Make terrain and scatter

I have been painting a lot of brown this week. When you have an old west town in 28mm you have to invest in multiple shades of brown. Oh but the brown I have been painting. This week I have been painting scatter terrain. It's an exciting one, folks.

Now bear with me dear reader, this post is for the hardcore wargamer. I am going to deep dive on this one and compare the different price points I recently purchased for adding to my gaming table. Before I start, let me add that when looking for terrain for my table I have to consider a few things.

• Storage. Space is limited in my home, so if it is large, if it folds down all the better, although in this case I am buying small items, so if they fit in my handy terrain drawer, brilliant.
• Price. We're all on a budget, I don't need to explain this one, if it's going to be pricy, it better be really nice.
• Useability. If an item is less period specific, ie I could use it for Napoleonic, WW2 and futuristic gaming, then it is actually worth triple its cost to me. Also, am I going to regularly use it?

As you may know I enjoy a game of Legends of the Old West, a 28mm scale skirmish game in the old west. Like a lot of skirmish games, having some cover on the table significantly improves the game. I have a significantly sized cowboy town for this game, but most of the table consists of Sarissa precision building kits (which usefully do flat pack down for storage) and then nice open streets. Time to give my cowboys some cover to duck down behind. All these items were purchased at Colours wargame show unpainted and were not given free for reviewing.

So, the first items I bought were from Iron Gate Scenery.  Each pack cost me £2.50 and contained five of each, crates and barrels. Now these items are 3D printed and if you look closely, you can see the horizontal lines of the printing process. Now, they are clearly advertised as such, but I obviously didn't notice this in my showday excitement. I don't have a 3D printer myself, but I do know people who do who could probably have printed something up something pretty similar. The detail isn't high end, but that is reflected in the price and these are good choice if you need to cover a lot of table on a small budget.

We go slightly up quality to a set of large crates from Grendel. I purchased these from Coritani Magnetic Displays. I have shown some terrain I have painted from this company on my blog before here. They sell their sets unpainted or painted. (It is very tempting to pay for them painted but although I am a terrible painter, I am tighter with my money.) The large crates are three identical "piles" or "stacks" of crates cast in resin for £8. They take paint really well and the detail is pretty good. The resin is a little brittle, you have to be careful not to drop these, they chip really easily. Obviously being identical they may look weird next to each other, but I think spacing them out with the rest of the terrain will work.

Finally we've gone slightly exciting. I picked up the food supplies basing kit for £10:

and the cargo supplies for £16 from Bad Squiddo games:

Now these are obviously slightly pricier, but the detail is awesome. I'm a terrible painter, so I've not done them justice, but you can make out carrots, sausages and lettuce in the food supplies. They are all cast in resin that takes paint really well and isn't brittle at all. The basing kit I have obviously stuck on my own bases through choice, they separate really well if you want to use them for details on a diarama or the base of a model. I couldn't afford to fill my entire cowboy town with this range of scatter terrain, but it definitely will come in handy for a few different game systems.

So, there you go, I told you it was an exciting one. I think I'm going to have to choose something nice a colourful for my next painting project. Put the brown paint away for a bit. Maybe something neon and cyberpunky...

Colours 2019 preparation

photo taken from newburyracecourse.co.uk

Well, its here again. It snuck up really quickly. Next weekend is the Newbury and Reading Wargame Society Annual fair. Or as we all know it to be called, Colours.
Regular readers will know this is my favourite show due to the minimal commute, but also as it just seems to be just the right size of show to be a fun day out without being too huge and overwhelming. Plus being close to home means I soak in the whole show and not miss anything and still be home in time for afternoon tea.
Bizarrely as I said, this has snuck up on me this year so I haven't really put much thought into research this year. Regular readers will know of my meticulous research for show days out and yet I have done none of that for Colours 2019. I haven't even done my annual delve through the under bed boxes for things to sell at the bring and buy. You can see the list of traders on the website here. Last year I produced a handy list of hyperlinks, but it looks like the club have added web site addresses this year so I shall not bother.
So a brief list of things of note. Perry are a last minute addition, as they don't always  come to Newbury either, will be good to see them. Bad Squiddo will be getting a visit from myself, I'm hoping to pick up some more of the new terrain resins, always useful. I may finally bite the bullet and invest in a Deep Cut Studios gaming mat for the dining table. I always drool over them at shows but you all know how it is, terrain isn't as much fun as soldiers. Finally, I have noticed Debris of War do some Gaslands conversion kits reasonably priced. I may have to make a visit to them to pick up some bits for my hotwheels collection.
Otherwise I'm thinking I'm just going to browse and take in the atmosphere. I may actually be persuaded to join in some participation games this year. After deciding to do more than just retail at a show earlier in the year and having fun at the speed painting competition,  I'm beginning to think there is more to these shows than just spending monies.

Ragnarok!

No, not the Marvel Movie, the original end of days. I'll be there, will you?

So, I thought my next post would be the great pre Salute prep post, but this came up today and I had to get my thoughts out there on the subject.
So, as you know I love Opsrey Wargames books, every now and then I am on my phone browsing the web and I exclaim, "Osprey have bloody done it again!"
"They have made another book you want, haven't they, my darling?" my encouraging and understanding wife asks.
Of course they have.

Cover presumably copyright Osprey publishing.

A dramatic cover, I hear you say. Well, that is the idea. Apparently, from the minimal infomation gleaned from the Osprey pages and the Facebook group. (I declared to my wife, I have been accepted to Ragnarok! What are you doing at the end of times?!) This game is meant to be played with an accompanying musical track of Heavy Metal tunes.

Remember this? Now can someone make a wargame out of this!

Written by Tim Korklewski, the game is a skirmish system with minimum 7 a side where you don't just hit each other with swords and axes. Apparantly you will be pushing and throwing your opponents around the battlefield using a mechanic called the Godspark. It's campaign driven, I am guessing your campaign ends when the great world tree finally topples and the realms come to an end. It's a very definite strong beat to a skirmish campaign system, something that normally just ends up being, whose gang ends up being the richest?

You can browse the first couple of pages of the book on the Osprey website here.

Now I definitely have some hardcore metalheads for wargaming friends, my normal Illustrious Wargaming Opponent isn't one of them, but I reckon he would still give it a go as long as we kept the volume down (although can one actually really listen to AC\DC or Iron Maiden with the volume down?). As you know I already have started some Footsore Vikings, so next month at Salute I think I shall be bringing out my inner Kappi to fight past the backpacks and trolley suitcases (when did they become a good idea?) and pick up some more suitable dramatic axe wielding warriors.

Free sprues from Wargames illustrated!

It would be hard for a wargamer to not have read a copy of  Wargames Illustrated unless they are a member of the hardcore fans of GW that refuse to accept any other toy soldiers exist. I do admit that it doesn't always pique my interest with all its articles, I do dip in and out. Not being made of money, I do try to keep my magazine purchases to one a month and so sometimes I do swap across to one of the other periodicals depending on the articles.

I have however recently been quite happy to purchase the magazine due to their announcement that every month for a year will include a free sprue from Warlord games. The first two are from their new boxed game, Cruel Seas. I have yet to try this game but I certainly shall be looking to see if a demo game is running at the next show I attend.
 This months free sprue is from Bolt Action. My particular copy had German Africa Korps attached. I don't play Bolt action but I do play WW2 in 28mm using my own conversion rules using the Warhammer historical Old West rules.

 I hear you ask why go to the effort when there are already lots of WW2 rulesets out there. I wanted something that felt more like a Hollywood war movie. I didnt want platoon level rules, I wanted something more like The Dirty Dozen or Bridge over the River Kwai. What better than a set of rules that were designed to simulate Hollywood cowboy films.

Finally this month on my bedside table I have been reading the following:

Inspired by the articles in Decembers WI on this indestructible chap, I felt the need to do some further reading, and I can say that it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. A modest soldier that fought in both World Wars, he was more put out at the loss of his favourite shooting guns when Hitler invaded Europe than the fact that he would have to risk life and limb once more.

Finally, it should be worth mentioning that the Monster that is Salute is already looming. South London Warlords have already announced the list of Traders. Luckily their page has links to the websites of all the companies so that makes researching easier. It's a little early this year on April 6th, so less than two months to go!

Guess who's back...

It's been far too long. I read too many apologies in blogs for long gaps between posts, I don't know why, we aren't beholden to deadlines, sometimes life just gets in the way. I won't bore you with details, I've just been busy. So, on to the subject at hand, what have I been up to? Well, after finishing my Napoleonic British, I had a delve in the lead mountain to see what else has been sat doing nothing for years (yes years!) A long while ago I was inspired by seeing the film 300 (yep that is how long ago) to pick up some Spartans from the ruleset Wargods of Aegyptus from Crocodile Games. I loved the models, the rules didn't inspire me as much though, so they sat in the leadpile. Well, having picked up a copy of Ospreys Of Gods and Mortals, I now have a use for them, so the dust was blown off the storage box they were in and I finished them.

 King Leonidas and Champions

Champion, musician and standard

 The notorious shieldwall

 Casualty, or just taking a nap?

I have recently realised that if I ever want to wargame a period with the Illustrious Wargamer Opponent, or in fact with any other wargaming friends, it is best to have both sides of combat prepared myself. No longer do I rely on friends who assure me they are going to buy their own army for a system I suggest and get it painted up. If I want to wargame, it is much easier to have it all prepared. So, regular readers may remember I have also purchased Vikings back in September. Now, all us longbeards know, the only way to finish batch painting is to only paint the characters as a reward for painting the rank and file. Paint one unit, then allow yourself one special character. I have a bag of 24 Black Tree designs Vikings and ten or so Footsore miniatures Vikings all unfinished. I'm not going to apologise though, I have painted my characters.

 

Olaf the Bald

Warlord

Odin the Allfather

I really like the Footsore miniatures range but they are tricky.  A lot of the miniatures come with a seperate axe in a hand with a built in pin. The model then has both hands sculpted as well, I am guessing so you can choose to add your own choice of alternative weapon. This does mean however, that you have to snip a hand off the model then drill a pin hole in the wrist. I would not recommend these models to a beginner modeller. They are lovely sculpts though, I shall post pics of the rest when finished.

Continuing the self indulgence of painting individual models instead of any units that would be much more useful for wargaming, I have painted the two Giants in Miniature I bought at Colours.  (The Illustrious Opponent has however been muttering about writing some Victorian Era Lost World dino-hunting rules, so at least one of these may come in handy after all.)

 Alan Quartermaine

"Flash" Harry

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you do this hobby for fun, try not to let it be a chore to get things painted and if you want to paint something that you probably will never put on a gaming table ever, do it anyway. I am probably never going to find a use for the next model I will show you, but it was fun to paint, plus I feel I must tell you it was a joy to paint a resin model that took paint easily, without having to be scrubbed in soapy water first!

Chibi Raging Annie from Bad Squiddo games. Sometimes you just want to paint a pink tutu.

Finally I finished another project I have had a while, well I thought it was finished a long time ago, the models in fact were in my glass cabinet. My four year old son was spinning on the chair in front of the cabinet, looking at the contents when he suddenly exclaimed, "Daddy, you've painted Captain America's shield wrong! It should be a white star in blue, you've painted a blue star in white! Silly Daddy!"

He then ran out the room, retrieved his toy Cap shield from his room and ran back in to show me how it should be done. Three things crossed my mind at this point. One, I am so proud to have raised a son that already has that level of knowledge in Superheroes that he can immediately work out something is wrong. Two, I immediately had to take said model out of the glass cabinet and fix the heinous error straight away. Three, I am horrified I got it wrong in the first place, what was I thinking? I should hang my head in shame. It is the second Captain America model I have painted in 28mm and I got the first one right!

The Avengers, with correct colour scheme on Cap. (It bugs me though that Hawkeye has once again been left out of the team lineup.)

The completist in me does want to finish the Avengers team by finding a Hawkeye to paint but as Knight Models have lost the Marvel licence I'm loath to pay twenty quid on Ebay for one model. Then where does it end, I'd need to find Vision, then possibly Black Panther...

Newbury and Reading Wargames Society presents....

Colours 2018

It was a warm September day, a slight breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The perfect day to spend indoors with the backpack brigade. Yep it was Colours today.

As I have waxed lyrical in my previous post, this is my favourite show of the year. So I was up at the crack of dawn, baking some breakfast cinnamon whirls and bagging up some toy soldiers to sell. My illustrious wargaming opponent and I were nice and early at the front of the queue when the doors opened, so straight up to the bring and buy and we booked in our goods. I cannot emphasise enough how good a job the team do on the bring and buy each year. All volunteers, the efficiency in which they run it is a credit to the club. I know previously they have struggled to get it right, and I can say they now have it running like clockwork.

So, what did I buy? Well I didn't go crazy this year, it was nice just to enjoy the show and take in the demo games, but I did pick up a few bits.  Some bits of resin furniture from Trevor at Coritani www.magneticdisplays.co.uk. for my Heroquest games. I have bought from him before, nice resin sculpts, not too pricy and have that old school feel about them that is perfect for dungeon crawling.

I picked up a Chibi Raging Annie from Bad Squiddo and an Athena, Goddess of Wisdom to use in Ospreys Gods and Mortals skirmish game. For the same game I picked up some Footsore Vikings and a bag of less specific Black Tree design vikings from Mili-art.

Finally, I had to see if I could pick up a couple of giants in miniature from Wargames Illustrated (they are limited to 500 of each so they won't be around forever) I picked up a "Flash" Harry (mainly because it would amuse the Mother in Law) and an Alan Quartermain. I also grabbed a blister of 28mm scale pigs from Warbases  for a future project I will write about in the future.

The demo games had a couple of good tables of note. I didn't capture them all, but the following caught my imagination. Firstly, a 40mm scale table in full snowscape from Wessex games entitled Retreat from Moscow:

Next was a World War One table in 28mm presented by Adrian Shepherd and friends entitled The Race Across Idlib Provence.

A group call "Friends who like Rapid Fire" presented a most impressive display of 20mm WW2 vehicles much to the chagrin of my illustrious wargaming opponent who is in the beginning of the planning stage of doing his own Rapid Fire demo of Operation Goodwood.

A few Brits and the Hobby presented a demonstration of the Spectre ruleset. The giant scratchbuilt(?) tankers made an impressive centre to the table.

Overall a fun day out. However, I would say it seemed quiet this year. There didn't seem as many visitors. I dont know actual figures, but I didn't get as many backpacks to the face. This was reflected in my bring and buy sales, sadly I had to carry more items back home than I hoped. Anyone want to buy an original copy of Escape From Colditz?

Getting my soldiers on the table

Regular readers will know that I have been painting Napoleonic British in 28mm. Now as we all know, these models are not just intended to sit in a foam tray in a cardboard box, I need to get them on a table. As this project has been going on for some time now, I have had time to look into and purchase various rules. Painting Space Marines then playing with them is easy, you buy a copy of Warhammer 40,000 and away you go (although these days there is the argument of which version of those rules are best, if you aren't playing in store, why not go back to 2nd edition? I loved the Dark Millennium add on rules.)
The problem with historical wargaming, or maybe the advantage, is that there are countless rule sets out there. 

As my models are 28mm scale and I learnt to wargame through warhammer, I really wanted to play something closer to 1 model equals 1 man than 1 equals many. Now, obviously this is not actually practical unless we go to a skirmish level, using something like Sharpe Practice or Chosen Men. The problem with these rules however, are that I really won't get a full table of models without meaning the game will take days to play. 

Going up scale, we have Warhammer Historical, Waterloo. Now it has Warhammer in the name, surely this will feel familiar, after all I am a massive fan of the Legends of the Old West Warhammer Historical rules too. These rules feel like what I am going for, but they are just slightly too complicated. We played them, but I just couldn't get my head round TAC points and when models are removed as casualties. It left me and my fellow gamers scratching our heads, wondering if we got it right or not. Also, the first models I painted were my British Riflemen (I will openly admit all my historical wargaming is heavily influenced by totally inaccurate fictional versions from movies and tv.) These rules meant I would only be fielding about 8 models from my lovingly painted green jackets.

Neil Thomas has written an excellent set of rules called One Hour Wargames, which have a chapter on the Napoleonic era. These are excellent rules but a little basic for what I want to do. That is obviously their intention and I will probably use them at some time when I do only have an evening to play. Especially as they are also designed for the smaller table. I also feel these rules would easily scale up to a larger table and are simple enough to not slow down play. I do however want to have a little bit more complication by including some congreve rockets. (Wargaming has to be fun after all, what's more fun than misfiring rockets?)

My own crude Congreve rockets conversions

All this leads to one conclusion, I am going to have to write my own rules. What I am looking for is something that falls between the rule sets I have. Another reason is learning wargame rules is hard, it is very difficult to learn a set a rules from reading them. Just like boardgames, we all find it easier when someone else shows us. It is extremely difficult to to fully convey the authors intention in a readable rulebook.

 If I write my own rules using methods my local wargaming group already understand, we will more likely spend a day enjoying a wargame, than constantly referring to the text of a book written by someone we have never met. The age of the internet has helped this a bit, authors can now easily answer queries via the internet. One of my favourite current rulesets that I have taken the effort to learn is Rogue Stars from Osprey, mainly because the author Andrea Sfiligoi is so willing to discuss his rules on Facebook. But nothing is more useful than having the author of a ruleset in the room to immediately answer a query, interpret his intentions or fill a gap in the text.

This did at first seem a daunting task. The most I have done so far is write extra "houserules" for systems already in place. As I have mentioned in previous blogs I have written my own sci fi version of Advanced Heroquest and a WW2 version of Warhammer Legends of the Old West. I have been confident that these would work as the hard job of the bare bones of the system is done for you. This would be more of a challenge. Luckily help is at hand.

This book comes in very handy. The authors are experience wargame writers. The book won't do the hard work for you, but it answers a lot of questions I had when I first thought about writing my own rules. It not only goes through the mechanics of writing rules but also how to identify the language of rules writing. If it is something you have not done before it is a tricky writing style to master. All I have to do then is some playtesting, but that is the fun bit.

And finally....

Now I am going to talk about something that the purists will baulk at, so if you like your wargaming perfectly historically accurate,(surely you have realised by now that is not me.) look away now.

Seriously, I don't want to upset you.

You aren't going to like this.

Right, now the grumps aren't reading I'm going to make a suggestion. Now, don't get me wrong, there is a time for historical accuracy, the educational benefits are clear to see, but sometimes wargaming has to be a bit fun. So I have taken some inspiration from this humongous tome.

You could break a toe dropping this book.

If you haven't read the book, Mr Norrell goes out with the British army to see what he can do in the Peninsular wars. After being ignored by Wellington for a period, he eventually assists the army mainly by magically conjuring up nice flat roads for them to march on, then removing them afterwards so that the French cannot take advantage. I love the idea of having a Gentleman magician on the table, accompanying the Officers in doing what he can to stick it to ol' Boney.
Obviously I need to give the French something equivalent. Now, in the story there arent any magic users on the French side, but I came up with the idea of giving them a Necromancer, perhaps a mysterious bearded stranger from Eastern Europe? He could raise up units of recently deceased Imperial Guard to shuffle across the battlefield. I just need to purchase some Perry plastics and maybe some Mantic zombie sprues. It's been a while since I've done some kit bashing...

Rattle dem bones

Why do you have so many dice?

One thing that all us gamers have in common is our dice. Yes there are games systems that use cards, (Kobolds and Cobblestones from Osprey use poker style rules to resolve combat.) I have taken part in a roleplaying session where players took a piece from a Jenga tower every time their character did something risky, but most modern wargaming systems use dice to introduce that random factor into games.

It wasnt always this way, Little Wars involved cannons firing wooden dowels and close combat was resolved by comparing the numbers in each opposing side. These days though, most wargaming tables have a pile of dice cluttering up one corner (or the whole table sometimes.)

I must pre warn you, the following image may be upsetting to fellow gamers...


Brace yourself


It isnt pretty...


here it is...

This is what happens when your offspring gets into your carefully organised dice collection.  My youngest loves to play with the dice, I really don't mind, it really has helped him with counting. I remember to this day using wooden counting cubes in school, I'm just giving him a head start.

We all have different dice for different uses, not just the obvious differently sided dice. We use tiny dice as to indicate how many hits a character has taken, giant wooden dice to indicate what turn we are currently on. I know some people that have a different set of D6 (six sided dice) for different armies they have, green dice for their Orcs, red dice for their Napoleonic British. 

I have lots of dice for another reason, dice hogs. Yep, you know who you are  people. Somehow every time these players need to roll a dice, they reach for the furthest dice they can find on the table. (no matter how large the table) The result of which means all the dice gravitate towards them as the day goes on. My own personal solution to this problem is just more dice. If there are enough dice on the table, then there is always suitable dice within reach.

So, I can confidently say my collection of dice has a practical reason, but I can wholely understand why some people just like to collect them. The tactile nature of them, just holding a handful of dice before rolling them is fun. Its no coincidence that people use Gem dice when playing D&D, its almost a physical representation of the treasure their characters are on a quest to retrieve. Some people take it further and collect dice purely as a hobby. I briefly joined a Facebook group of these people out of curiosity and I can confidently say I love their enthusiasm. Like stamp or coin collecting, any new design (or a rare miscast) is desired for their collection. One wonderful soul has even designed a categorisation system that I applaud for its wonderful attention to detail. (visit his amazing website here ) I eventually only left the group in a fit of self preservation as I slowly began to find myself more and more tempted to start buying dice by the pound. (That is not an exaggeration, you can buy by the pound.)

(I don't apologise for use of the meme, it was too good to not include. Credit: Dungeons and Dragons Memes page on Fbook.)

There are the players who claim to always roll badly (my Pathfinder character regularly rolls at least three 1's a session.) I've seen players throw dice across the room in disgust at the number of failed rolls they've made, I've seen youtube videos of dice being "punished" with hammers for somehow being responsible for the death of a beloved D&D character, I've seen players swap out their dice to try and restore some luck. The truth of the matter is, we all roll badly, we all roll well. I'm not going to suggest all dice are perfectly balanced, (there are ways to test that involving saltwater) but don't blame the die, blame the GM.

I don't have the space where I live to have a massive gaming table, once a year I have a cull of my models to clear space for the inevitable new purchases but I can never have too many dice.  Although remind me of this post when you catch me swimming in dice Scrooge McDuck style...

The end of an affair

Or how I still can't not walk in to a Games Workshop.

Previous readers will know my first GW purchase was a copy of Advanced Heroquest. My first store purchase however was a few years later, a Necromunda gang. Sold to me on the promise that I would just need that one small gang of models, one simple purchase that wouldnt break the bank and I could play this awesome new game.

Not a perfect rule system, Necromunda however was awesome for its time. I of course later bought the box set, all that multi level terrain and the multitude of models in the core box set was a perfect example of how Games Workshop earned its reputation as the "Gateway" to wargaming.

All except I think one of my fellow wargamers started with painting Citadel miniatures. I was drawn in to this community and found my people. I could tell you minutae detail of the stories behind Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, I went to Games Day, I even applied for a part time job at my local store (I didnt get the job, but I am now kinda glad I didnt. Painting to deadline? Not for me, see my previous post!)

As I have become a grumpy old gamer I have fallen out of love with Games Workshop though. I don't want to start an anti-GW rant, there are plenty of those all over the internet, believe me. I just genuinely believe they have lost some of us older gamers. Maybe this has always been the case, there are teenagers now going to their local store every Saturday without fail just like I did, maybe I am the problem, maybe I don't "believe" anymore. Have they really become "over priced and share holder led", or were they always that way and I didnt know any better? Of course they have to gear their product towards selling you new models every week, they have staff to pay and shops to rent.  Maybe I have just matured in my tastes, or maybe I just miss the old days?

My favourite days of the year are day trips to wargame shows. It doesnt surprise me that some of favourite companies have ex GW staff running them. Warlord Games started by John Stallard and Paul Sawyer (affectionally known to us oldhammer players as the non politically correct "Fat Bloke") has a very familiar GW feel to its business model, I am particularly fond of their alternative history WW2 game Konflict 47. Alan and Michael Perry of Perry Miniatures are the Rock Stars of wargaming in my eyes, I love their Napoleonic range but my favourite model I have is a Salute special of an American Civil War general.

Hasslefree Miniatures gets a special mention as the nicest family in Wargaming. They are always my first visit at Salute each year and I love everything Kev White sculpts, I would even go out on a limb and call him the best sculpter out there right now. If I remember correctly, Kev used to sculpt for GW, he is so prolific at sculpting that following him on Facebook is a must to witness his talent.

The Trenchcoat wearing "Harby" has been given horns by yours truly with some clumsily added green stuff.

My wife has an excellent way of describing my relationship with GW. They are like a terrible ex partner. I tell everyone I am over them, that I want nothing to do with them, but every now and then we bump into each other and I only remember the good times. I know they are bad for me, I know there are better products out there, I know their game systems can sometimes seem unbalanced and possibly even geared towards selling more products than making a fair game. Yet I will still pop in and say hello and have a peruse. The staff are always lovely, they are conveniently just round the corner if I need some Goblin Green, if it is still called that? (I miss the old paints, where's Brazen Brass gone?!) and if there were no Games Workshop this hobby may not be in the renaissance it is now.

I said I didnt want to do an anti-GW rant and I hope I haven't. I'm still keeping my stack of Warhammer rulebooks and I will still buy every new Dan Abnett novel when it comes out. (I could write another whole post about my love of the Gaunts Ghosts saga.) When my boys are older if they want to wargame I'm not going to refuse them a trip to Games Workshop, I shall just have to start saving now for it.

Maybe I should hope they want to take up sports instead.