Once More into the Breach - Getting Back into Wargaming after 16 Years.

Like McBegbie’s midlife crisis, I could lay the blame, albeit indirectly, at Cyanide’s release of Blood Bowl on the PC, although it actually it started with my housemate and me playing Space Marine on the PS3. It was fun for a while: brought back a few memories, it had the cool looking models, fun online gameplay, the excellent customisation, the paint colours with the real GW names! But it wasn't enough, he went deeper, and these occasional games of Space Marine led to Cyanide and the world of Nuffle, and the beginning of the inevitable.

I watched him play for a while, totally lost in a world of block dice, blitzing and bludweiser babes. All pretty unfathomable to me. Beyond my ken. Easy to resist. But then he asked, innocently, innocently asked, if I had any of my old GW models to spare, just so he could, you know, "look" at them. And I said, "Yeah, sure I do, they're in a box somewhere. I’ll dig them out for you".

Historical Wargaming for the Fantasy Gamer.

Wargaming has a long and illustrious history. From the studies of Prussian Officers to the state rooms of Versaille it can trace its evolution from the period of European empire making where military men, when they weren't killing each other all over the known world, would re-fight famous or hypothetical engagements at their leisure. 

Fantasy and Sci-fi wargaming is the veritable baby of the wargames family, however, it has become a very vocal and influential baby. Since its emergence from the boom of pen and paper RPG's in the 1970's,  fantasy wargaming has swiftly emerged as the most visible of wargame strands, from the high street presence of the big brother of them all, Games Workshop (Stop the family analogies- Ed.) to tie in games of successful movie, TV and computer games franchises such as Judge Dredd, Doctor Who, Starship Troopers, Star Wars and others. As such it has become the gateway to wargaming for many impressionable young minds over the last 30 years. And I am no different.

Featherstone: The start of it all for me. 

My Mid Life Crisis - Impressions of a n00b

It's Cyanide's fault really.  Well, perhaps not completely but I think they can take a fair portion of the blame.  Along with the other contributors on this site and my friend Andrew.

During the 80's I was heavily in to the tabletop RPG scene.  AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller and countless others.  Three or four nights a week I'd be involved in some game or another.  I dabbled in some wargaming, Warhammer fantasy, Ancients, Napoleonic and Micro Modern.  As the decade wore on I drifted away and by the early nineties I'd more or less lost interest.

Jump forward to 2009 and Cyanide released their pc version of Bloodbowl.  It sparked my interest, partly thanks to a number of regulars on the Guardian Gamesblog site and awakened memories of some fun evenings in the dim and distant past.  After taking the plunge I began participating in regular leagues.  It was all downhill from there.