8 hours after setting foot out into the blazing afternoon sun besieging the dark Tower, and I am home from what has to rate as the finest gig I have been to. The First Direct Arena in Leeds was packed to the gunwhales and what a show we got. Three hours of solid Fleetwood Mac perfection. If I die tonight, I might not actually be too distressed after witnessing musical heaven. Tusk's video (above) looked a like a Chaos summoning ritual! This is about 2/5 of the crowds. It was heaving with humanity. Now it's bedtime for Bonzo... Perhaps to dream of painting Dwarves. TTFN

With the sad news this week that Chris Squire, co-founder and bassist with prog rock legends 'Yes' had passed away at age 67, my attention was drawn to the fact that he was only my senior by 20 years. That's 20 more birthday cards, christmas dinners and only about 80-100 more conventions. A stark reminder that, contrary to popular belief and gamer lore, we are all mortal. And that made me shiver in the early hours, despite the heatwave in the UK at the moment. And so, as I sit at my desk and look around my studio, I realise that a life of selectively collecting and acquiring things of joy and beauty to gamers and similarly-minded pop culture enthusiasts (let's not use the G-word) I am a at once a little distressed at the whole mortality business, depressed that I have ostensibly wasted so much time on such ephemera and yet, elated that I can literally get up and cross the floor and touch something which was created by one of many artists who have brightened the li...

Oldhammer... Or as we old timers call it , Warhammer is as we know all the craze. But, I think what separates the old sweats from the Johnny-Come-3rd-Ed-&-Afters is a 'vibe' which you don't just get from buying a set of rules and some over-priced old figures. Indeed as I opined previously, Citadel figures do not an Oldhammer army make. Let's take a couple of moments to look at what the middle of the road Warhammer 1st ed player looked like in 1982. I know there will always be exceptions, but there are some themes which ran deep in those days. First of all, most gamers were literate, dreamers and creatively minded. That may sound like a no-brainer, but believe me, the general intellect these days is not what it was in your local corporate gaming store. And that goes for the staff too, I fear... Secondly, there was a definite slant towards rock music, particularly progressive rock by the likes of Genesis, Pink Floyd, Marillion, Starcastle, Rush and YES. Now as...

I was taking lunch today with a friend, and as we do, we were discussing this and that about our fine hobby. Now, I am severely old school in my tastes, and so I was explaining to D that I'm pretty much finished with historical wargaming, but that I still have a desire to play fantasy genre games with friends and family. I also explained that as of 18:34 last night I actually owned zero figures... That's right, zero . For reasons I don't intend to recount again, 36 years of collecting has gone out of the window, either sold, donated or binned. Now before anyone tells me how foolish I was and how valuable they are... I FUCKING WELL KNOW! I have more idea than most of these armchair experts who pronounce the value and rarity of stuff, normally with an astounding degree of inaccuracy and scant knowledge. They are toy soldiers, which pre 1990 will in all probability become dust in the reasonably immediate future. And just because you paid £100 for that rare, unreleas...

What legacy will the 70s and 80s generation of wargamers actually leave when they collectively fail their saving throws and go to the toolbox in the sky? It's anyone's guess at the moment... It's a complicated subset of the hobby, because many of those who led the charge as it were in the early days of gaming were very polarised. They either loved or hated fantasy and science fiction gaming, in the same way that the publishing world was split over the early sword and sorcery authors. Wargaming was a hobby for gentleman tacticians, with set formulae for casualties, movement and the like based on men, mounts and cannon (OK, and bows, slings etc). There was no way to accurately quantify the effects of being an Orc or a Troll may have on the same formulae. And that meant that imaginary gaming was something to deride and shun as 'not proper wargaming'. Hot on the heels of this 'Gen 1' came 'Gen 1.1', not the sons and daughters of those early pione...

As some of you may have read, I am working on my Men Of The East army for 1st ed Warhammer. Now, the figures arrived yesterday and are large and irregularly posed fellows in huge turbans, as befits proud Sons of the East. Now, we have the old chestnut of basing and ranking up... Those of us who were there at the start will know that the basing sizes were based on old 25mm scale models, in neat poses and as such a 20 x 20 base was more than enough. As scale creep came along, basing could look decidedly odd, with models advancing with one shoulder forward, the other back, giving the appearance of a formation dancing Ska Boys! At the end of the day, what governs the unit is the base footprint. 40 figures will always take up the same space and so the basing is the important factor. To this end, you can do exciting things with less figures and not have the stiff and tricky posing you'd get otherwise. With irregular armies (mobs, for those of you with Orcs & Goblins) y...

Recently, I have noted several forum and blog posts which posit that the traditional two day wargames show is dead. I do not agree with the general statement but I do have a few thoughts which I will share. Arguably, the 1980s wargames scene was at it's high point. Show organisers who could afford a decent venue for two days (or even one) essentially had (as I have heard over the years many times) 'a licence to print money'. The number of shows and the number of kids, coupled with the fact that this was the era of the 'cheque book wargamer' gave a rich environment for making money as long as the organising groups put in a little effort to make their trade customers welcome. It was the CBW's who help steer the hobby into the big time, but also whom put off the gentleman gamer or the school kid on £3 per week with their disdain for anything which was not wildly expensive or 'boutique'.  Typically, a club would be working flat out to set up...

Today saw Ollie at The Fiddleyard send me a link to a Youtube video of the first test running of my layout. https://youtu.be/_cl1TNOr7JE I am really impressed with how fast this is all coming together... The longest train in the video is 8 feet or so...  Lovely stuff. On a lighter note, I found a T-shirt which made me giggle... TTFN

As a full time painter, I see a lot of stuff come in and leave again, painted. But every so often I complete something that I am proud of and which catches even my own jaded eye. Today is one of those times, as I have just completed a 10mm Elven army for the Warmaster game for a friend of a long term client. The models are a mix of Copplestone Castings and Citadel Miniatures, and are wonderfully detailed models, if not a real b***h to paint... Work like this does not come cheap, but if you want something special for your collection, be it historical or fictional, you can see more of my work at http:www.conflictincolour.com