Welcome!
My first foray into wargaming was as a kid playing 40k. My brother’s friend had brought White Dwarf #166 magazine to school and the rest is history. I collected Blood Angels for 40k 2nd edition and Undead and High Elves for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition. This went on for a few years in the early 90’s before my career path laid before me and I joined the military.
It was not until a few years later that I had a steady income that I started to get back into it mostly as a painting hobby with very little gaming to be had. When I was injured during service, I was sitting on my backside for several weeks which prompted me to start painting every model I owned. I was very chuffed and finished off my Blood Angels and then naturally started to collect other armies. Tau and Dark Eldar were projects that were both begun, but it was not for too long until the pull of Fantasy Battles came calling again to me. Like any wargamer, I sold existing armies to fund new projects and re-kindled a High Elves project. I had found a local group of gamers and not only was getting regular games in, but also starting to consistently paint. I’d bought my own house by this stage, so my gaming ‘shed’ was in the backyard and housed everything in it including a gaming table and a lot of terrain my wife had handmade for me one Christmas.
7th edition was released for Warhammer and the High Elves were looking nearer completion. You guessed it! I needed to start another project. When I’d first begun playing back in the early 90’s the Undead was not split into two factions as it was known in the latter days of Warhammer. There was something so much more appealing to me to the Egyptian themed Nehekharan armies in chariots as opposed to the Vampires lurking in Sylvania. I scoured the internet and found an amazing bargain on the Buy/Swap/Sell forums of the beloved WargamerAU website.
For $200 I scored the following:
Tomb King
2 x Liche Priests
Tomb Scorpion
3 x Ushabti
Screaming Skull Catapult
Casket of Souls
3 Chariots
Bone Giant
10 x Skeleton Horsemen
10 x Skeleton Horse Archers
40 odd Skeleton Warriors
40 odd Skeleton Archers
20 x Tomb Guard
3 x Carrion
3 x Tomb Swarms
It was a memorable moment for me which would eventually turn into a painting project, terrain project, over 100 documented battle reports and the highlight being a tournament win. It ended up looking like something like this when the project was completed:
Unfortunately with 8th edition meeting an untimely demise companies like FFG were making waves in the wargaming scene. Being a natural Star Wars fan, a very good friend and my brother chipped in to get me a few ships and the core set of X-Wing first edition. Needless to say the obsession did not take long to settle in. I was reading every blog and listening to every podcast I could about the subjects and even following the ‘Worlds’ scene looking at the latest data that was presented on the FFG forums. I had started my own blog and was doing a podcast here and there about my new found hobby.
By this stage my wife was gaming with me, and my kids would eventually start playing as well. I was becoming so obsessed with this game, that my wife would frequently defeat me, and me being such a sore loser, I would continue to analyse where I went wrong. She eventually stopped playing but not before joining me in a store league where the highlight was her wiping the floor with an undefeated ‘Brobots’ player.
I started working overseas which massively cut into the gaming time. I was lucky enough however to win a store championship and come away with some really cool prizes. I was even pretty chuffed with the day I could take my eldest son with me to a tournament to play alongside.
From the moment I’d started playing X-Wing however, I’d been hearing nothing but good things about Star Wars Armada. In a nutshell, X-Wing is squads in a dogfight, where Armada is fleets in massive battles. One element of working away from home, is you generally have a great deal of free time where family time would normally take place. During this time I started to obsess again although this time, it was about Armada. By this stage, X-Wing was heading towards the end of the first edition, it was full of ridiculous combinations and it was all about having the latest expansions to ensure you had the best cards to play in tournaments.
As much as I was looking forward to the second edition, Armada was far more intriguing. I sold an Ogre Kingdoms army that was gathering dust and like any good gamer those funds got re-invested straight into Armada. I’d been speaking to Rodney at an X-Wing tournament about Armada and he’d offered to teach me as soon as I had some models. We arranged a time and on a Monday night had a game at a gaming venue between us. I dragged my mate Todd along who after Turn 2, was convinced he was going to invest. I still remember having an ISD, Gozanti, and Gladiator cruising about the board with a scattering of squadrons.
Although Armada is without a doubt one of my favourite games, it has a massive learning curve and the games take a little bit of time. X-wing second edition crept back into my life and this time the kids were a bit older and more keen to give it a try. We had leagues at home and even managed to get some more family friends involved and times were good. Second edition has major improvements over the first with a living app meaning silly combinations and cheap/expensive point cost cards get fixed in due time. This approach is a clever way to keep any wargame fresh and balanced so I was a little baffled when Star Wars Legion was released but they stuck to points printed on cards. In 2019 however, they did start to change this with revised point costings in a document from FFG, a move in the right direction it would seem. By around this time my blog simply died and went away. I couldn’t give it the attention it deserved and wasn’t interested in X-Wing like I once was. Ultimately, I wanted to create a hub of information and informative views on the game however there were better qualified people already doing that.
Legion was naturally the next game on the cards to try out. I’d always wanted to get back into skirmish miniature combat since the Warhammer itch was no longer being scratched. As much as I loved the Warhammer 40,000 lore, I simply couldn’t justify the cost, remembering there were now 3 other little people wanting to do what Dad did as well. There was Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress and Necromunda to choose from but as luck would have it, another bargain would appear. I was searching Gumtree, (Australian eBay type site) and spotted a sale that seemed too good to pass up. Someone was selling two core sets of Legion, an AT-ST, and the Rebel Speeder for $200. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse and I figured even if I didn’t like the game I could on sell it at the same cost.
It is now May 2020 as I write this, and over the last few weeks during the Covid-19 crisis, my three sons have really taken a liking to Star Wars Legion. Firstly, they’re fully aware of the Star Wars universe with the movies, Rebels and The Clone Wars series. Secondly, the rules are easy enough for them to learn and the bickering between them is frustrating at times, and hilarious at others.
I really do miss blogging not so much for entertaining others, but just getting some thoughts onto ‘paper’ and putting them out there. I enjoy the creative process that goes into battle reports, talking to other games, painting miniatures and just getting lost in these other worlds.
I didn’t want to pay for hosting and a domain name again, so these are the baby steps to blogging for me. Just to have an online presence again, and share my stories and go back in time and re-live some memorable games from other systems. Please come along for the ride and welcome to my blog.
