The day I failed the Emperor or how I almost worked for Games Workshop

I have a confession. Back in 1999 I was a massive card carrying GW fanboy. But you know that already. I would go to Games Day every year, I still have an entire company of Spam all lovingly packed in foam trays ready for an apocalyptic battle one day. I have a scratch built cardboard Warhound titan for them as well. (I'm not forking out hundreds for a Forgeworld one. I have a beautiful, understanding wife, but there are limits.)

She is looking a bit lop-sided and sorry these days.

I'm better now, but back then I loved Games Workshop. They were my altar. Going to the store every Saturday morning to play a mass battle was my church. Before I tell you this story then, let me confirm that everything that transpired was in my own control, it was my fault, I am not blaming anyone and I have the utmost respect for the GW staff involved in this tale. This is not a griping tale of woe, this is a confession of youth.
The manager of the store I used to attend was a brilliant manager, us kids all had a lot of respect for him. As I said, I would regularly attend Saturday mass battles. (This was before the name Apocalypse existed but essentially the same.) and as it was a Saturday the store was also busy with people buying so the staff were kept busy. Therefore sometimes, us older players took control of the game and kept things under control.
One Saturday the manager took me aside and asked me the ultimate question. "Had I ever considered working at a Games Workshop?" Well, as you can imagine, I went dumb with excitement. He went on to explain that although he couldn't just employ me, he could nominate me to go to an interview with his area manager and if successful there, the job would be mine. Well, of course I said yes. Get paid to paint models and play games, as that old philosopher said, find a job you love and never do a days work in your life.

So, one, Saturday morning I put on a shirt and tie, my leather duster jacket with the Blood Angels pin on the lapel, my Imperial Eagle belt buckle and grabbed my official Games Workshop carry case with some of my best painted models. The first part of the interview was a group interview. The usual talk about yourself in the group, some icebreakers, including where you adopt the pose of a GW model and the other candidates try and guess the model. Thinking back, all models then were just holding a pistol and a sword or a rifle in a very similar pose, I'm not sure how any of us thought we could guess any of them. I sailed through the first round, that wasn't the difficult part. The one on one interview however, urgh. I'm not normally a nervous interviewee, never had a problem with job interviews before or since. I guess I just really, really wanted this job. I came across as someone who knew nothing about the product, couldn't explain what a Space Marine was. I knew the whole physical make up of a Space Marine inside out! I could tell you the whole tale of Horus's betrayal and eventual fight with the Emperor aboard his Battle Barge. In this interview, it was as if I had never even heard of GW. I was even given a second chance, I was asked to demonstrate a game of 40K to the interviewer as if they were new to the hobby. I played this in my sleep, and yet at that moment I knew nothing. I panicked that I didn't know the exact stat of anything and instead of just making it up, I froze.
Of course afterwards it was explained to me by all the GW staff I knew that it didn't matter if I didn't actually know the exact rules, they were just trying to hear how I would enthuse about the product, describe how a game would play. Well obviously, if I had known that beforehand I would have breezed the interview of course! Why didn't they just say that? I felt like they just didn't want to employ me and purposely made my interview over complicated to prove I wasn't good enough.

Looking back on the day, I realise now they bent over backwards to try and actually justify hiring me. The manager of the store that referred me must have really bigged me up.  Of course on the day none of this occured to me. They had stood me in front of a giant target with a bazooka and I had missed. I came out of the interview a failure. My friends tried to cheer me up with a trip to the cinema. I wanted to go see the new Mummy film, the trailer had looked awesome. They wanted to take me to see some new Keanu Reeves sci fi film called The Matrix. I was not happy, "What, like that godawful Johnny Mnemonic?"

And Finally,
Evidence that I did meet up with some fellow bloggers at Salute, pop on over to "Don't throw a 1" the blog of a lovely chap called Ray to see a photo of yours truly meeting up with the gang here.

Another year older

With my recent birthday I officially tilted over the hill as it were. It got me thinking, what legacy do I leave to my sons, what advice do I give them? Have I learnt anything in my 41 years on this earth?
So, here is a wargamers advice to his sons. Some may be a little tongue in cheek...

1. Craft knives are sharp, if it is being used to cut metal, it's going to make a horrible mess of your fingers at some point. Blunt knives are worse though because they jump about all over the place, replace blades regularly.
2. If you are going to use a Dremel to drill out the the rivets of a Hot Wheels car to convert for Gaslands, wear the damn safety goggles.
3. Always undercoat. There is no such thing as speed painting, apart from once a year at Salute.
4. If you are going to paint anything smaller than 20mm, do it while you are young and you can still see it.
5. Historical gamers may look down on sci-fi/fantasy gamers and they may look down on RPGers, but everybody looks down on LARPers.
6. If you are going to pour your own lead into moulds in the kitchen, it will put holes in the kitchen counter (Well, your Grandfather learnt that one, but it is still a valuable lesson.)
7. When making a spectacular crater filled gaming table, consider how the dice will fall when rolling them. They like to roll flat.
8. You can never have enough dice, buy more dice.
9. You will never paint all your models, just admit it, you will sleep better.
10. You could spend hours researching the perfect detail on a historical uniform, or you could, if asked, claim alternative history.
11. If you are going to spend a fortune on toy soldiers, spend a bit more on suitable storage. Don't let it get ruined by keeping it in a cardboard box that is going to collapse with damp in the garage.
12. Never wait for your friends to finish an army in the period you want to play. You will have to paint both sides if you ever want a game.
13.  There will always be shinier and prettier models and rulebooks.
14. Always undercoat in black so that if you miss a bit it just looks like a dark shadow on the model, unless you want the colours to pop, and then undercoat in white.
15. Scale creep is a phenomenon that we are just going to have to accept will happen. Measure creep, is on the other hand, just cheating and not acceptable.
16. There are loaded dice out there and people do try it. They should be made to swallow them.
17. Lose graciously, it's just a game. Just enjoy yourself, be a good sport.
18. Wargame the story, not the system, recreate a tale.
19. Don't be a metagamer. Nobody likes it.
20. Rulebooks aren't legally binding. If you want to come up with some house rules and you agree on them they go for it.
21. Better still, write your own.
22. Buy and paint a model because you think it looks cool and you think you'll enjoy painting it, you'll find a use for it later.
23. Don't make your hobby a chore. Remember you are not beholden to it.
24. Share your joy, in whatever way suits you, don't be embarrassed of your hobby.
25. Get out there and talk to other gamers. Unless they are LARPers, avoid the LARPers.
26. Wargaming will teach you many transferable skills. One of the most useful, how to find storage solutions.
27. If you are GMing a role-playing session, the longer you spend planning, the less likely your players will decide to follow the route you want them to.
28. You can paint kilts if you really put your mind to it.
29. You can also paint eyes if you really put your mind to it. Unless you are painting 8mm. Don't be a moron. You aren't that bloke that paints Mona Lisa on rice grains.
30. Be willing to try someone's else's game.
31. Always finish the base of your model. A flocked base makes a model look infinitely better.
32. Drilling and pinning is worth it.
33. You will superglue your fingers together at some point. Don't panic, just peel apart.
34. You definitely can never have enough dice.
35. There is no greater smell than the fresh smell of a newly opened board game or wargame.
36. Closely followed by laser cut MDF.
37. Be adventurous, scratch build, convert, surprise yourself.
38. Don't compare yourself to the painting competition winners, they are the exceptions to the rules. Paint to your own standard. You will improve with time, even if you never get to that unobtainable standard.
39. Invest in some good brushes, you'll be surprised at the difference it makes.
40. You will put your brush in your tea on the odd occasion, don't worry, it won't do you any harm, just don't drink the paint water.
41. Find an understanding partner. One that when shopping for a dining room table, considers the width as well as the length to ensure it makes a good gaming table, without even consulting you.

Post, Post Apocalyptic show post

Another Salute has been and gone.

This dude just kept popping up everywhere.

I did as promised, I did some live posting on Facebook of the day, although not loads as I was too busy enjoying myself. The journey wasn't terrible after all. All the panic about DLR stations being closed and finding alternative routes didn't phase the brother in law and I in the end. We made good time and in fact arrived in the queuing hall before 9am, a record even! Brother in law even had time to grab a coffee at Canning Town.


As I posted yesterday, it was a pleasant surprise to receive two models in the grab bag as we went in this year:

The model on the left is from Archon Studio. I've not heard from them before and the freebie did its job as I was intrigued and paid them a visit. They seemed to have a couple of prototypes of models and a generic dungeon terrain piece for D&D etc. A couple of things that did seem weird about the dungeon prototype was that they were stating it held together with magnets (not included) and their initial designs showed gridding on the floor but the model did not. Not really helpful for roleplaying on I suggested, this was received with a shrug. I wonder if this is a company to watch or are they going too big too soon. The sprue for the freebie model looks interesting though, I shall see how it goes together.

I was determined this year to not just shop and so one activity I wanted to do join in on was the speed painting competition. Twenty minutes to paint a Walking Dead zombie. Not really my kind of model, but I was determined to give it a go. There was a really fun vibe at the table with some great friendly banter. I didn't win the round, but that didn't bother me at all, it was the most twenty minutes fun painting I have had in a long time. I am definitely doing it again next year.

Brains...

So, shopping wise, what did I get? Well, I didn't get everything I wanted. I forgot that Perry don't bring metal, so no BEF, but that can wait. I did get my Frostgrave wizards that were launched yesterday and I also picked up some Frostgrave Female warriors, so some mix and matching and I shall make a couple of Female wizards too.

I made a visit to Bad Squiddo and had a quick chat with Sophie from Needy Cat Games who was helping out. We discussed our shared love of the need to populate a tabletop dungeon with physical items and so of course I picked up some of the new pieces, I shall be using them for Advanced Heroquest.

This is two sets mixed together. The sculpts are awesome.

I grabbed a years subscription to Wargames Illustrated so with my £20 voucher for Warlord I picked up a new villain for my WW2 game. Captain America will have to come out of the deep freeze again!

 I picked up Halvdan from Hasslfree miniatures and a rather dramatic looking Custer from Black Scorpion.

I managed to meet up with the Illustrious Wargaming Opponent for a grand total of around five minutes, but as he is the wargamer I spend most time chucking dice with, we both didn't mind I'm sure. We both compared notes later and I'm sure will do so more later. I did manage however to meet up with some complete strangers at a Bloggers meetup. As I get older and grumpier I convince myself that I don't have the energy to meet new people but in reality I guess I can still have a slight attack of the shyness, so I gave myself a kick and followed through on the promise to meet up with some fellow online scribes. A brief meet, but I did get a few tips and it is nice to know I am not alone out there in the blogsphere.
Finally, I need to make an apology. In my last blog I suggested avoiding Forgeworld at Salute this year and I would like to apologise for this. Not for the suggestion to avoid them, but for suggesting that they would be there. After all my talk of researching my visit I just assumed GW would be at Salute and they weren't.