Hi ho,  Well, you will recall that I recently cracked on and painted a load of 15mm sci-fi , for a planned spaceport battle, based on my memories of games 45 years ago, using the Laserburn rules? Well, nice though those GZG and Brigade models were, they were not quite hitting the spot. The 13 year-old me, was into a more Space Opera vibe back then, and Laserburn did hit the spot.  So, I decided to go back to the drawing board and use the original Laserburn models again, which are of course available in all their greatness, from Alternative Armies. I wanted spectacle at the man-to-man level, with less emphasis on AFVs. After all, Laserburn was the game which replaced the main battle tank with the fearsome Dreadnought armoured suit, well before that upstart 40K was a pound sign in Games Workshop's red and glowing eye.  I planned for a BIG game, wherein a spaceport on on Entebbe II, a planet at the fringes of human Imperial space, is overrun by those fanatical and vile...

 Well, I am on a 3 week break, and so I've thrown myself into getting another of my 15mm sci-fi forces completed. I completed the vehicles for the Unified Systems Military Command company a couple of weeks ago, so now I am working through the 78 infantry who will crew them. The figures are Ground Zero Games, Pan African Union models which I like as they have that 'Striker/Traveller' mid-tech infantry look, which is the aesthetic I feel most at home with, and always will. As you will recall, I am trying to recapture the look and feel f the stuff I had and wished I had in the early to mid-80s, as well as the paint work. These are not showcase armies, but reimaginings of childhood stylings and armies, and if you like them, great. If you don't - great, knock yourself out. Not literally of course becaus ethat upsets the darlings who see every comment as a cause, not remembering that they are in no way obliged to look in here at all. But I digress... I have put in around 11 h...

  It's been a weekend spent pottering around the manse, punctuated by a Saturday night watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show, with original cast Q&A session and a 'shadow cast' performance in the manner of the 19th century Tableaux tradition. And, despite a mere 6 hours sleep, here's the first 15mm sci-fi force finished. I set out to do these for my own 'taste', not going for the level of finish I provide in my 'day job'. But, the end result has been quite nice, and very much in keeping with my desire to rediscover my own 80s aesthetic. The Hov-Cav are all GZG, apart from the Independent Power Armour (AKA The Light Ale Infantry) which are Brigade Models. Each vehicle is shown with it's crew. I'm certainly enjoyiong the creative process (at a personal level - like I said, I keep job and hobby compartmentalised) and have so much more to go at with the sci-fi bug.  I'm already working on the second force...      

Ahhhhh... It's been hard graft here in Lake Godforbid, as I've been working days and a half hours every day for the last week, along with trips to the vet, a terminally ill neighbor (whom, is 'being made comfortable' - medical shorthand for being euthanised in my personal lexicon) and a general lack of sleep, caused mostly by a dream I had a t the start of the week which involved experiencing being on the very edge of death myself, waking up in a sweat at the moment of passing. Perhaps I did actually die in that other place and this is the afterlife - discuss. But, despite all that, I'm making headway with the 15mm sci-fi project, with 3 forces bought and sorted out already and a fourth which I finished planning this morning before work. My next force will a sci-fi take on the Air Cavalry centered around 19 of the GZG AV-7 'Fan Van' VTOLs packed out with the Outer Rim Coalition range of hard-suited figure, armed to the fucking teeth with support weaponry wit...

 A very good day to you, and thanks for stopping by. You may recall, when we chatted recently, that I have fond memories of playing Laserburn in the early 80s, albeit at a scale which, even then, was in the realm of 'go big or go home' and beyond the scope of the standard Laserburn rules. We would regularly construct a spaceport with 'buildings' made from the foam inserts of Citadel figure boxes, using haberdashers pins to hold them together, once we'd unpacked all the Traveller models from them. Terrain was limited, and of course there were no starships on the table, we had to use silhouett, very simple silhouettes it has to be said, to represent where starships were located. We assumed that the defenders were freedom fighters, terrorists or alien invaders who would usually take control of the buildings around the spaceport and dig in, having to be rooted out by 'The Military', who would advance across the Synth-Mac under murderous fire and try to do some d...

    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...

 I wrote around 370 pages some years ago, ostensibly about being a tabletop gamer and roleplayer in the early 80s and beyond, but I think it's time to add to that and indeed add texture and context to what it was like to be part of something as awesomely different as this hobby was then.  So, let me try and fill in some gaps and widen the scope of my original writing. I make no apologies for being an unreconstructed man of my time. I don't have time for political correctness, nor for the identity politics of the world today. I believe that everyone has a right to do as they wish within the basic tenets of morality - it is private to them and should be kept that way. If you are 'offended' by terminology, recollections and the like, then please feel free to simply exit this blog and, off you can jolly well fuck, and live your own life. I won't be offended.  In  1981, I was just a normal kid - normal for the time, at least - and in that Autumn, I'd gone from Junior...