George asked to hear from all members, in respect of: “I’ve always wondered how many members we have, where they were located and what they were into. If you can think of nothing else to post to the blog, sending in your answer to those three questions would be a great way to introduce yourselves on the blog and see who else is out there to share ideas with. Ask a question, and I bet you’ll get a useful answer, that’s been my experience so far!”
So here goes, bearing in mind I have previously found accessing this blog and how it works (compared to say Society of Ancients Forum), quite mystifying!
I am Carl Luxford, not long a SWA member, with just a limited contribution of articles to LW to date. I am based in North Yorkshire, in England, albeit a Lancastrian Scouser by birth and upbringing. [You have to think about the USA President calling himself a Hamburger to get the Scouser bit. My apologies to late President Kennedy if I have misrepresented his famous cold war announcement!]
I have always had an interest in history and books about people and places. As a child my father shared his interest in cowboy and action films. And when I got toy soldiers and a fort (made by my father) I was hooked. All this sometime before I went to High School. By then, aged 11, Airfix was beginning to produce figures alongside its model planes and tanks. I became hooked on collecting these figures; albeit most of my games were with plastic 54mm figures using marbles and ‘Britains’ cannons firing matchsticks to score hits. Then I found Donald Featherstones’ “Wargames” book, and I became hooked on the three eras he described: ancients, horse and musket and WW2.
Of course these diversified over time (I am now in my early 70s) to most corners of the world and eras; and to tin figures!
I have been a member of wargaming face to face communities and I am still involved in this way; but I also found I enjoyed writing my own rules and playing solo, as I could do latter whenever time allowed without travelling or being dependent on others availability. Until late into my working life cash would always be short so buying this book or figures or subscription would always be at cost of not doing something else; so this often led me to make my own scenery, and to paint my own figures (to keep costs down) and over time these became mini hobbies in their own right.
Our children are now adults with their own children and our lifestyle (and interests) quite modest, so I have less need to drop one choice when making another. And retirement has given me much more time to paint (or make) things, especially those projects that I didn’t finish 20 or 40 years ago. (You might find descriptions of these on forums like Society Ancients or DBA Fanaticus!)
To my shame I didn’t volunteer to help with the Compendium. Why?
Partly as after retiring covid threw our world upside down and my wife has had three lots of surgery that have turned her life around after previously tying us in some knots! And I looked at my small catalogue of back issues and thought this is just a trickle of the large output of SWA members over the years, so what could I contribute.
But George’s summary of the progress of the band of five suggests, there is something I can contribute. So, I am volunteering now. The editor has my email address. Your summary in issue 230 was inspiring. And hopefully I have answered your invite to contribute to the blog?
Carl
G’day Carl!
Great to hear from you! My apologies for the delayed response, real life has thrown us a bit of a curve ball and we are currently busy looking for a new house to live in!
Fantastic news that you are keen to bolster the ranks of the ‘five Musketeers’ who are working to bring the Compendium to fruition! If I can get their names put forward at the end of this I wonder if that will make them the ‘Famous Five’! – or ‘Famous Six’ once you join the ranks as well!
Once I get your email address I’ll explain what we are about, and don’t worry about your own collection, we have all available Journals as PDFs – an agreed quota of which I will send to you when you’re ready to get stuck in.
To reciprocate with the introductions, if you haven’t guessed already I hail from the great land Down Under, where we know how to play cricket! I’m currently living in the capital Canberra, due to work, although I’m pushing 60 which blows my mind as I still feel (and think?!!) like a 25yo, but I find that everything seems to take longer these days and my eyesight is not what it used to be!
I’ve covered similar ground to you in hobby interests, ancients through to modern, primarily land based warfare, although I have dabbled in age of sail and more recently pre-dreadnoughts, with a huge nod to Rob Morgan for getting me enthused with the early steam age with his own articles over the recent years.
On the ancients side, my primary bent was the classical age say 275BC onwards with Macedonians, Romans and Cartaginians the main focus.
My first foray into proper wargaming was with 15mm metals for the Napoleonic period, with the 1809 Austrian campaign a particular favourite.
That said, I have moved to 10mm figures in recent years (Pendraken minis) which are a fiddle to paint (have I mentioned that I hate painting) and I know have a sizeable collection of 1866-70 era French, Prussian, Bavarian and Austrian armies completed and looking for an excuse to ‘smash face’!
My other pet period is the ACW, which I had a crack at 20 years ago in 25mm using Fire & Fury rules (but subsequently sold the figures to fund the new shines at the time), but I haven’t turned back to the ACW, but this time in 10mm, although I haven’t painted anything yet (hint – I hate painting!).
I’m also really looking hard at Imagi-Nations with Charles Grant’s effort a key inspiration as well as Tony Bath’s legendary ‘Hyboria’ campaign, which leads me to my final focus, I’m really into campaign games rather than stand-alone battles, so have been buying books on the subject and have also bought a heap of second-hand 10mm League of Augsburg figures (Pendraken again) which I hope to use for an Imagi-Nations campaign. Just need to create the ‘world’ and some maps and good to go – apart from the need to paint those figures – Damn!!!! At least the armies can start small and I can build up the scale of the game and its battles as I get more units painted and based.
That’s a quick ‘soldier’s five’ on me and my latest focus.
Again great to hear from you and I look forward to having you on the Compendium team soon!
Cheers
G
One issue with using a ‘smart phone’ to write comments is how stupid the damned thing is with spelling and autocorrecting!
Of course, after hitting ‘post’ without looking too carefully and now re-reading what I wrote I am cringing at some grammatical clangers that my stupid smart phone threw in without my noticing!
With respect to Pendraken 10mm figures, I meant to say they were a ‘doddle’ to paint, not a ‘fiddle’. Also I started off in 15mm ACW, not 25mm and sold off my figures to fund the next ‘shiney’!!!
Next time I’ll use the bloody laptop!
Cheers
G
Apologies for the late reply, I’ve only ust seen the question.
I’ve been wargaming since 1967, starting with the Airfix American Civil War sets (which I hope will be re-issued by Airfix). Don Featherstone’s Wargames provided my insipiration as diid his Wargamers Newsletter. I’ve been an active wargamer since then though for about thirty years it’s had to share my hobby time with model railways. 6mm figures gave a big boost to my wargaming in the 1980s as they enabled me to do ‘proper’ sized battles on a 6’x4′ table using 1″=100 yards as the hhround scale. Renassance / ECW has been a big interest since 1971 when I saw George Gush playing a Pike & Shot game at a wargames show.
At various periods of time I’ve played solo games as a way of testing ideas for game designs, when I’ve worked away from home and for periods where I seem to be the only one intereted! My solo gaming had, of course, a boost during the pandemic and it’s good to see that there are more solo boardgames and ‘how to play solo’ suggestions and design in terms of tabletop gaming.
I started writing for Lone Warrior in 2019, encouraged by Rich Barbuto and contributed regularly until fairly recently. My output has fallen due to poor health but I’m trawling through game designs I’ve done in the past to see if there’s potential articles.
re: contributions, two comments: I’d encourage all subscribers to write about their activities, games they’ve played, ideas they’ve had. The second is that as a contributer I’d appreciate feedback on articles, did I make the concepts clear, have you tried them, did they provide any inspiration for your own games? I have sometimes found it diifficult to keep on writing because I’ve not been sure whether the time is well spent. I don’t mind criticism, as long as it is constructive, because it leads to better games.