I will give the full story just because I enjoy telling it, and it is SO illustrative of the concept of
synchronicity. I had never even heard of wargames at age 21. I was a street tough at the time, and I didn't even know 'worlds' like this even existed. I played RISK a couple of times with my cousin when young, but just considered that a 'boardgame'. So, my friend moved to a new apartment complex and I lost the slip of paper he wrote the unit number on (pre-cellphone and he had no landline). I went looking for him that weekend and knocked on a random door to ask if the tenant might have seen where the new guy moved in with a sky-blue, Berlinetta Camaro. A short, wiry hippie-type opened the door holding a 40oz of beer and a copy of Carell's
Hitler Moves East. A huge cloud of pot smoke billowed out as well.
He did not know where my friend moved in (huge complex), but as I thanked him for the inconvenience I commented on the book he held. Propagand-y, but still a good "war story" read. (I had always had an interest in military history, the two World Wars in particular.) It amazed him that a stranger knew the book and its background and he invited me in to talk about it. He gave me a '40', and we smoked up and chatted about WWII reading material. Then, through the buzz and smoke, I noticed he had a game of some sort set up on a side table (SL). I still cannot put my finger on the what/why, but something about it just really sparked my interest.
He immediately started explaining it to me with the fervor we all know. Beginning the next evening, he began teaching me to play SL and I absorbed it quickly. However, something just seemed to be missing from the experience, like playing checkers when you knew chess also existed. I'd seen his boxtop full of vehicle counters, but he refused to play anything but all-infantry scenarios. After busting his chops about it numerous times, he exasperatedly told me that there was a "new, advanced" (snide tone) version of the game that might interest me more (ASL). This was the winter of '89, IIRC. He explained how hobby shops carried this sort of stuff, where one was, and I went and bought the rule book and BV without a second thought. For being working-poor at the time, this was a real expenditure for my budget but it just seemed right.
I began teaching myself to play after reading through the entire rule book, doing every cross-reference along the way. I had a decent grasp on the general mechanics after playing SL infantry scenarios with him. I set up
Fighting Withdrawal to play and laboriously began to learn to play. With the Smoke, Blazes, different nationalities (Finns), 'new' map, different DFF mechanics, and the insane plethora of in-game possibilities (with rules to match), I was absolutely HOOKED within the first week! I had only gotten through two game turns after about 10-15 hours of play, but it put me in a world unlike any other I had ever experienced. That weekend, my 5 year old nephew fell into my gaming table and knocked it all on the floor. I calmly started ASL1 again after he left, and next payday went and bought all of the other modules the hobby shop had. I added their in-stock Annuals, DASL, etc later.
My SL-friend came by once to party, stared at my setup ASL game, and just shook his head and muttered under his breath. He was one of those SL purists who thought AH had threw them under the bus when they came out with ASL. I am not joking, he was VERY resentful of this and refused to learn ASL with me. Retrospectively, I can see that he had also become very resentful
towards ME, like a jilted lover who is told "
Sorry, I'm seeing someone else now." Part of this was also the fact that I would no longer play SL with him, considering it checkers after having found chess. From that point onward, this unfortunately made our newfound friendship extremely awkward to the point we just drifted apart. As odd as this story is, and the unfortunate ending to it, if I had never randomly knocked on that guy's door, I would have never found (nor likely heard of) the beloved mistress of mine for the past 30 years. It has never grown old to me, and I have never taken burnout breaks from it. It is just as captivating as the first time I set up Finns chasing Russians through a burning city!