So we have a very special guest for the show tonight.

I'm talking to Dana Lombardi.

Dana, thank you so much for being on the show.

It's great to talk to you.

I'm really happy to be here.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Well, there's a lot to talk about because Dana Lombardi has done a lot of things.

But I feel like that it never fails to shed some light on, you know, all these diverse people that we have in this hobby that come from these different places.

But why we actually got into this thing in the first place.

Like, why did you end up being such a longstanding, long time fixture of war gaming?

Wow.

Well, let me give you the instance when I first became interested in war games.

Okay, perfect.

In 1962, I am picking myself, in 1962 on my 12th birthday, we were right in the middle of the

100th anniversary celebrations of the American Civil War.

My parents said, hey, pick out whatever you want in the toy store, that's great. And I went in there and I don't know why, but I was drawn to the game aisle. And the games were lined up and I walked over and bam, Avalon Hills, Gettysburg and Avalon Hills, Chancellorsville were sitting there. And Gettysburg was huge. Everybody knew about that one.

And for some reason, I said, but I really don't know much about Chancellersville.

Somebody did a game on this.

And I said, that's what I want.

And I took it home.

And to me, it was a struggle at the time to figure out, you know, it was really complicated compared to Monopoly and other game. I stayed with it, fell in love of war games, started designing my own preteen

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