Basically your given a set of topics generally wargame related and talk about what your favourite in each of these is or what interests you a great deal. Always feel free to add more topics is my understanding.
I'm a notorious history and wargaming butterfly so this could be a long post folks.....pull up a chair and kick your feet up and try your best not to doze off!
Wargames Period- It's no secret I'm interested in just about everything, but no question ACW reigns supreme in my world! A special mention should be given to the North American conflicts, Sengoku Period Japan, WWII and the Dark Ages.
Scale- For many years 28mm has dominated my scale preference for both wargaming and painting and it still remains so on the painting preference, but in the last year or so 15mm has really started to pick up speed on the wargaming front. It's quite difficult to paint entire armies in 28mm and so 15mm will be picking up the slack more and more. I suspect 28mm will still remain on top, but not nearly as much as before.
Rules- A bit of a tricky one but I'd have to say Warhammer Ancient Battles and Fire and Fury have dominated this category for most of my tabletop gaming years. WAB has since tapered off and is largely but not completely replaced now by Impetus. Fire and Fury however still remains strong and FOW has also seen quite a bit of action too I should add. I could list quite a few other promising games like Operation Squad,Lasalle, British Grenadier etc., but I'll leave it at that for now.
I don't like reading rules and view it as a necessity, but I do like collecting them, reading the fluff and getting inspired by the pics and so well made picture packed rulebooks will grab my attention.
Board Game- I really don't play very many of these but Axis and Allies 1939-45 special variant I played quite a bit and some risk.
Rant- Wargames Foundry about 7 to 10 years ago was producing some of the most outstanding miniatures on the market packed full of talented sculptors that read like a who's who of sculptors that have since moved on to make their own superb companies or just moved on. To this day some of the lines they made are still the best, but sadly for reasons unknown Foundry is constantly retiring the old lines and replacing it with new and IMHO inferior ones. I sincerely hope they stop doing this and retain what old stuff they still have and more then that reintroduce the old figures again and get some new sculptors while they are at it!
Figure Manufacturer- This is very difficult as I like a great deal of miniatures from different companies for different periods and for different reasons which makes for a very unwieldy list. So, I'll just list a few. To view all companies I like view the side bar of my blog under Miniature Companies links. Generally speaking I prefer what I call painter friendly miniatures where the figures detail is bit more raised and flat making it easier to paint and slight exaggerations are fine by me if it looks on purpose and not by accident.
28mm:
Since ACW is my best loved period I start by saying the Redoubt ACW range is high on the list.
A few more companies that dominate my collections, but by no means are all the figures that I collect from:
Artizan
Perry
Foundry
15mm
Legio Heroica(Probably the best 15mm I've ever seen)
Others filling up space in my room:
Battle Front
Old Glory
Opponent- I game with friends at our club and enjoy playing with several making picking one too difficult.
Books- Single book is Shogün by James Clavall
I've read it like 5 or 6 times and even tried to learn Japanese! .......not very successfully however.
Series is Bernard Cornwells Arthur -Simply the best version I've ever read of it and would only want to see it in a film form if the same effort was put into it as was put into the Lord of the Rings otherwise leave it be as I wouldn't want to see it screwed up!
and George R.R. Martin Song Of Ice and Fire- The best fantasy I've ever read, but closely followed by Steven Erikson Malazan series. Happily they did make a mini series films on it and actually a good one so far!
Historical Book- Anything by Bruce Catton who IMHO I believe to be the greatest civil war historian of all time. Some may argue other historians are more accurate, but my answer to that is I like my history similar to how I like my art and miniatures in that it needs to inspire more then anything else without of course going to far off the mark.
Sci-Fi- Generally not a big reader of this, but I did really like Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series.
Films- Another very difficult category of which I could list a bucket, but I'd say my all time favourite film is rather a Documentary series by Ken Burns titled The Civil War which I believe to be the best civil war documentary ever made, and not only that but also the best documentary of all genres ever done.World at War gets a nod of course after that of course.
Feature length Historical-Last of the Mohicans(1992) probably does it for me. Atmosphere and casting were perfect. Gettysburg also is often in the dvd player.
Feature length drama- Shawshank Redemption followed closely by The Usual Suspects. A little off subject, but while I'm here......
Fantasy - LOTR and Arnie's Conan was pretty cool now wasn't it.
Mini Series- Shogün and maybe followed by a promising Game of Thrones.
Comedy- Blazing Saddles or Airplane of which both almost cracked a rib. Another one off subject, but wanted to add.
Sci-Fi- I'd have say Star Wars had a a huge impact on me as a kid that I've never outgrown and the whole Jedi concept I find extremely fascinating . The Alien trilogy comes in hot on the heels Of Star Wars with Aliens in particular.
Art- Angus McBride and Don Troiani inspire me to no ends and Frank Frazetta remains to me the greatest fantasy artist of all time. Pictures shown top to bottom Angus, Troiani, and Frazetta.
Forums- Since I started blogging I spend much less time on the Forums then I used too, but I do often check into http://sweetwater-forum.de/index.php (German) and http://www.lead-adventure.de/
(English) on a semi regular basis. For other forums look on my listing on the side bar.
Blogs- That's easy all the blogs I follow inspire me each for it's own reasons and I highly recommend checking them out! However, I would really be remiss if I didn't give a special mention to Giles Alison of Tarleton's Quarter.
Simply put he's the whole reason I started blogging in the first place. I saw his blog listed in GdB forum one day and clicked on it and that's pretty much where Bunker Hill was born after that. If your a fan of AWI wargaming then you'll know Giles is synonymous with it. His posts are composed of a combination of beautiful painting and equally superb background notes that make it the gold standard.
Paints- My favourite paints are between Wargames Foundry and Vallejo. I intermix the two, but I'd say generally Foundry for Horse and Musket and earlier and anything later Vallejo would dominate the colour palette. I use others of course, but these two reign supreme for me.
Miscellaneous-
- Tank- Tiger I any variant will do.
- Colour to paint- Rather then one colour I would say earth tones are my comfort zone.
- Table size-Really depends on the game, but 5x8 is pretty comfortable.
- Plane- Fokker Dr.1 followed by the Stukka dive bomber.
-PC Games- I don't play that often any more but many an hour were spent on these:
Battleground Civil War, Medieval Warfare V1, Steel Panthers , Civilization, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Resident Evil 1, Eldar Scrolls III Morrowind and Vampire Bloodlines
I can't think of anything else and thanks for making it all the way through!:-) I think many of these subjects are worthy of individual posts as I'd like to add much more to many, but tried to keep this post manageable!
An awful lot I agree with there, great stuff and I may have to do this myself.....
ReplyDeleteAn interesting selection, Christopher. I share your Foundry rant. Thanks very much for the plug - I remember starting out in January 2007 and there weren't that many blogs around. Now you feel that pretty much every gamer has one and keeping tabs of them all is almost a full time occupation. Still, it's a privilege to have insights into other people's collections and, in your case, their superb painting and modelling skills.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
Giles
Great read and a tad more concise than my ramble :-)
ReplyDeleteOnly place I have to disagree with you is on Bruce Catton - Having recently taken some graduate level history classes - Catton is consider a "pop culture historian" by most serious historians. Gallagher and McPherson are considered much better to just name a couple.
ReplyDeleteThanks Guys!
ReplyDelete@Giles
It's true you started me down the path and all the praise is fair and true. I know what you mean on trying to keep up on all the blogs!
@VFW
Catton is the greatest IMHO because he could make the Civil War interesting to just about anybody and not just to the choir. His ability to portray atmosphere is unsurpassed of which I think is very important.
The others you mentioned are very good no question, but their appeal is largely to Civil War enthusiasts or to the historians teaching classes.
Other then that I really don't know what to say other then we disagree. Enjoy your readings as I know I do.:-)
Cheers
Christopher
An excellent read! Its funny how both our lists are remarkably similar!!
ReplyDeleteMade it without any hiccup's, well done. I did momentarily think about this for myself but then why give people the opportunity to confirm their suspicions!
ReplyDeletenice post, lot's of great stuff!
ReplyDeleteAn intersting read and I love the Old West picture at the top of your blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support folks!
ReplyDelete@Silver Whistle
Thanks. I was going through my Old West stuff and thought I would use this as my blog needed a new face lift and some restructuring to better reflect what it's become.
Cheers
Christopher
Christopher, love the new look of your blog.
ReplyDeleteThat gives us a nice insight. I was told by a famous bookseller last show the reason for Foundry discontinuing ranges (ACW, what a shame)has to do with royalties. Apparently some sculpters still get fees over sold products...
ReplyDelete@Michael
ReplyDeleteI heard that as well, but I still think that's not a good reason as Foundry was still making a profit regardless of royalties paid. Therefore, they are making bad business choices on a matter of pride as most of their old stuff is the best and discontinuing them is a huge error. They have to know their new figures are very unpopular. If they were smart they would commission some of their old sculptures to do some more figures for them or get some new ones that can sculpt to their old standards.
We can always hope.
Cheers
Christopher