Over at
Steve's Random Musings, he recently posted a list of his favourite Wargame facts. He got the idea from
Too Much Lead and has invited other gamers to post their favourites.
Steve goes on to say, "We all have favourite games, periods, inspirations and so on, the challenge then is to document what they are so we can all see what drives us....."
And so to my list!!
Wargames Period
A very difficult decision??? But I think It got to be The Age of Reason. The Seven Years War, was my first period I painted up in the early 90's. An older version of The Rejects all got together and painted up figures for a country, I choose the Brits,you just gotta love them Redcoats!!
A close second would be The Dark Ages, Norman's,Saxon's ans Vikings.
Scale
25mm is the ultimate scale, just for the visual effect, but I'm going with my favourite, 15mm.
1. It's far cheaper.
2. Unfortunately I've not won the lottery yet, so for me 15mm wins the gold medal.
3. You don't need a massive table to play 15mm.
I have painted lots of 6mm, which is a great grand tactical scale, the figures all seem to be getting bigger than 6mm now, more close to 10mm, so you may as well just go for 15's.
Rules
Sorry but I'm gonna go back to my favourite period question again. When the early Rejects decided to paint up the armies for the SYW, we play-tested two sets of rules. The first being Koenig Krieg, which we all enjoyed, but they were beaten into second place by The Age of Reason. We went on to play the campaign system, in the rules twice. I won't tell you who won, let's just say I've got good negotiation skills!!
I've also got to mention WAB, I never once played the rules from the book, we as a group adapted them, to what we thought they should be. I've not left them altogether, I'm taking a leaf out of Fran's book and adapting army lists to use the Lord of the Rings rule system, which Fran uses for his Samurai games.Mind you I've been adapting the rules for about 4 years now....one day!!
And I've got to mention my new baby at the moment, Beneath the Lily Banners 2. Which I'm sure you've seen me mention a few times on this blog already.
Boardgame
As a kid, I loved boardgames, you name it we had it, trouble is they always used to end up in a fight, because my brother Lee is a bloody cheating git!!!
My first wargamey boardgame, was Risk, I haven't played it for years, but used to love it. Pre-wargames I used to get together with a few mates and have a Risk day, quite sad really??? We then moved on to Allies and Axis and Shogun, then my neighbour Stuart invited the motley crew around his house to play a Wargame. I must admit I was unsure? I cannot play such a nerdy game, spending all day pushing silly soldiers around.....and the rest is history!!!
Figure Manufacturer
So many to choose from?????
For 25mm, I'll go with Gripping Beast, some people don't like them for some reason, but I love' em. I bought the whole collection of their Vikings/Saxons when they first came out and they're sitting in my shed, just waiting for me to sort rules out for them. I love Front Rank as well, although I don't own any of their figures anymore. I just love to paint them, they have raised belts and features which makes them so easy to paint, you don't have to dig any detail out of them.
For 15mm, I've gotta go for Essex Minis. Just like Front Rank, Essex seem to paint themselves, they're such an easy paint. I own tons of Essex figures from many periods including, FIW, NYW, Renaissance English, Scots, French, Swiss and Italians. Trojan's and Mycenaeans. And lastly some Republican Romans and Carthaginians.
Club
I'm a member of Posties Rejects, which is not really a club, its more like a group of mates, who get together when we can. When I started gaming in the early 90's we had a group of around 8 people, myself, Postie, Richard, Smithy and Dave are the only ones left from the original 8, although we've drafted in new member as and when we could, including fellow bloggers BigLee and Fran (The Lurker).
Opponent
The other Rejects?? Without upsetting the other Rejects I like to play Fran the most, because he's a bush huggin' chicken, he may well be big and brash, but on the wargaming table, he a little cuddly teddy bear, ahhh how sweet!!! So I get to win alot, which is always good, now I'm sure he's going to put some silly comment at how many games he's won recently,blah, blah, blah,just take it with a pinch of salt, all the other Rejects do!!!
Inspiration
There have been so many films that have made me want to pick up the brush and paint or even empty my wallet on an order. I've gotta go with Steve's choice of The Last of the Mohicans, it's a great film, great use of colour and it's a film about my favourite period. My favourite part of the film, is when the film goes silent, Hawkeye runs through the forest chasing Magua, trying to rescue the two sisters finally catching and killing Magua. I find myself holding my breath through the entire sequence.
Other films that make the juices flow are,
1. Saving Private Ryan - A feast of a film!!
2. Barry Lyndon - Again its all about the uniforms.
3. Black Hawk Down - One hell of a film, great cast and great action.
4. The classics - Spartacus, El Cid, Ben-Hur and The Vikings. Four great fims that whenever they're on I find myself watching them, even though I've got them all on DVD.
Books
I read a lot of books, mainly historical novels, my all time favourite has got to be the The Arthurian Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur. If you haven't read them, do, they're a must!!!! I'd read most of Sharpe and thought I'd have a go at these. I bought the first book and read it in a day,I couldn't put the damn thing down. The next day I went back into own and bought the next two, I read them both in a week. Since then I've re-read them all three times. In fact I'm due to read them again....soon!!!
Art
Strangely enough I'm not really an arty person, unless its got some kind of soldier in it, I find most of the artwork in the Osprey series to be first class, but I like work of
Mark Churms, he's not the most popular by far, but I like him, her'es a link to a post I did about a piece of his work
The Charge of the Heavy Brigade
The Web
My blog's been up for a year and a half now, for great wargame sites just check out who I follow on the list on the left of this page.
As Aki from Too much lead, said in his post, "If you like the idea, poach it for your own blog"
I did hope you enjoyed the incite into my mind!!!!!
Ray