On Sunday, we ventured to a wargames convention for the first time in 9 months, armed with a low four figure bag of spending money and the hope and expectation of having us a jamboree. I was in effervescent mood. And that was where the traditional festival of fun sort of spluttered to a rather inauspicious halt. What do I want from a show? Well, being a traditionalist of the old school, I generally want the following: 1, A proper bring and buy, or at a push a tabletop sale which is free of dealers who are getting a trade stand for a lot less than were they in the main hall. It should be located away from the main footfall routes so that the knots of people who gather there (ideally)  don't slow down entry and exit, and generally become a clot in a narrow artery, so to speak. 2. Vibrant and varied trade stands. Simply having big box resellers making up 30% of your trade stands is lazy. Build it and they will come. but get out there and tell people about why what you've built i...

 OK, so in the main post we ascertained that as far as having any kind of genre affiliation, all bets were off when it came to your humble narrator. But how did I embrace the addiction, nay, lifestyle once I had my feet under the table and my fingers in mant - perhaps too many - metaphorical pies? Well, I was very lucky, indeed blessed to 'come up' with one of the greatest wargaming pirate crews the UK has ever and will ever see.  Sheffield Wargames Society, I found out were notorious for ther prowess with both the toy soldier and the pint glass, not to mention been pretty sharp with dealings with the fairer sex, whilst on nights out during weekend-long 'beanos'.  Let me be very clear, in the latter case, I can hand on heart say that this only applied to the single members as the wives of the marriwed members would simply have terminated their husband's collections, as did in fact happen at one Triples when an unnamed member of the club had an argument with his spou...

 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 sup...

 So, here I am once more, as the large Scotsman in motley and a Sutton Hoo helmet once sang... We left this story on a cliffhanger ending last time, and I bet like me, you've been unable to sleep ever since with the anticipation of another tale of teenage hijinkes, japery and tomfoolery in the greatest era of gaming. So, we had found that the model kits we were going mad about, had stats and dimensions on the boxes, and this information was not wasted. We also had Pete (My friends don't call me Stretch) Armstrong, AKA 'Greblord' and his unquestionably unchallengable knowledge of these models. I can't remember who it was who had the idea, it was probably one of those organic, osmotic decisions, to try and write some rules for using these on the table.  Now, you need to remember before we start that these models were generally 1/100 or 1/72 and contained either a human in the head or a bloody enormous alien who wore it like armour, one being developed to counter the o...

In 1983, Sheffield discovered mecha combat... The late Pete Armstrong was a consumate figure painter and model maker, and he had found some new (to the UK) model kits by companies like Bandai and Nitto depicting giant robots piloted by humans - and aliens it would turn out - and, being Pete, had built and painted a few and stuck them in the Games Workshop cabinets and Window, because, like the best of us, he was a showman, who whilst modest, knew he was a fucking figure painting fighter ace. We worshipped him, and I am not in any way ashamed to admit it. So many of those who 'came up' in what was arguably one of the most active gaming communities in the UK, owe a lot to Pete, that cannot be over stated. You bought a figure in GW - you'd seen the model in the cabinet, painted by Pete, first. You painted your Orcs an ochre shade, it was down to Pete. You learned to get that green that was so bright it hurt the eyes - it wasn't available in a pot, you learned it from Pete,...

 1982 saw the release of Warhammer. It flopped... Really, it did. The roleplayers who, at the time were the dominant force bought it, read it and sold it. Or simply didn't bother. There were stacks of the stuff piled on pallets at the front of the 4 or 5 GW stores, for a fraction of the cover price. It would be a while before we actually got it going locally, because we'd been using a set of D&D mass combat rules from White Dwarf, and they worked rather well, being solidly based in the kind of old school (let's say traditional) mechanics that historical wargamers liked. Some of the lads played the Lidless Eye rules using the Jacobite Miniatures 15mm Middle Earth rangeds which were loively little models with a lot of character. They were 'of their time' - what isn't, but they were great. WRG had a fantasy modification for their Ancients rules and of course there was the excellent Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age by FGU which allowed battles in the age of Cona...

 I am fortunate, nay, blessed to have 'come up' at a time just before the Warhammer Fantasy Battles rules hit the shelves - and stayed there, being sold off for a  mere fraction of the RRP in literal stacks at the front of GW store. It's something that we who refuse to die and in not doing so, irritate others, comment on quite often at our coffee and bullshit 'salons' - no, really... And then we get teary eyed over whatever metal based figures one of us has brought to the table for discussion and pawing over, that day, before the conversation turns to the scourge that is 'Oldhammer'. Now, don't get me wrong, the idea of preserving what was arguably the high water mark of fantasy gaming, and introducing others to it, is a fine sentiment. But, re-writing history and claiming that paintwork and styles which were not contempraneous or even available  in the case of materials as 'authentic' is taking it a step too far. If you were not there, you canno...

  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...

 Now, for someone who's been on the bleeding edge of the hobby for so long, and a lifelong creature of the swamp that is the convention scene, I discovered the Sheffield Triples, sort of by accident. As previously related, I'd got my feet in so many gaming doors in a short time, that I began to feel like a baseball booted centipede.  It was a surprisingly muggy Spring Saturday morning when Alan and I stepped from the 278 bus in Sheffield city centre and walked along the road below the Royal Victoria Station Hotel towards the Castle Market and and the gallery where, at Hopkinson's toys, we would find our weekly fix of gaming goodness.  It was as we walked the last few yards at ground level that we bumped into 'Snitch', Sean and Craig our younger friends from the Monday night club run by Steve Roberts at Limpsfield School. We asked them what brought them into town so early, as there were not known as early risers which often played havoc with our weekend and holiday g...

      (Hinde House School, upper half, taken from where would be built two mobile classrooms, where I would spend a LOT of time in 83 and 84) In 1981, totally against my will and without prior parental consultation, I had started the final four years of my compulsory education at Hinde House a sprawling comprehensive school. It had, I openly confess, being a dreamer, come as quite a shock to the system, not only because Hinde House was such a large establishment, divided into a lower and upper wing with nearly 1100 pupils, but because back in the early 1980s it still retained a ‘house’ system. The pupils across all four years were divided into four houses named Chantrey, Brearley, Hunter and Sorby after great local industrial tycoons who helped build Sheffield up to be the urban sprawl that it was before the nation’s beloved Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and her inner cabal allegedly decided to destroy the industrial wealth of the North of England. Personally, I ...

    Well, I promised at the end of Part 12 that I'd tell you more about the 'Green Horizon' scenario for the Traveller RPG, which appeared in White Dwarf 35 and how it changed things up for me. Ass I've already related, the late Steve Roberts (blessed may his name be, and always remembered for the great man he was) was running a 'feeder' operation for SWS at Limpsfield School, which was a 'community school' modelled loosely on some of the Radical Left teaching methods which proliferated in the 70s. It's an interesting subject in it's own right and was the only school I know of in the area which turned out well-rounded kids from all backgrounds. Being 10 years old and let loose in a purpose built craft workshop with enamelling kilns, was amazing as was the sense of folk history and appreciation of the environment we were instilled with by passionate, committed, truly politically radical staff, hand picked for the job.  The school sat as a very sol...

 1982 was a pivotal point for me in many ways.  Alan and I had rapidly made ground into discovering the hobby, and we'd also introduced a few friends who had tried out D&D but not really had that 'Eureka!' moment that we'd had. We were buying and painting miniatures wherever we could get them, having three or four places to buy them in Sheffield, and also, on a day trip to the coast, found Q.T Models where I met and formed a friendship with the great Dave Hoyles, who was one of those 'O.Gs' who don't get the recognition they deserve, and who brought some fantastic models and inspirational painted displays in the store cabinets. Anyone of a certain age, will get rather excited when 'Q.T Hoplites' come up in conversation or indeed 'Q.T Samurai'. Sadly, Dave sold the Q.T ranges and they changed hands a couple of times. Indeed, I offered well above the asking price earlier this year when the ranges came up for sale, but the seller decided to ...