The odd thing about my early years, was that despite the fact that my parents were overly strict and overbearing control freaks in the rest of my life, when it came to gaming, because I was mixing with improving and wholseome characters, I got a lot of freedom.  Ask to go into town when here was some kind of minor Left Wing/CND protest and I would be confined to barracks, but ask to travel 30-100 miles on a quest for games, and that was OK, as long as I let my parents know by publuc phone, when I had arrived and when I was returning home, laden down with booty which even the original Games Workshop could not provide. For a short day out, we would go  by bus or train , to  Doncaster which had The Stamp Corner, ostensibly a philatelic supplies specialist, but which also stocked Minifigs and Hinchcliffe figures and the entire range of Osprey books, which was amazingly useful when it came to Christmas and birthday, as my father worked in Doncaster and, worked wi...

In 1984, I first really got an interest in wargaming the Renaissance. Some older friends in the 5 clubs I gamed with every week, were ECW re-enactors, By The Sword Divided had been on TV for a while, and I had fallen under the Mephistophelean, the Machiavellian, grasp of Lloyd Powell, whom I looked up to as one of several role models, who collectively shaped me into the misanthropic and opinionated ne'er-do-well I am today. But more importantly, Lloyd really got me interested in the Italian Wars and Wars Of Religion, and even today, over 4 decades later, when I need to check something about that wide period, I will still pick up the phone and call him at his repose in the Tower Of Doom overlooking the Rivelin Valley, from where he plans the reintroduction of the Feudal system and the arming of certain government agents with the longbow and shoot to kill instructions. But, I digress, as always... I love the colour and pageantry of the period and I have developed a acute aesthetic se...