Taking A Holistic Approach To Old School Wargaming

It's no secret that I am a bit unconventional in the way that I create my personal universe and how that in turn infiltrates and indeed infuses my gaming.

I surround myself with a lot of 80s cultural stuff, such as an immense collection of 80s comedies and sci- fi movies, music, books, advertising and sometimes, as today, a bit of 80s technology.

For the most part it never gets used, but lurks on a shelf in my studio and will be looked at and the spirit of  80s coaxed from it in an almost occult and ritualistic manner.

Today I was browsing in a charity shop for the usual 'scoops' of games and books, when I walked past a stock room, the door of which was open. Well, what caught my eye was a genuine 1979 Sinclair Microvision 1 3/4 inch screen portable T.V. I asked if it was for sale and was told 'Yes, but it's not been tested.' to which I responded that it was fine, I'd take the risk. The lady then passed me another box containing the Sinclair adapter- again untested.

I was asked if £4.00 was OK and agreed that yes it was in deed, very much so in fact.

This is an iconic bit of tech which was one of those Sinclair products that ate away at the company finances, but which was a great bit of kit and very, very functional.

See:

It's also the kind of  thing that I remember as 'cutting edge' and very much 'of the future/of the age' and by extension the very kind of thing from which I draw 'vibes' or 'juice' and which in turn is transmuted into enthusiasm for my old school gaming which has I confess has gone into overdrive in the last 6 months as I have rediscovered the primal joy of gaming again.

I'm digging deep into my collection of unpainted lead this year and I hope to have my GW Lizardmen on the table. One of the absolute joys of pre-slotta era GW stores were the 'figure bars' where you could buy literally any models, individually. Add to this the 'weekly specials' which gave you several identical model at a hefty discount and you were able to build large armies for not much money at all, if like me, you were earning £50 per week painting at weekends and after school, when your mates were getting £5 spending money.

 

Add to this the various arrangements most of us had with members of staff, and  large armies were the norm :)

 

I'm hoping to unearth my Lizardman army, which is composed of a mix of early sculpts from the various ranges, which I think will look great. I had a couple of hundred more which were painted, but these [pssed into the ether, 40 ears ago.

 

I fully intend to pain these myself when I dig them out. They have been kept in great conditions, so the chances of lead rot will be very, very slim. So hopefully the  units will still be able to be built using identical poses in each unit for the real old school vices.

Anyway, I hope you found this installment's ramblings interesting, and perhaps you'll try a similar experiment. Another great experiment is eat the food that the historical armies you are researching would. When I was reading a lot about the war in Afghanistan, I often ate the same breakfast commonly taken by the Mujahideen. I found it really focussed me.

TTFN