Oh hey...yeah i am back.
It's kinda weird being a hobby butterfly or suffering from ADOS.
Its also strange when your whole life has been about gaming, mostly with GW systems but occasionally with other suppliers. And then one day it just loses a chunk of appeal.
Painting becomes a chore, books lose their fluff appeal and you just lack any motivation.
Its been like that for years for me. A model comes along occasionally and really gets my attention and i paint it. I try to build a list around it and then the appeal dies.
In truth as a painter/gamer recent times have been a big fail. I haven't fielded a fully painted force since the mid 00's and then it wasn't a gw game.
It was flames of war. In its own way that made me wonder if i had 'matured' as a gamer.
I have looked back over my gaming life and thought maybe it was armies and changes but i do wonder.
All my life i have had 2 big loves outside of wargaming. Medieval times and the second world war.
Back at the start of my gaming life it was bretonians that got my attention but i never really got on side with them in.
Back when i started making models, it was my uncle Jack. He was an avid military modeller, he had cabinets and units full of ww2 models with every member of the family represented in one way or another. I think it was this man that was solely responsible for my early love of models.
But back then i was a little kid and re-enactments involved setting the models up and lobbing rocks at them. Yes i know, i hang my head in shame nowadays. More so because so many of the models were lovingly crafted and donated by my uncle, he has passed on now, in hindsight and with years behind me, i regret those actions so much.
But that's a tangent off topic.
So my loves in life should really be reflected in my hobby.
Back when i was playing flames of war, i was the only one in my little group. They all played 40k, warmachine and necromunda. But there was one guy at the local club who did play and he played the arch nemesis to my 7th armoured division force...the dreaded Afrika Korps. Every week we would meet and play and no other game mattered.
Times change and i moved away though. The local scene is more 40k,but the 'coltishall cowards' club is open to all sorts.
The plot thickens...
Over the last week a little spark became a fire. A fire last night burst into a raging inferno in this old gamers heart.
GW and there Armies On Parade has always appealed to me. Talking to a few other hobbyists on twitter got me thinking. A small bretonian force for AOP, a great way into a small army of well painted models. Itch created. Family heraldry researched....small idea sparked.
Then last night the spark reached inferno.
Sat watching the footy...as one does. I saw a little advert for the pre-order of Warlord games latest bolt action release....Pegasus Bridge.
Hmmm Something stirred deep inside the old Royal Green Jacket in me, it also tweaked the nipples of the ww2 fanatic.
A few mouse clicks and it didn't so much as stir and tweak...as bound around slapping the face of my hobbyist self whilst jabbing the historian with a thousand pointy sticks.
Oh me oh my...warlord games take my money....
Then it delivered a swift steel toe capped rugby kick to the groin.....
£175 for the basic set, £275 for the 'Ham and Jam' collectors set. (ww2 historians should know the significance of 'ham and jam' to Pegasus bridge')
Cough and splutter.
But then rational thought got the body slam and big leg drop hulk hogan style.
Over the course of 3-6 months i blow that on failed gw projects.
My other half and long suffering wargamer fiancee even made positive arguments. Commenting that if she didn't like the game play then i could always take it to the local club. She knows my enthusiasm for ww2, shes had to sit through the films (though she enjoys many more modern ww2 films, she hates the B&W ones).
So there's a burning in my hobbyist/historian heart and an even bigger burning sensation in my wallet. Well not yet but payday is only 8 days away.
I don't know which set i will be able to afford yet, but 1 will get purchased.
A reading of the review pages even indicates that the game should be good fun, but then when Rick Priestly and Alessio Cavatore are the writers....you expect decent rules that work.
Keep your eyes peeled....come mid October (expected release date) this demeted wargamer might just burst back onto the scene in a full tilt boogie way, hamming and jamming and jumping out at people screaming 'up the ox and bucks, up the ox and bucks'
