Looking to the future, whilst firmly seated in the past

Of late, I've been busy on a large and ongoing fantasy 'project', although to be honest, it's more a case of looking around for fantasy figures (and of course historical models which can be repurposed) I like and deciding just how many I want.

Lists you say? Nope, none of that bollocks, because you know, when we were teenagers in the last century, we didn't generally waste time with pointed lists. No, we just found a willing set of parents (back then, parents were generally pairs, sometimes single, but definitely traditional male/female combos, which meant you generally kept the dads 'on side' and flattered the mums, using all your blossoming charm, cheeky smiles and Bambi eyes turned up to 11.

I can say hand on where I think my heart used to be, that none of my friends would ever break the sacred rule of being good guests and always polite to parents. That is right and proper.

Anyway, we would either cram into a dining room (I think a record was 1000 28mm figures on a dining table) or in the Summer holidays, we would suddenly be offering to mow the back garden, and then remark that it would be a great place to have a game, with the added bonuses of the lucky mum not having 10 teenage boys in the house and of course the outdoors were good for you, weren't they? And yes, sandwiches and the like served al fresco would be excellent...

Once the battlefield was established, we would turn up with whatever we had, divide into 'Good' and 'Evil' and get down to some serious battling. There would be winners, there would be losers, but we had fun.

Points based games were for competitions (some of us were actually comp gamers too for a while) but fantasy was and still is best when played without limits. After all, if someone turned up with three Balrogs with their frightening Warhammer 1st ed stat lines, they may catch you out once, but next time you cam prepared for such slippery tactics, and so it went, an ongoing arms race which was limited only by the imagination and pocket money of those involved.

Certain wily buggers found Prince August moulds, deciding which were the best for producing fast and reliable results. It was once the case that someone cast up, painted and based 60 skeletons in 36 hours and had them on the table with the varnish barely dry. I could not comment on the identity of that individual other than to state for the record that he is a 55 year-old, of reasonable character and impeccable taste, living in the Sheffield area.

It's the general opinion of those in my circle that those games were the best. You were free of limits. After all, why play imaginary battles and then insist on the same strenuously imposed limits of historical gaming? I will happily do that when I am playing something historical, and would of course be quite rude to someone who shunned that idea, but when it comes to fantasy, I want escapism, bright and colourful armies and epic clashes across the teddy bear fur. What the Yarkshire Gamer would refer to as 'Weird Shit', but Ken my dear sir, sometimes shit can turn out to be gold in disguise :)

So, the name of the game is finding those old models we loved as kids, and may or may not have owned at the time due to budgetary constraints. I was lucky as I was averaging £50 a week, painting figures while I was at school... It sounds great, but it meant I indulged my gadfly personality all too easily.

£50 could get you a LOT of lead in 1983, believe me and, if like me, you were already cultivating your lines of bulk purchase discount, it could actually get out of hand.

Now, I would also add that this is not an 'Oldhammer' project, but rather a deliberate attempt to support companies which have been around for decades, producing good looking, well priced models, often ignored by the modern generation in their arrogant hobby ignorance, being as they are spoon-fed by the companies, whose owners and creatives wax lyrically of their old school credentials, but who are so insecure about their own product lines, that they won't even mention these small, family run businesses or the fact that they themselves have armies comprised of these classic models.

And yes, I do have opinions. Thank you for asking.

As an aside, I know of a big company which has pictures on it's site purporting to be of models available in it's webstore. However the foremost figures in the picture is not even made by that company, and actually puts their ranges into the shade (said figure being about 6 years older than that company to boot).

Now, I know that I've said a few things about metal over plastic, but yes, my army will include plastics in the mix, where I feek that they offer the classic aesthetic I demand from my armies. 

Not for me the modern, angular, over ornate armour so beloved of today's gaming dilettantes, Facebook martinets and and YouTube pervenus who spout like the Emperor Fountain at Chatsworth, about Oldhammer and the 80s (but who despite living in their parent's basement with seemingly much spare time on their sweaty little hands, have no time to look deep into the history of the Golden Age) 

I assume that they are hoping some of that gilded past will rub off on them. Instead what they achieve is a smearing of knowledge which is like dog shit on a pair of box fresh Hi-Tec trainers.

There I go again with my digressions...

Generally speaking I will be working on a core made up of classic Orcs for the forces of Evil, with all of the sub-races that are traditionally seen therein. I'll then add Knights of Evil, Trolls, Ogres, Men of The East, Dark Elves, Dragons, Undead (although they will also feature in my Forces of Good , with some deployment limitations) Lizardmen and whatever else I can find. 

Demons you say? Godless barbarians from the steppes? Beastmen? Why yes, of course... So too, Oriental goblins and much more. They all have their place in the mix.

The Forces of Good will be a similar melange, with real empahasis on races and creatures not often seen these days of which the likes of Games Greedshop have perverted to make their own. I am pretty set on the minimal use of gunpowder weapons in my fantasy games. Oh yes, there'll be the usual Men, Elves and Dwarves, but I also really want to see proper uncorrupted Centaurs, Gnomes, Halflings and even undead, raised by mercenary necromancers to bolster the outnumbered foces arrayed against the Orcs and their allies.

Dragons, Elementals and even Angels... They can all get a look in. So far, I think the figure count is 2400 and it's nowhere near where I want it.

I know, I know, I am sort of breaking my 'top end' rule for the number of figures in a given project, but rules were written because they would be broken, and besides, I reserve the right to declare each race a project in it's own right. But then, the Orcs break the rule again on their own.

I shall chastise myself accordingly, later.