I was looking at a few historical conflicts over the weekend, and thinkinging to myself 'Hey, they are crying out for a range of figures. I think I'll get my sculptor on the case...' And then I thought, 'Fuck it! We are already collectively snowed under with more ranges than we need.' Indeed we have more periods than a sorority house. And I really believe that. We have way, way too many 'periods' and ranges of figures, which the 'Big Boys' in the industry troll out as the 'next big thing we all  need  to play'. And, because we are, like it or not obsessive with I think a higher than average spread on the autism scale - myself included, before some young scamp does their usual 'hatchet job' - we collectively believe the hype and spend money without thinking about it, considering what scope there is and replayability.  Of course, the Big Boys, want us to get bored and start something else, that they will already have planned... And do ...

 One of the things I remember always,  always  seeing in the early days of my journey in gaming, was a section explaining ground scale and figure ratios. For me, these gave a benchmark, an idea of how things should look, and how they moved and behaved. Indeed, I opened my newly acquired copy of Spacefarers as I attended to my morning observances, and there it was on page 1, that essential information. They set the scene, they gave you an idea of what those figures were capable of. They were essential. I could easily understand how to transform real world unit sizes into miniature equivalents. A 600 strong pike and shot regiment with a shot to pike ratio of 2:1 could be easily worked out based on the WRG 1:20 figure to man ratio as 20 shot to 10 pike.  But nowadays you don't see them, or at least very rarely, and I think that it's another 'dumbing' down of our hobby to accomodate a generation who want everything to be like a video game in it's simplicity, which to me...

 As you will know, if you were a seasoned reader, before 'The Great Post Purge', I have always pretty much been an 'all rounder' in the hobby, being firstly a roleplayer, then swiftly after that, both a historicial and sci-fi wargamer, and latterly in the wake of the release of Warhammer, a fantasy wargamer too. True, I'd played some games with the AD&D mass battle system on an early White Dwarf issue, so I guess I really did hit the ground running with too many camps to have a foot in, under normal circumstances. But, I was used to having 7 comics per week, all differently themed, and I balanced those well, and so, being that particular type of dreamy kid of the 70s and 80s who did not have the distractions of today's pampered poppets, who try to recreate the 'authentic' gaming experience and generally fail to make more than a pastische effort, an 'Eton Mess' of the hobby, mixing up the metaphorical fruit, meringue and cream into something t...

 Sometimes, I get a pissed off... I know you'll find this amazing to comprehend, but it's true. Recently, I have placed some reasonably sized orders with several companies, in order to get all the lead in place for the 30YW project and a tsunami of 28mm models has begun to swamp Fackham Hall to the point that I can't keep up with it. Neccesity, has meant that to get certain troops, I've had to buy from one manufacturer who charges a premium for their models in the first place, which are 'OK, but not the best', but who make some stuff I need. No problem there, if needs must, but then you get hit for 10% postage, of which they supposedly refund any excess. Unfortunately this never happens.  This time, I was hit for an amount which was way over the mark, and when I chased this up (after all you can send up to 20 kilos for £8-£10 depending on whether you go with a 24 or 48 hour tracked service. When I chased up my refund, I was told that as I'd asked for my stuf...

 I have always had an interest in the power of ritual and ritualistic behaviour.  Any hobby is ritualistic, in that it has it's rules, secrets, paraphenalia and knowledge. At their best, wargaming/roleplaying were the most occult of all hobbies, save perhaps folk dancing. As the hobby has been exposed to the light, in that constant chasing of profit and an 'angle'. I guess that being reliant on the hobby for my own living, I am guilty in my own way, but in my defence, I do try to keep alive the wonder and creativity which I myself encountered over 4 decades ago now. As you know, I made a hard decision to not continue simply piling up 'stuff', engaging in that self deceit so many of us seem to believe, that a gamer cannot die whilst they have unpainted figures. Let me tell you straight, that they can and some truly great ones, have. The late Pete Armstrong was one of those taken way to early, leaving three young daughters and a loving wife, a few years back. Pete as ...

I am obsessed with the hobby as it was in the early to mid-80s. It was arguably the high water mark of the hobby, being as it were an extention of the alternative underground, with it's connections to university campuses and model railways, both hotbeds of outcast humanity and radical ideas (Z gauge - who thought that one up?) Now, we have a hobby which has been dragged by Mammon and a generation who were not even potentially lucky wanks back then, into the light, where the things which made it so appealing are being forgotten and actively ignored, allowing it to become a bit tame. Look, I and others (if you take the time to speak to us grumbling old bastards, with our grey hair, WRG rules and single colour  D20s and no sharp edges from use (and certainly with no cute little fucking unicorns, ducks or kittens moulded into them - Grow up) lived through those times, which were every bit as frightening as the modern world is, and gaming was somewhere we could essentially slip between ...

 It's been a while... The Memsahib has been seriously ill and so, my days have been 'interesting', and to be honest, I've also been doing other things which, have meant I've not had time for the usual number of epistles. We did make it to Fiasco the other week, having missed T' Other Partizan for the first time in over 20 years (it was either Partizan or 3 nights at the theatre, and as the the theatre meant the Memsahib would not be driving a distance, or having to be on her feet for long, it was the no-brainer choice. Indeed, she had been out of hospital for a mere 14 hours when we crossed the threshold of Fiasco (and she spent more than I did) for what was a pretty underwhelming show. We were in and out including two breathers for She Who Absolutely Must Be Obeyed, and lunch, within 2 hours. Fiasco is now on par with Recon in December, and lacks the bring and buy, so I think it will be our last visit to a show I've loved since I was a teenager, schlepping ...