Weirdly Happy - A Chronicle Of Carrier Bags And Simpler Times

 As you will be aware by now, I am both veteran fantasy and historical gamer. My push to have all my collected fantasy stuff painted has become known affectionately as 'Project Weird Shit' and is currently around 60% complete, mostly because of the sheer number of figures it involves and because I have wasted my life sitting on carrier bags full of lead. Literally...

Back in the very early 80s, those of us with connections on the GW staff had a nice little arrangement going whereby the staffers would pop down to Citadel HQ, and use their 'buy by weight' option, and, for a small 'commission' we could access that treasure trove of goodness.

The first time I saw a GW carrier bag, half filled with Fantasy Tribes Orcs, I nearly pissed my pants. In the local area, it was not uncommon to see the swapping of carrier bags between the gaming youth as they traded armies with each other. I shudder to think of doing that now, with aged models, but when you are 14 and these things are as common as sparrows and as cheap as chips, you don't give it a thought.

And, often you could be in the right place at the right time where a staffer had spent too much in the Pump Tavern over the month and needed a cash injection to get them to pay day. £20 for a carrier bag full of Wars of Religion? Certainly sir!

So, a lot of us amassed armies as fast as we could read the entries in Forces of Fantasy. It's probably why a certain tranche of the gaming populace is so fixated on large armies to this day.

Until you've held a carrier bag with 200+ Night Goblins in, you have not lived, my friends!

Anyway, yesterday, I saw the start of a dream come true, when my painter sent the first pics of the 200+ Chronicle Hobgoblins he's working on, following the descriptions laid out in Forces Of Fantasy. I'm getting very excited indeed, as I imagine them charging across the battlefield, working themselves in that state of frenzy which will give them two attacks. Not a subtle army and low on missile fire, but hell, those guys will look superb:







Well, another day at the coal face of creativity is approaching, so I'll sign off for now...


TTFN

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