Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose... Too right!

 I've really been reflecting on what I really need from my hobby of late,  caused mainly by going back in time and raiding the memory banks to try and reconnect with the younger me.

Yes, I know I live in the past, but it's a really interesting way of evaluating your gaming. Now, in the last few years I have really taken the offensive and approached my gaming with a kaizen attitude. Basically, if I can improve my experience by re-doing a project, than it's on the cards. this was what motivated the great clearout eatrlier this year, the decision only to use Grand Manner terrain where possible, teddy fur mats and generally refining my armies to hit all of my aesthetic sweet spots.

My favourite periods are all those which I first locked onto 40 years or more ago, and some were never realised on £3 per week pocket money, plus the money I could make painting after school (a not inconsiderable amount a lot of the time), but they were periods I aspired to.

This last week has seen me invest heavily in 20mm Vietnam, almost the last item on my list but one with a lot of emotional hooks. 

My late Nan bought me my first set of Bodycount rules from Games Workshop Sheffield on one of our visits into town, and my first Vietnam figures were purchased a couple of weeks later at Games Of Liverpool, who stocked Platoon 20 over the counter. The junior cadre of Sheffield Wargames Society played a fair bit of it as a result, and Roger and I both still have a weakness for the era and the scale. 

Oh yes, there's 15mm and 28mm but they just don't feel right. After all, the figures shown in Miniature Wargames were a mix of plastic kits and Platoon 20s, beautiully painted, often in enamels - therefor, that was and is 'right and proper'. Brook me no buts, 28mm is not a 'Nam scale - under any circumstance.

I have an abiding love of ECW. My first army was made up of 15mm Mike's Models and Gallia castings, inspired by hanging around with older gamers who were also reenactors and painted in a style inspired and indeed imparted by the late Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong. The first Wargames Foundry figures were actually showcased in Games Workshop and we soon gravitated to 25mm. Hence my current army is Perry Miniatures (let's face it, the WF figures are expensive and nothing special for the most part, these days.)

My sci-fi, has to have a good 80s aesthetic, so I'm lucky that the Denizen Miniatures range are still made and still hold a blowtorch to the feet of modern ranges.

My ECW skirmish has been done with Bloody Miniatures (the new WF IMHO) but I am still planning on using Peter Berry's excellent Once Upon A Time In The West Country, because they are a great set of rules which got some serious hammer 'back in the day'.

And then we come to the 'one that got away' - 25mm Samurai. I never built an army as a kid but, my first painting trophy was with a Dixon Miniatures Ii Naotaka figure at Sheffield Triples, earning me the epithet of 'Best Horse Painter In Yorkshire' from the late Ian 'Smoothie' Smith who was 'The Best Horse Painter In The North'. 

Back then, Steve Royen, founder of Hallmark Figures, got together with Roy Gunson Of Dodo Publications every Monday night, between 6 and 8PM and set up a pop-up wargames shop in the lawnmower repair shop of Roy's brother.

So, we slaked our gaming thirsts amongst a collection of lethal motorised threshing machines and gardening tools, but hey, we could buy Dixon, Gallia and Pioneer over the counter on a wet Monday night in November for a 2p bus ride.

So, I am also now completing the circle and putting together a thousand or so pieces of Samurai using the very models which hooked my imagination as a 14 year old.

I own a fantasy miniatures company which pays homage to the classic fantasy models of the 80s, so I'll be recreating the Glune's Trek army list from the Book Of Battalions with my own multi-part range of Giants.

And then that's me done, I think...

Wait, there's one more thing I need to buy, and it's an odd one.

 I was introduced to SWS by Steve Roberts, and he was (and I guess, still is) a real naval warfare enthusiast. Steve got me interested in 1/3000 WW2 naval as a kid, and I loved the minute models and how they looked on the table. It was as close to having a god's eye view as I think you could want. 

So, I think I may just have to indulge in some Navwar ships for old time's sake and then I am 99.9% certain that I can happily buy little else to game with. I am a satisfied man with a very satisfied inner boy looking on wide-eyed.

The only thorn in my side, has been my best friend, who is giving me some stick over my insistence on using the correct models for my Vietnam project. He's already likened me to a 'Napoleonic Button Counter' and, after I insisted on buying the correct back packs to portray some SEALs with the full kit they carried, he declared that after all these years, he had a nickname for me - 'Fanny Pack'.

Oh, I ranted, I threatened, I invoked dark gods, but you know what?

I'm actually really pleased, because that's how we always were as kids. We bickered, we sleighted each other, but at the end of the day we always were and always will be the best of friends. And that is something more valuable to me than any figures.