In the 1st of a new collection of posts I present below a few questions I posed to Zed about the hobby we all love. Over the coming year I'll be posing questions to all of the Lone Wolves so get thinking of your answers, although not all the questions will be the same.
1: How and when did you start wargaming?
A: It was about 1990 and I was the Night Orderly Sergeant. A knock at the door and a trooper said "you are the dwarf" my immediate thought was, you're getting dropped! Turns out they were playing advanced heroquest and the NOS always played the dwarf.
2: What was your 1st wargaming purchase?
A: My first purchase was Space Hulk, quickly followed by Rogue Trader
3: Do you remember you 1st painted models? How bad/good were they and do you still have any examples?
A: My first figures were the Terminators from Space Hulk; I didn't like the bone white on the box so painted them green. A lot of dry brushing; I had read a few issues of White Dwarf and some of the painting articles. I don't have them any more, they weren't that bad though. My first marines were worse, layering and highlighting took a long while for me to get. I have a couple of them somewhere.
4: How long have you known the other Lonewolves/how did you meet?
A: I have known Matt the longest, over 18 years. He used to work for me. I think it was Chris next, a couple or three years later, due to my high level of visiting the Games Workshop Bristol and Cribbs stores, Simon the same year I think by association with Chris. Then Jon about 12 ish years ago; again he used to work for me. Neil I think was a little before Jon brought along by Chris and Si. Tom about 10 years ago he sent an email when we used to have our contact details on the Clubs section of Games Workshop Site. Lastly Elliot who was a couple of years ago vouched safe by Neil. Somewhere in there is Dave who I knew through Fred and was more involved with the pre Wolves RPG days.
5: Do you have a game that sticks in your memory (for good or bad reasons) that you'd like to recall?
I'll try one of each. The bad; Playing at Dark Stars against a boy who appeared to be about 18 but had the high pitched voice of someone of about 10 and unfortunately the social agility of someone much younger, he had an awful space marine army of badly painted silver, which is saying something. He had named a lot of his figures including " this one is called Kenny as he always dies first" I lost the game because rules were just an inconvenience to him moving figures and rolling dice. It was all I had in me not to abuse those less fortunate than myself. Good; there have been a lot of good games over the years, more than is easy to recall which is nice. One that stands out is an early game with my Dark Elves following the Tale of some Gamers. I was struggling to understand how to make them work against the other armies I was facing. Neil suggested that I use a hydra. I'm not one for buying my way out of trouble (at least not any more) I had the model from the army box and it was built. So I painted it and added it to my army. The irony was that I think I was supposed to be playing Simon or Tom and they dropped out so I played Neil and the Hydra just rampaged through his High Elves. The irony was not lost on either of us.
6: What’s your all time favourite games system?
A: Tricky. All time I would have to say 40k I have played it the most, have the most armies for it but with version 5 I felt its star fading. The new version is out in 2012 maybe that will help.
7: Any wargaming regrets/ things you would have done differently with hindsight?
A: Being bad tempered for so long, I can still have a moment but I am much improved. I think a lot of my 'blow outs' were more to do with other stuff going on that wasn't hobby related. My life is less stressful and I am better at separating the two.
8: Any wargaming experience/ army/ model/ story that you are most proud of/ like to brag about?
A: There are a number of things that I am proud of, mostly it is trying new things; whether they are new games, new techniques such as dipping or airbrushing etc. My Scottish blood bowl team and my Dark Elf Army as a cohesive whole. As for bragging, I think it will have to be the Royal Round Robin, zero losses.
9: What do you see happening to your wargaming wise over the next 5 years?
A: I think there will be more branching out into historical games. I am sure there are some other good sci-fi and fantasy games to play but I think they would just be another flavour of 40k and WFB. Historical gives plenty of scope for modelling, converting, collecting and painting against a back drop every bit as fantastic as the GW'verse.
10: Any final thoughts?
A: I've made and have some great friends through gaming and can only see that continuing. Who would have thought that Wednesday would be one of the highlights of the week?
Hello Zed!!
ReplyDeleteHello Zed too!!!
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