So…where was I. After a few years in IT I decided it was not for me and headed up north to Newcastle to study Linguistics. Chosen languages? German and Sanskrit. The latter because a wanted a ‘dead’ language, both Greek and Latin clashed with other subjects and after one lecture on Classical Hebrew I opted for Sanskrit! Excellent language. Great literature. More anon.
After one year I spend a summer freelancing as a programmer. Happy with the money I took a year out to earn more…and never went back. Stayed in Newcastle though. During this time figure gaming was pretty non-existent. Played quite a few games of ASL with a mate but was generally still distracted by the wine, woman and song triad!
Having acquired some cash I decided yet again that IT was not for me and spent the next couple of years travelling. Very nearly bought a copy of ASL rules and Beyond Valor from a game shop in Melbourne but decided it was a lot to carry around for the next year!
When I finally got back to England I ended up in Birmingham. Most of my RPG friends from Shrewsbury were now there and Billy was an active wargamer – mostly 6th Edition but starting on the new DBM rules. This was 1993 and the beginning of my next foray into figure gaming. I went for DBM. 15mm. Punic Wars. A trip to that years Worlds in Derby saw me pick up a small Republican Roman army on the bring and buy. Museum Miniatures, average paint job but it gave me a core to start my own army and time to paint. Three months later I was booked to play a DBM tournament – somewhere in the Midlands! I submitted my army list and then had three months of frantic painting to get it down. The varnish was still tacky as I packed them in the box to leave on the morning of the tourney! I think I played three, lost three but generally had a good time. Played a few more tourneys over the next few months but started to encounter the ‘tournament players’ and at one stage I just resigned a game as I couldn’t be bothered to argue over some petty twisting of the rules to the other players advantage.
The Roman army, and the corresponding Carthaginians form the basis of my current armies. The original Museum Miniatures figures went to Billy for him to do his Rep. Romans apart from 10 bases which got new shields and a touch up to become Italian Allies.
After a year I moved back up to Newcastle, got involved in various fun but none too life productive activities. Drank and smoked too much and generally went in to dropout mode. I then managed to get on a training scheme for archaeology at Tyne and Wear Museums. Talked my way in to a job with West Yorkshire Archaeology and then returned to TWM, eventually to run the training schemes, do Time Team and generally spend 10 years digging holes in god awful conditions!
Throughtout this time figure gaming didn’t happen. ASL happened briefly but passed again. And then two of the guys I worked with, Gary and Terry, revealed themselves as wargamers/reenactors and so began my American War of Independence project. This progressed slowly. Got a few figures painted, as did Gary and Terry, and even managed a couple of games using our own rules (see the first few posts of this blog). Then things changed as I got married, Gary moved away and gaming took a sideline again.
Still met up with the guys to go to the Stockton shows, bought odds and ends but never really got going properly. I tried though. Bought ACW armies from Bring and Buys etc. but never had time to play. Then, after being chased to try WW2 gaming in 20mm I decided that if I wanted to do WW2 I just had to dig out my ASL again. And after finding a good collection at the Stockton Show one year I began what was to be a very expensive but fun three year obsession with ASL!
That’ll do for now…