Memory Lane Part 30: And They Call It Making History (Apologies To Adam & The Ants)

 Although I'd got my first whiff of the hobby via the Heritage mini games based loosely on D&D and the D&D itself, it was literally a month or so before I was finding out about historical gaming, which, despite what my other posts may convey, is always going to be every bit as important to me.

For me, the two, nay three, if we give sci-fi it's own niche in the evolutionary ladder go hand in tentacles. I sometimes get typecast by folks as being a fantasy gamer who dabbles in historical, or the reverse. But the the truth is that I am a trans-genre, an oddity of my time I suppose, when gamers were in individual camps, sometimes quite vehemently and venemously so.

I remember the first time I took the late Tony 'Spike' Atkin to Sheffield Wargames Society and he obviously and visibly had a good time, so much so that he was heard to quip that 'Wargamers aren't the wankers I always thought they were - well not quite as big wankers'.

He did have a point I suppose. But you see my point... There were barriers back then.

Within a couple of weeks of Steve Roberts deciding I was suitable material to be moulded into a historical wargamer, I'd visited SWS and had decided that I really, really wanted to get into historical gaming. I was drawn to the wonderful Tabletop Games 15mm Dark Ages range and even though I was able to paint reasonably well at the time, I wanted an army painted by an older and somewhat louchely suave gamer by the name of Lloyd Powell, who seemed to me to be a decent role model - even I can make mistakes - and who said he painted for money - that was a new one, it'll never catch on - and if I gave him a figure he's do a sample, which he did. It was a lovely Norman foot knight replete with dragon on it's shield. 

Then I was told - and this was 1982 mind you, that the cost would be £2 per figure! 

And there, dear reader was the point at which I upped my painting game and began to get stuck into pile upon pile of lead. As an aside, my first commission was 7p per figure to paint Minifigs 15mm ACW (recasts too) for Dave Gregg who paid me the princely sum of upon delivery. Seven fucking pence! And, I was already better than Lloyd with a brush, let me tell you.

Next time it was 15p, take it or leave it! They took it of course, and all of a sudden, in 80s spending money terms, I was in the money!

Monday nights in Sheffield's gaming demi-monde were busy, busy, busy. Not only was it a roleplaying night down a dark and sometimes dangerous street in the middle of an area filled with steel works and prostitutes - attractive and hard working girls, based on my teenage observations - but we also had to first make our way to a lawnmower repair shop, 'Gunsons' where the SWS committee member - I think he was Grand Poobah at the time - Roy Gunson, together with that eternal Gentleman Wargamer, John Armatys used Roy's brother's business premises as a 'pop up' wargames sore for 2-3 hours on a Monday evening. 

Yes, back in the day, we were a genuine 'underground' hobby and it was bloody brilliant.

John and Roy traded as Dodo Publications, and were also joined by Steve Royen who later founded Hallmark Figures, but at the time was a purveyor of the Dixon Miniatures range of Samurai.

Now, anyone of a certain vintage will have a soft spot for those chunky little Oriental chaps and will likely react with snarp words such as 'Fuck off' or maybe 'Go screw yourself, and the horse your mother rode in on' so best not for you to voice a dislike. Just accept that that was then and if you weren't there, it's probably because your parents were still in vitro or at best at nursery - your bad luck, I'm afraid.

Now, Dodo, stocked the Gallia 1/3000 Napoleonic navall range and their excellent  15mm ranges which included a rather nice ECW range, which went well with the Mike's Models range, and this was where my love of ECW began, with a New Model Army army pack from Mike's Models and then a large number of Gallia miniatures, together with the Osprey Men-At-Arms book on the New Model Army.

Once I had spent a week's after school painting income on around 300 models (a decent sized army for club nights back then and still better than the skirmish 'armies' you see nowadays) it was off to Games Workshop during the school holidays on one of the quieter mornings to have a word with Pete Armstrong who had been an ECW reenactor in his youth and who was, of course, a leading mini painter in the UK.

I'd already begun (finally) undercoating models - none of us did at first, but we listened to our elders and betters and of course, read the many painting guides in magazines and the catalogues of manufacturers - and was using black before it was a common thing. It was seen as madness back then as the paints generally available did not cover well over black. The first Humbrol 'Bobcat' acrylics were available as were the very expensive Polly-S range, but many of us were still using enamels.

Those enamels if tinkered with, would cover black in one coat - even red and yellow, notoriously weak due to at the time, containing high toxicity pigments - and that allowed those of us on the cutting edge, to reverse what was the tradition of blocking in and then black lining with thinned black paint and a well looked after and super-fine (for the time) paintbrush.

Those of us truly 'out on the fringes' used the Pelikan Plakka paints which were cassein paints - poster paints basically - and were milk based. Yes, you read that correctly.

They were thick and had to be let down, but when you see rich and bright colours on an army up to the mid 80s, it was probably achieved with Plakka. You had to varnish them and the pots had to be looked after. They had a smell akin to baby vomit which, was addictive after a while, I think because you were using something 'special'. They are not available anymore which I think is a shame, and if you do find a pot somewhere and it's not rock hard, you'll have found wargames gold.

Landsknechts painted with Plakka were the brightest and most striking figures you'd ever see. Even 15mm castings leaped out at you from 4 feet. I loved them and painted with them for years. To see a 28mm Medieval army with handpainted heraldry all done with Plakka is to see heaven itself. 

Pike and shot gaming was my first love for about 4 decades until, in 2022, I fell out of love and we parted company. I tried to make up and mend the relationship, but the tercio is a fickle mistress and it was destined not to be for the foreseeable future.

In the last 10 months I've developed a real interest in Ancients, but this is no thanks to my elders and betters who made the idea of Ancient wargaming so dreary with the competitive aspects of the hobby and dry and uninteresting games that as a kid, I was turned off.

I have real problems with the myriad and imaginary troop classifications of the old WRG rules, which, I played only a few times with no love gained or given for the. True, I played the WRG Renaissance rules but they did not feel as drained of period flavour as Barker's efforts, despite the similarity in mechanics.

I still reach for the WRG lists though, if only to get a quick idea of what a given army should look like (subject of course to modern research),  and I enjoy Barker's books about wargaming in general, indeed only today I bought an original copy of his Alexander The Great book and love to re-read his KTG Book Of Wargaming which was, as some of you will know, the first book about wargaming I ever read. Everone should have a copy of that slim tome as it's a snapshot of the way things were, showing you how to create armies form soft plastic figures, armed with cork, needle and candle. These days most books have me reaching for bell, book and candle.

I think my contempt for the WRG rules also came from taking part in a weekend game at SWS which I think I would have enjoyed, had I realised that the sense of illness, delerium and temperature was the onset of German Measles. 

Maybe it left me traumatised, but I remember the game clearly, as it involved a battle which involved the protection of a newly forged bell being delivered to it's new home. It was a massive game and, as it involved the bell from the Minifigs 'Valley Of The Four Winds' range, my fantasy needs were being addressed. In later years my fantasy needs generally involved meeting ladies with a love of leather and savagely backcombed hair as well as precise and outrageous make-up, but this was 4 years prior, and back then, it was (only) lead soldiers that caused erection... As an aside, it was Runequest which came between me and one of my firts 'proper' girlfriends - probably for the best, apart from the fact that she cooked up a wheeze with her friend which resulted in me an another guy getting into a fight in my last year at school resulting in a charge of assault.

 But, regardless of the side quests I would take on down the next four and a half decades, the die was cast and I was going to be a lifelong historical gamer as well as a fantasy and sci-fi gamer, despite the best attempts of the Big Box Companies to ruin my life.