Friday 28 August 2009

A trip down memory lane or How did I get involved in Wargaming

As a youngster in the early seventies I spent much time in Dover. My father was a captain on the ferries based in Ostend and I played stowaway quite a lot. One of my favourite pastimes in Dover was the walk up the cliff to Dover Castle. There a part of Sibornes diorama was displayed. I spent hours looking at it.

Then came the discovery of a modelshop on the mainstreet. Only one word of explanation here: Airfix. I also remember some painted second hand Napoleonic wargame units for sale. I never had enough money to buy them, but I like to think they once passed through the hands of Charles Grant. Anyway, with lego brick buildings battlefields were created and battles fought using blowpipes and marbles.

Next came a book on modelling soldiers. In that book there was a double page colour picture of a wargame by Peter Gilder. And that, was that …The same modelshop also gave me my first (beloved) ruleset: Napoleonic Wargame Rules by the Tunbridge Wells Wargames society (from now on NWRbtTWWS in short). The unpainted airfix armies got a chipboard and coloured chalk battlefield. Units were mounted on cardboard bases and a shot was fired that was heard around our household. To have larger battles my cousin, my only opponent, and I even recruited our ACW figures and played blue and gray against yellow battles. But did we have fun...

As we got older interest shifted to 1/300th WW2 gaming using the WRG 1925-1950 rules. Those were tank battles of legendary proportions. We also played some PanzerBlitz and other boardgames.

In 1985 I bought the first edition of Warhammer, for a long time this became my main interest and other wargaming sort of got sidetracked. Next real life kicked in…I still bought the books and magazines but never played a wargame again. Then in 2002, after a long stay away from home (I’m a soldier), my sons declared that they wanted to start warhammer armies. Old loves were rekindled and now, with the kids (sort of) grown up, it’s time for several generations of the military NUYDREV dynasty to tell their stories from the battlefields long past.
…and so it begins.

Happy gaming

Pjotr

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