Early 90's Gamesday

 Not Sure What Year!

I went to Gamesday three or four times in the early nineties. Not sure what year these pictures came from. Not surprisingly these are not super quality because they are scans of photos taken on an actual camera with real film inside. No camera phones!

The first three are pictures of ships made by Joe Dever? ( I actually came across the article in a later issue of White Dwarf and it was by Gary Chalk - 16 Oct ) They did feature in issue of White Dwarf.

Next up are couple pictures of a large custom built Space Hulk game and finally a picture of an Adeptus Titanicus game.

Rob 

Warrior Fanzine Part 3

 Kill Zone Sneaks  In

I am steadily working through my copies of Warrior. These articles are taken from Issue 8. 

The first one to feature a front cover. The cover art work for  Kill Zone. Doug from Grenadier was obviously very busy this month with three articles. You will notice that some original art work has started to appear in Warrior. Unfortunately I don't know by which artist. 

Another cracking battle report from Derek & Steve. 

Sneaky tricks and tactics from Doug 

More design notes from Mark Copplestone on dark elves.

First Scenario from Doug's campaign ' The Little Wars' 

Rob 

Wizard's Tower

 Almost Halfway on my Bingo Card

Finished the little wizard's tower I have been working on. The shape was inspired by a yogurt pot which I used as  the base for the stone work. Which was made out of modelling clay that, I found left over from one of my daughter's art projects. The rest was bits of card and coffee stick stirrers. So a very cheap and satisfying project. 

Bingo

This completes another trio of bingo card squares. I am approaching halfway and the remaining squares are things that I will have to make a particular effort to complete. But that I suppose is the point!

10. Scratch build a piece of scenery. (incorporating a few prefab pieces to kit bash something new and unique counts).

The wizard's tower obviously. 

11. Paint a monster (Fantasy, Sci-Fi; any suitably “monstrous” creature.)

Make up your own joke.

Great fun to paint and a really good opportunity to practise painting skin on a larger miniature. 

12.Convert a model (Can be as simple as a weapon swap, or a re-pose).

A simple arm swap to convert this miniature.

Rob

Warrior Fanzine Part 2

 Issues 5 & 6

Some articles I found interesting from issues 5 & 6 of Warrior. The first post features articles from issues 1-4.

New Spells for Fantasy Warriors - Issue 5

An Article by Nick Lund on Orders by Unit. Followed by a fun article on sportsmanship. 

A short scenario for halflings vs. undead.

New rules by Mark Copplestone

and finally an advert for Future Warrior Vehicles

Rob 

Grenadier's Warrior Fanzine

 A Very Short Guide to Warrior

The whole set. Issues 1-13

Warrior ran for 13 issues between December 1992 and May 1995. Created and edited by Derek Mugridge with regular contributions from Grenadier including Doug Cowie, Nick Lund and Mark Copplestone  plus stuff from the Grenadier Display team (me included). At the time Grenadier (Doug)  was  supplying the Display team with a generous pile of new figures and paying our expenses to go to shows to demo Grenadier's games. In  case anyone is thinking 5* hotels they clearly haven't spent a weekend at Butlins in Camber Sands for Euro Gencon. However is was great fun and being given free figures certainly helps. Derek  came up with the idea of the Warrior fanzine and I was tasked with writing the first scenario.

The first issue only ran to 6 sides of A4 including a full page advert for the Fantasy Warriors Companion. All the early issues were photocopied so we had to stick to black & white pictures but later Grenadier printed them so we could get photographic quality images. 

At the time of the first issue I hadn't ever attempted to formally write anything since school. Although like many wargamers, had designed scenarios on the back of an envelope. I didn't have a computer at the time (it was 1992) and my dad managed to borrow one form work so I could type it up. Warrior was mainly  on Fantasy Warriors and Kill Zone but with the occasional foray into other areas. 

We got some positive feedback from Grenadier so carried  on and Warrior grew to a massive 20+ pages. You can see some early attempts at photoshopping painted figures onto photographed backgrounds. I remember this being a very time consuming process as we were doing with MS Paint. No fancy design packages here. 

Warrior finished when Grenadier UK closed in 1995/1996 and Derek & I went on to write Combat Zone for Hobby Games. 

I pulled together a couple of my favourite articles from the early issues. I will hopefully get round to scanning a couple of other bits later. Apologies for the quality of the scans, but proves how cheap the quality of the paper was in those days. 

First Up, an article on concept designs by Mark Copplestone.

One my Favourite Battle Reports, between some of the members of the display team. 

 And finally, I thought I would include one of Grenadier's professionally produced adverts. Which was also used  in role playing magazines of the time. 

Rob

If You Go Down to the Woods

 Everyone Loves a Bargain

Picked a pack of two animals in a set including a bear miniature from Poundland. Which I thought would go well with the Fae.  The other animal (water buffalo) will go in the bits box for now. 

I was impressed with the quality of the sculpt and size fits in well with 28mm miniatures as long as you want a larger sized bear (Had to be fitted onto a 50mm square base). It also took the paint well and as you can now see is painted up ready for any Woodland horde. Would also be useful as the bear form of Beorn, who was described as taking a bear of gigantic size or a cave bear perhaps.

Rob

It Got Me Thinking

Back To The Future (Almost)

After posting my picture of a 80's Citadel blister pack I have just bought and reading the comments. Got me thinking, exactly how old was this miniature? Fortunately a quick trawl through the Stuff of Legends website, revealed him to a  C36 Hobgoblin, first advertised in July 1984 and sculpted by Citadel Legend - Ali Morrison.

C36 Hobgoblin
Circa 1984

This however then led to what else was going on 1984, as turns out three of my all time favourite films.

Films

1. Ghostbusters - We all know who to call!

2..The Terminator  - I was too young in 1984 to see this film, so would have to wait a bit to see this one (When my friend got a video copy of it!). 

3. Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom  - This isn't the best one of the Indiana Jones series but still great fun.  I saw again recently and was surprised how dated it seems now. 

Music

Now music turns out to be bit more tricky as much of the music around in 1984, I didn't listen to at the time and a lot of what's left I wouldn't own up to! When you realise that Chas & Dave made the top 10 albums in that year you can perhaps understand why. 

However Queen did release 'I want to Break Free' in this year, so it wasn't all bad.

& One other Thing

I bought my first Citadel Miniatures - a troll, a goblin, a orc and a medieval adventurer and they got painted with Humbrol enamels.  Then it got really serious.

and by the way still not opened it yet...

Rob 

Classic Citadel Blisters

Blister Pack from back in the day when I started collecting.

The classic blue & yellow design. 

I can't quite bring myself to open it yet...

and definitely not bought for 45p but wasn't a bad price by today's standards.

Rob

To a Dwarf it was Obvious Really

 Followed by Brute Force & Ignorance

In the Wilderness.

I finished the first of the figures from my Thorin & Company set - Gloin. Unusually for me I haven't decided on the bases yet, So I will paint a few more before I decide. But I am leaning towards a mixture of slate and earth. 

I was undecided on what order to paint these figures, as I wanted to leave the most important/interesting ones to last as they each have a unique character. Which is one of the successes of the films were Tolkien left most of the dwarves without much detail. Peter Jackson & team managed to create an identity for all of them. However the painting solution was obvious, which is to paint them in the family groups so the next figure to paint will be Oin. 

Oin - Kinsdwarf of Gloin

The figure from the set shows Oin raising the staff in both hands, ready to strike.  This is were the brute force and ignorance comes in. I of course managed to snap the staff whilst removing it from the sprue. In my defence it it is one of the thinnest pieces of plastic I have seen on a wargaming figure.  So now it is currently sitting on a Blu-Tack  support while the glue dries to repair it. I decided it would be better try and have the staff aligned before attempting to fix the arms on as they seem very fiddley. A bit of Green Stuff may be needed...  

Rob