More than a game?

[Big Ivan]

I remember my years with Panzerblitz and PanzerLeader. In fact I think I had 10-12 sets of each. Me and some of my buddies from Cleveland would put together 15-18 boards in various configs and make brigade & division sized units, setup and fire for effect. We played every chance we got, weekdays, weekends and to the wee hours. We were hooked through all those years of the '70's.

As Mike said then came SL and ASL and I never looked back at PB/PL except for a short stint with AIW (Arab-Israeli Wars). But I quickly found AIW to be way to complex for the situation at hand. There was was a pattern developing here from AH-to much complexity!

I found SL to be OK but ASL with its vast rulebook to be unmangagable and complex to the point a bit of fun was taken away. It could only really be played F-to-F and opponenets were scarse. Then in 1998 I think, I found a copy in a local computer game store (Sound familiar?) of East Front. Loaded it on my first generation computer and whoa!! What a surprise! Goodby AH forever, sorry you had some good games but they were not any equal to East Front. With the further series of WF, RS and DG I was in heaven! I could have a Corps sized game and it was all contained on my computer. No more dust, cigarette ashes, spilled coffee or beer on the boards. No more desparately trying to keep the cats (no one can have just one) out of the room and no more resets of toppled counters.

Damn I do love CS and its mods and even for all its faults and there are a few as we all know it has marked the time!!
I am glad to see more folks trying it for the first time or coming back to it. It speaks volumes for the game!

Ivan the Big