Fantasies For Dice And Miniatures

 

As I grow ever older and tiptoe towards the grave whilst at the same time doing my level best to not catch the eye of the Reaper, who spells the end of collecting and playing with toy soldiers, by systematically going through my Filofax, editing the entries in the contact list, I feel ever increasingly like a dead man walking.

Indeed, I have little doubt that there are a few people - most of whom never met me in the flesh - who would like to see the 'walking' part of that erased, because I say and write things that they don't like.

Increasingly I feel like a revenant when at a wargames show, floating amongst the living. Felt perhaps, but unseen until another spectre of gaming past recognises a kindred spirit and we perhaps embrace and converse in ghostly conspiratorial tones about this ior that, sharing memories of when we too, were vital, young, kings of the world, our painted armies'ooooh'd' and 'aaahhh'd' over, trophies taken home to join others on a shelf to be filled with dice, paintbriushes and the odd lost figure, desserting from it's little lead battalion.

We may remark on how small 'armies look', we may mock something we find absurd, just as others no doubt comment on us. This is the way of the living and thus that of the dead.

Memories of friends who faded all to soon are dredged up and in doing so, we become possibly more vital, less transparent and find the strength to perhaps haunt a tabletop sale or bring and buy for a few minutes, watching the corpses of plans, dreams and ideas laid out to be picked over by the carrion customers who hand over their paltry sums and begin again that circle of life for one of the casualties of war which most gamers accrue, forgetting that they are Mayflies, with just a few hours ahead of them before they fly no more.

I am a Gadfly, I bite, I annoy, but even Oestridae has it's place in the eco-system. I suppose I allow others to detract from their own less palatable personality traits, and so, I serve a positive purpose.

But for now, I am the discorporate, intangible ghost of gaming past, and I will walk the halls of the hobby and perhaps breath icily on the neck of the living, reminding them, serving notice that, as I am so they will one day be.

Oh I remember the now ancient ghosts in great golden-lit halls, when they were men of stature, vibrant, living embodiments of the hobby. They entertained and enthralled all comers, without the expectation of reward or fame, dispensing knowledge upon we, the young, hoping that a little of their own golden light would light a spark in our souls.

They did not seek fame, oh no, but they found an immortality for a while in a generation who would have been lost souls in a time when everything in the world shone, and excess was the norm.

Those men were avatars, some perhaps amnesiac gods. Many were imperfect, but that didn't matter because they redeemed themselves by showing us a path down which, if we chose to venture, we could escape the greyness, the mundanity of being what society expected of us. And those were great times.

True, some decided that the path was too risky and returned to the world of exams, conformity and the unavoidable '9 to 5 with suitable tie'.

 They are also remembered, by we, the non-corporeal, who chose that non-conformist life of weekends, travelling the land like junkie troubadors, seeking the next hit of lead and adventure in imaginary worlds, singing to all those who had ears to hear, our song of a better place. Perhaps someone would listen and learn and become one of us - maybe a roleplayer, maybe a wargamer or even a boardgamer. Perhaps as was the fate of the most zealous and 'hooked', they would find mental morphia in all three, able to pass osmotically through the invisble but very real membrane which separated those worlds.

When I lived, I walked between those worlds, collecting stories, histories and memories, I hoped I would pass on to others in time. But time has passed and so has my time, and those memories go to waste, those histories are forgotten and so perhaps am I, and those other wraiths of wargaming past.

But I know that even ghosts sleep, and when I do, the world is real and solid again. 

I visit a sprawling wargames convention in a bright, brutalist hall, somewhere in the North. I smell pipe tobacco, hear laughter and overhear conversations on whether City Elves are taller than Wood Elves, stories of how one might take control of a Derbyshire village with a Landrover and a few well rehearsed 'amateur dramatists' with a knowledge of military procedure. I nod to Bob Connor who , later that day will take £50 from me, 80s pounds which will fill the metal cantilever toolbox I appear to carry.

I chat animatedly with the kindly Ron Kay and buy more 25mm rabbits from his stall, and to Dave Hoyles who will a few years later (but not in this dream) drive me to Bridlington railway station because in my Paul Masson-fuelled state, I'll not get to the train with a carrier bag full of Q.T Models Greek Hoplites after one of his legendary open days.

I see Mick Rothenburg and Ian Smith with their 15mm 7YW display, a cliff soaring above the battlefield, on which perches a schloss. A few feet away Sheffield Runelords run a 3D roleplaying adventure with miniatures painted by Andy Ritson, who, seemingly is duplicated - one facsimile in combat jacket and jeans,  the other in post apocalyptic costumen - and debuting his never to be bettered 'Mad Max' participation game.

Terry Wise is running a wonderful Polynesian tribal skirmish, inspired by Subbuteo and we chat for a minute or two, but, because I want to see it all and do it all, I decline his invitation to play.

When I wake, I will weep with regret at not joining that grand old revenant, for one last flick of a figure and perhaps a roll of a die.

I walk towards the door and see a young man in black and purple, animatedly hugging a similarly dressed young woman, with passion but uncertainty. It's late in the day and perhaps she has arrived late on this her first true exposure to this secret society.

Perhaps she won't be put off by this young man's strange pastime. Perhaps she may even find a interest and build her own reputation and storyline, but again, it won't be in this timeline, because this timeline is an amalgam, a 'perfect moment' where all exists simultaneously.

I am distracted by the sound of machinegun fire and feel a wet splash in my right ear. Blood?

Confused, I dab at myself - water, just water - and I see the demoniac grin of Pete Armstrong holding his latest toy. It's an electric waterpistol which his employer, Games Workshop, will sell for a short while as they will many tangentially connected products, until they become the deformed and twisted retail behemoth of 5 years in the future. Or is it 40 years in the past? I get confused...

And then I am awake, dead once more in the land of the living...