Coming To Terms With The End Of The Game, Life On Mars, Scuffles In The Alleys And Realising You Have Enough

 Well, it's almost the end of time; For me at least.

It seems that every time I wake up these days, I have lost another piece of my gaming life to that skull faced bastard with the scythe, and to be honest, I've reached a point where I have written a four page letter to my G.P outlining a few salient points that I think need to be addressed if I am to get the weight of the world off my shoulders whilst leaving my head on said body location.

I am 58, and by far one of the youngest of that classic SWS line up, who marauded across the UK in the 80s, the scourge of wargaming and painting competitions, drinking and wenching, like a contractor fresh off the plane from a 12 month stint in Saudi Arabia.

Thus, I find myself watching people who have had a great influence on my life (such as it was) in gaming. 

The loss of Anne Bishop, Tony Cheetham and Steve Roberts hit me deeply, although I don't really talk about things like that to people, because those I could talk to it about, who remember those people and those times, probably have their own demons to hold at bay. 

I can talk to Kayte of course and my brother, but I'd been a gamer for 8 years before I met Kayte and my brother was too young to remember those days being as he is a decade my junior, thus whilst they know the people who have disappeared from the world, those early days for me were formative and unless you were there you will probably wonder what all the bru-ha-ha is about.

Let me tell you once again, the 70s and 80s were different times, far more interesting in terms of the hobby than today's insipid and bland offerings. The main reason was that even the big names in the hobby were happy if they made a few quid to spend on their hobby for their troubles rather than milking other gamers - no, not 'other' gamers, just 'gamers' because that cadre which came out of GW totally fucked up the feel, pace and affordability of the hobby for many people. 

People built armies and now build 'warbands', have to have special dice, battle trays, war boards, decks of this and that, and it's all designed to take your fucking money out of your pocket. Roll on when someone out there gets some conscience and goes back to basics - it will happen, but will have o be declared as the next evolution of the hobby by someone whose only experience is big box games - Poor bastard! 

Let me tell you those days were like the wild West and I can probably point out a few 'respected members of the hobby' and tell you a story or two of what now would be considered a reason to 'cancel' them, which is just a way of being a sour faced, killjoy twat, following the latest social fashions, whilst, beneath the grubby gaming table of life, thousands, are still being as politically incorrect, unbothered by the real world and causing problem to anyone, unless they are of the group-think, box ticking mindset.

My next book will be full of such tales by the way.

Well, in the race against the Reaper, we have now lost Dave 'Rabid' Ranson, long time treasurer of SWS, noted competition gamer and organiser and genuine member of the 'first generation'.

David's passing has not hit me in the same way as Steve Roberts or Anne Bishop, not even so much as Tony Cheetham, but look, this guy was always part of the gaming landscape for me. He could be aloof, dry, sarcastic and witty, and trust me, he could, with a single glance ,make you feel like shit, but the same man after losing in a competition, strapped the army general to the front of his Volvo as he drove back to Sheffield and then put him on a shelf in his shed until this little lead failure learned his lesson.

Sheffield actually provided the original source for several oft-told wargaming anecdotes, such as the argument between to gamers at the bar of a show, about whether High Elves or Town Elves were taller, or as Mark Barrowcliffe recalled his friend Bill Crowborough telling a tale of 'taking over an Irish village with a Landrover ' again, actually having an origin in Sheffield, and being in fact in the Peak District. Sheffield really was an important place in the evolution of the hobby, and losing those people who created those stories and legends, is an awful thing.

And I'm not dealing with it very well, any longer.

So, I have to get some help in trying to get on top of it, lest I end up like I did last year when a johnny-come lately gamer got me to the edge of adding my own name to that list of the lost.

With that said, I am really busy with work but still planning the VSF, Martian plan I mentioned in my last post.

I have now doubled my order for VSF minis and I think it's around 800+ figures of all types now, and I'm already planning terrain. I have a lot of terrain suitable for the VSF take on other worlds, but I wanted some buildings which would convey a sense of uncanny familiarity which, seems to be the order of the day for a Mars campaign

I wandered over to The Colonial Steamboat Company, who make some lovely Colonial scenery, and found a W.I.P shot of a walled town, and reached out to see if it was available. A few days later, I found a reply in a spam folder, saying it was, and that it could be finished in about ten days.

It's approximately 1 x 0.5 metres, so quite a size, and when I looked closer, the roof sections are all removable, which means I can get some use out of it as a skirmish board in it's own right for Pulp adventures, Back Of Beyond and even the Russo-Afghan War of the 1970s and 80s.

This is the W.I.P shot with 28mm figures for scale, and I can imagine what the final finished model will look like, and I am accordingly quite excited about it:

 For use on Mars, I will add some strings of 'prayer flags' like you'd see in Nepal and Bhutan to give that sense of uncanny familiarity.

Paroom Station Miniatures produce some excellent Martian civilians and labourers which, with a few market stalls in the squares, will make this model come to life. I hope you'll agree... If not, that's just fine. The hobby is a broad church normally.

I also decided that I am going to put together a few British terraced streets and a football ground for some varied street fighting scenarios from the Edwardian through to the present day, when used in different combinations.

It was the realisation, that these are two large projects, which made me aware that I really have more than enough with which to occupy myself and this decide that a moratorium on further acquisitions is the sensible way to go. I genuinely do have enough. Just yesterday, I boxed up my 28mm Celts and found that I needed 5 large Really Useful boxes to store them, so based on that I will need 25-30  (about an 8 foot high stack) for my Ancients alone - possibly more.

And I am feeling fatigued to be honest, I need a rest and a little time recouping my energy which has bombed over 2026, which seems to have just raced by, which is not the kind of thing I feel comfortable about.

Well, I better go and wind down with a book for an hour or so, before we turn down the lines, have a guilty little takeaway and watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife and bed no later than 10PM. I was up until midnight last night and so getting up to feed and medicate the dogs after a mere 6.5 restless hours has further depleted my energy. So, until next time...

 

TTFN