Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — WWI

Hex grids. Column shifts. Odds ratios. Zones of control. These are the essential, primordial building blocks of commercial wargaming, invented whole cloth – much like the hobby itself – by Charles S. Roberts and his Avalon Hill Game Company. Many gamers grew up playing the Avalon Hill titles before graduating to more sophisticated simulations. Since the hobby had already started to collapse when I was born, and had started to rebound and grow in new and interesting directions by the time I was aware that it even existed, I didn’t have that experience. My first wargames weren’t Avalon Hill boxed...