My blog is going to feature war gaming quite heavily. It may also contain references to the 1980s; how much better everything used to be, and 'I remember when all this was fields.'
I would put a photo in at this point, but it's beyond my ken at the moment.
My name is Steve and I'm a war gamer - I've been clean now for 12 seconds, sorry, wait...what? Reset the clock. I started my descent into the rabbit hole during the early 80s when I was 8 or 9 and I discovered the Fighting Fantasy books in my small country primary school. The end of the school year was marked by someone bringing in Talisman and a small group of us playing until we were forced to go to lunch. A copy of the original D&D red box set (a birthday present from my Nan) snared me hook, line and sinker. This was further compounded by my discovery of a small model shop in the provincial Cornish town where we were forced to go on weekly grocery shopping trips.
These trips were lightened by '10 minutes' in the aforementioned model shop where I would ogle the revolving blister pack stand and its plentiful bounty. Back then this included Citadel's Doctor Who, 2000ad and nascent Warhammer and Rogue Trader lines. My first independent purchase was a blister of skeletons which included the one emerging from the ground.
Fast forward to today. I'm just about to turn the wrong side of forty and it seems my journey down the rabbit hole is only accelerating...
Nice story.
ReplyDeleteI can see some elements similar to my start in this "business". But I guess that just means wargamers around the globe are quite similar characters.
And I do agree it's already been better (for me 90's was "the better period"), now everything is getting just worse ;-)
The 90s were very good. I left school in '92 and got my first full-time job - all I could think about in the run up to pay day was just exactly which Epic models I was going to purchase. Plus, WH40k second edition.
DeleteI do have a plan to paint a complete(ish) set of models for the original Warhammer Quest. One day.
Great plan, looking forward to see it done!
DeleteMost of specialist games were rather unavailable in Poland in 90's. Seeing whole game models painted is such a sweet perspective, but not for modern, Ebay prices :)