory: before moving to Bath, Peter ran The Toy Soldier part-time out of his barn in Searsport, where he also taught school.  Nancy and I tracked him down in the spring of... 1975, I think, before graduating from college.  Played at least one AWI game there that winter; near froze to death!  Peter had acquired (for want of a better word; I don't know the details) the business from Don Lowry, who had operated it in Belfast from '72 to '75.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lowry

Don has lived out here in Southern California since then.  I have old catalogues stashed away from both the Belfast and Searsport operations. 

Taken all together, it's a remarkable story of continuity of wargaming in Maine for close to forty years.  Kudos to Tim for keeping it going!

Allen

I'm glad to hear people are moving forward in the absence of the Toy Soldier. I also first discovered it in the early 80's and basically grew up there myself. It didn't take me long to get the historical bug myself. I live about 2 1/2 hours from Bath, but If there is anything at all I can do to help in any way  please let me know. I currently game at Crossroad games when time allows, but unfortunately there are only a handful of us there that play anything historical. I would love to see something established as far as a regular place for historical gaming. I'm certainly not a carpenter by any stretch, but as I said I would like to offer my assistance.  If you plan on a weekend of work or even just a day let me know. I'll be more than happy to pitch in.

Allen, thanks for the additional backstory... somewhere I have a handful of 'Battle of Britain' boards.  Perhaps you remember them from Belfast/Searsport.  Thousands of uses....

Mark, thanks for the offer of help.  So far I have been gifted with a lot of help and more is always welcome.  I'll let you know... no work while the weather approaches. 

I hope we can count on you for a visit now and then when regular gaming gets going.

Tim

Hi Tim,

At the start of the thread you said you went from role playing to historical gaming.  I went from board gaming to historical wargames (AH, S&T, etc) to historical miniatures.  I wonder how most other people got into historical miniatures?

Bill

How I got into historical miniatures?

I started with board games. Most specifically with PanzerBlitz around '72. I was hooked and rapidly got into other board games as my allowance income could afford them. As a freshman at UMass I found the student games club and was exposed to many more board games that I never knew existed, and of course, historical miniatures.

At UMass I also was also exposed to FRP as well for the first time. So my student years at UMass were heavily engaged in boardgames, FRP, and historical minis. I wonder where I found the time to take classes? The games club met Wednesdays 5-midnight and Sundays noon to midnight in the Campus Center. It was a very active club and many non students participated as well. It was great getting the use of outstanding free meeting space twice a week.

One of my first historical games I played in was  a set of homerules for ACW, using thousands of unpainted Airfix figures mounted two per stand while crawling on the floor over huge battlefields. Ahhh, those were the days. Little or no responsibilities and tons of games to play almost every day! (Besides club meetings).

Then real life hit at graduation.

Mike

PS- At UMass we occassionally ran Masscon for a few years. I recall one con in particular where a group came down from Maine and ran a couple games. I'd put that around '82 or so. I'll go through my old photos and see if I can find any now familiar faces in the background....

 I would wager that we have covered in this discussion the two basic routes: i.e.  boardgames to miniatures and FRP to miniatures.

In my case it might have been that the Toy Soldier was so heavily miniature oriented; as opposed to boardgames and paper counters.  In fact, truth be told we had something of a visceral hatred for all things paper counter wise with one notable exception, Panzergruppe Guderian. 

I would also say that in general, there were only a few of us who were the FRP types )of my age group) who went on to miniatures/historicals.

Mike it might also be true that those were the days because we could get down on the floor to push troops around the gymnasium.  I'm still competitively young and wouldn't dream of a game that required the players to squat or crawl. 

Tim

I myself, like Tim started out on the D&D, went to Traveller and moved to historical.  This was with a group in Belfast that would game at James Dean's house in the late 70's and early 80's.  Every once in awhile we'd make a pilgramage down to Bath for miniatures and stuff from the Companions line.  We'd also carpool down to the conventions in Portland, sleep in the gym and game like crazy.

In the very early 80’s, as a sophmore in High School, a neighbor and school mate named Dave Benoit introduced me to AD&D.  Dave, Mike Accott(sp?) and I took a Greyhound bus from Portland to Bath one summer day because Mike knew of a store that sold games (Mike later managed The Keep here in South Portland). That was my first visit to The Toy Soldier. Over the years I played in a couple of games at the store, but my real exposure to miniature wargaming was at the many MaineCons. I always ran a role-playing game or two at the con, but would usually sign up for a miniature game.
 
Christopher

It started with D&D, and I ran the games with minis. What I liked to do was paint a bunch of new minis during the week and we would play on Friday night. I would break out the new "monsters" to the ohs and ahs. In retrospect the paint jobs were terrible. This went on all through high school. I played a little in the army but it was not the same. About ten years ago I was looking around in a comic store and got hooked on warhammer 40k. Our gaming group went through some changes, and I fell in with a group of historical gamers. These guys are a class act, I have developed some great relationships. One of the gaming group members son is home from school in boston, and we are playing a grudge match in 40k tonight. No matter how it starts its pretty much all good. A couple of guys in our group are second generation gamers.

It sounds like most people went from Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff to historicals and only a few went from board games to historicals.  Did anyone go from being interested in history to historicals?

Bill

I was probably ten or twelve years old, working on a project for school when someone suggested we go to The Hobby Shoppe in Bath to get the figures I needed for a diorama.  We walked into the Hobby Shoppe and they immediately said that what we really needed to do, was to visit The Toy Soldier instead.  I remember a wall of little white boxes filled with 25mm Minifigs.  Peter Rice was drinking coffee and smoking his pipe, and listened to me describe my diorama for school.  The two of us then went through some of those little white boxes and quickly turned a bunch of Courier DeBois into an ice harvesting team! 

I was in and out of the shop as often as possible after that day, and a week or two later purchased a copy of Afrika Korps, and then Jutland, before getting into miniatures.  It was a glorious time of huge tabletops filled with ACW and Napoleonic figs, and pre-dreadnoughts, walls covered in charts, and crowds around the table every Sunday afternoon.  I loved it. 
 

For me, it was the other way around: I got into fantasy as a teenager and ended up with a B.A. in Medieval History. I do still own a small collection of non-historical figs, but it is only 2% of the collection... Now its strictly historical for me....

I got hooked when Peter Rice ran a small dog-and-pony show at the Curtis Memorial Library on the 20th ME at Gettysburg. Imagine that, grown men rolling around on the floor playing with soldiers- I didn't know if I should s%$t or go blind I was that excited. Then Elery Keene sharpened my focus on Medievals with his massive army and Chris Parker's KATMA rule set. Gentlemen, that was thirty years ago.....wow I'm old...

I'm looking forward to one day running Little Round Top in 25MM at the Curtis Memorial Library (perhaps the future home of Game Day!?) as a way of giving back to what is now a dominant force in my life.

Speaking of which.... HAVE YOU PURCHASED YOUR MEMBERSHIP YET? 

HURRY UP AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE YEARLY MEMBERSHIP PROPOSAL DEAN SENT OUT RECENTLY- SAVE A FEW BUCKS AND SUPPORT THE MAINE HISTORICAL WARGAMERS' ASSOCIATION. THAT'S RIGHT....TAKE OUT THAT CHECKBOOK OR GET ON PAYPAL AND DO IT RIGHT NOW.

AND ENJOY!

NIVEN
S. ARMS

I definitely had a passion for history before I started gaming, however I played D&D with myfather at probably the age of 5 or 6 (he would run games for my older sisters and thir friends and allow me to tag along). But it wasnt until we came across the Toy Soldier that we discovered miniatures and realized that there was even such a thing as historical gaming. From there on it was prettymuch any sort of miniature we could get our hands on. Everything from Warhammer (when GW first became available in the U.S) to Sword and the Flame. By the time I was 9 we were reenacting with Tim Kindred and the 3rd Maine. Obviously I wasnt old enough to carry an 1861 Springfield but it didn't take me long to learn how to play the drum and fife. I havent reenacted since I was 17 or so, but now my gaming is strictly historical. When I first discovered the "old" forums about a year ago I was pumped to see that the hobby was still going strong. I had made afew trips to bath and had heard rumors that theToy Soldier was no more. I didnt realize that Peter and Andy were still running games at their home. So anyway, to answer anearlier question I think for me history was my first love before gaming. Although I was very young I still have  Civil War coloring book from when I was 4. To this day my all time favorite game is BEL. October was the first time I had played it since I was a teenager, and I can't wait till February so I can play it again. I certainly hope Tim is planning on running another scenario. In regards to my membership, I plan on puchasing it in february in person...... I know Paypal is safe but the old lady is paranoid about givingbank account info online so I'll try to keep her happy.

In my day there were no fantasy games.  It was boardgamers vs miniature gamers.  Later as a shop owner I saw more fantasy gamers become mini gamers than vice verse.  I arguably ws the first dungeon master in northern MA if not the state :)

Chris P.

It was definitely an interest in history, then wargaming, for me.  As a youngster (elementary school) I had a teacher who fed me all the historical novels for young readers he could find.  Johnny Tremain, Men of Iron, Young Mac at Fort Vancouver, etc.  Oh, and the Boy Allies were always great fun too.  As I got a little older, a set of grandparents moved to Maine, within walking distance, and my grandfather gave me one World War Two book after another from his collection, until my mother yelled that it was all I would read!

I've played FRP with only one group in my life, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We spent three years or so together on Friday nights in Bath.  Once I left that group, FRP just didnt interest me again, still doesnt.

I loved one sci-fi game, Centurion.  This was the 1/300 futuristic armor and infantry game from FASA, the same genre depicted in Peter Rice's novels.  This was a fabulous game and I'd gladly play it again, but the only sci-fi game that has ever captured my interest.

I'm a historicals enthusiast through and through.  Always have been.

It might be constructive to talk about all the shops that have come and gone.

Remember Maine Games in Portland run by my good friend John Costea?

I first met him when he was managing the Stratagey and Tactics store in Boston.  He had me build them a 6 x 12 foot sand table.

Chris P.

It might be constructive to talk about all the shops that have come and gone.
Remember Maine Games in Portland run by my good friend John Costea?
I first met him when he was managing the Stratagey and Tactics store in Boston.  He had me build them a 6 x 12 foot sand table.
Chris P.

-greenknight4

Great idea.  Let's start a new thread for that!

Hello.
I started with an interest in history (my best friend used to get on me about always reading "war books" in the late 1960's), then bought PanzerBlitz from a catalog, thinking it was miniatures. I went to miniatures as soon as I could talk my folks into stopping at the old Toy Soldier on Route 1 in Searsport. I was in ROTC at Bangor High at the time, and when I went to UMO, the ROTC department had a decent number of historical gamers.

Bob Bailey

Hi Bob,

Ah the good old days of the 60s & 70s and being accused of being a warmonger for playing miniatures.  Until just recently I hadnt been called that in probably 25 years.

By the by has anyone gone from computer wargames to miniatures?

Bill