The Dice Men is a stunning book. It took me back 40 years in 40 seconds. A plethora of visual goodness.   BUY A COPY NOW!    

 Brutalist architecture is not the first thing which you may associate with gaming... I would guess that none (well maybe two) of my friends are aware that since my early teens I have had a love of ‘true’ Brutalist architecture? Not the modern ‘fuck you’ school, but the proper full on 'Exposition Du Cement style. Growing up in the 1970 and 80s, Shefield was full of the stuff. It was grim, gritty and drab, but it spoke of the future. Where we now have the Winter Gardens in the heart of the city, there stood the truly futuristiv modern extension to the town hall, known with love and loathing by local folk as 'the Egg Box'. Built in 1977, it sort of collided with punk so that in 1978, aged just 10, I was already being drawn into the grotesque sci-fi beauty of it. You see, that was the year that I started to take an interest in things... Music and popular culture  was starting to slowly become something I was interested in, with the awful but still rather exciting to a ten y...

It's funny how sometimes it takes a couple of days, along with checking and double checking to make sure you didn't dream something, before the cold reality hits you hard. I was informed on Sunday of the very sad death of Trevor Collins of Mosborough & District Wargamers at the age of 51, following a sudden stroke. I first met Trev about 25 years ago at my old club, Sheffield Wargames Society when he firstly sold me some fantasy figures and latterly commissioned some painting from me. We became friends very quickly, and despite the odd raised voice down the years and diverging in our gaming interests, still remained so. It's all too common to read an obituary that tells the reader what a brilliant, funny and generous person the subject was. It has become a cliche, a template if you will for a society which never wants to see anything in the most positive way. However, in this case, Trevor was all of the above and also much more. In the mid 90s, as I...

Oldhammer... Or as we old timers call it , Warhammer is as we know all the craze. But, I think what separates the old sweats from the Johnny-Come-3rd-Ed-&-Afters is a 'vibe' which you don't just get from buying a set of rules and some over-priced old figures. Indeed as I opined previously, Citadel figures do not an Oldhammer army make. Let's take a couple of moments to look at what the middle of the road Warhammer 1st ed player looked like in 1982. I know there will always be exceptions, but there are some themes which ran deep in those days. First of all, most gamers were literate, dreamers and creatively minded. That may sound like a no-brainer, but believe me, the general intellect these days is not what it was in your local corporate gaming store. And that goes for the staff too, I fear... Secondly, there was a definite slant towards rock music, particularly progressive rock by the likes of Genesis, Pink Floyd, Marillion, Starcastle, Rush and YES. Now as...

As you all know, I am an unapologetic 80s throwback - actually I can't be a throw back if I never came forward can I?  And as you may also glean from my previous posts I cut my teeth back on Warhammer Fantasy right from day 1, moving on to 2nd and then 3rd edition and merely dabbling with later editions which lacked the feel of creative freedom and the sense that the designers 'cared' about their game. It may have been unbalanced, not really made for competitive gaming until 3rd edition but it was FUN. I can say hand on heart that I never had anything like as many (if any) arguments over WHFB compared to historical games rules - even when we simply turned up en masse to a game with totally unbalanced armies - you know, like real battles. I've spent what little spare time I have had recently, reading my old Warhammer rules and supplements from square one and also reading through the first of my books put out in the 80s by Christian Fundamentalists who th...

I spend my working hours plugged into documentaries and podcasts covering all types of subject, and yesterday I was tuned into a paranormal podcast which was discussing the 'Satanic Panic' of the 80s. which I remember all too well. Now, as well as the worry that heavy rock music was tempting teens into worshipping Satan, some of you will recall that Dungeons & Dragons came clearly into the firing line of the Religious Right spearheaded by the wonderfully named Tipper Gore. Even here in Sheffield, UK, there was a flurry of anti-D&D sentiment with the local press echoing the worries of the Church Of England that sweet teens like me would be drawn into a life in which they became Satan's minions. Of course because I was into Iron Maiden et al, I was doubly doomed. Forget the fact that I was way more literate than my peers as a result of the time I spent with my nose in books, no, I was going to hell and had a first class ticket. Bu**er! Anyway, I...