It's me, Cedric Ballbusch. That's right, the new guy.
What to do with people who ask too many questions? Well, HoP is a pretty democratic place and in the third round of voting 'write an introduction' won out. That's largely because the opposition split between whether questioners should receive full lobotomies or nine-months of intense re-education. Whatchagunnado?
Like most people, aliens, and extra-dimensional horrors around here my rise from mere mortal to the Olympian heights of House of Paincakes writer is a twisted story of hate, murder, and revenge. Since this blog is frequented by impressionable youth and women of marriageable age I can't relate any of the really juicy parts, but I'll to tell you a little about my (wargaming) life and what I intend to do around here.
"Have I told you kids about Vietnam?"
I got my introduction to toy soldiers from my father. He was one of those Vietnam veteran who clearly spent way too long in the jungle. Most of his free time went to telling war stories, building booby-traps, trying to kill household pests with napalm, and building scale models. Mostly he built tanks and warplanes, but he also had a large number of 1/72 scale soft plastic figures (Napoleonic soldiers mostly) and some very old school pre-slotta GW stuff. He might have even been a wargamer, but I was too young to remember.
Sitting at my father's feet I learned how to make explosives from stuff you find around the house, where to find really good pho, and the basic wargaming hobby skills.
Historical figures were all well and good, but I quickly gravitated towards the bright lights and shiny things offered by fantasy games. And soon I was splitting my hobby time between Dungeons & Dragons, or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition as we called it back then, and Warhammer.
Throughout my teenage years Warhammer (and 40k) steadily got more of my hobby attention and AD&D less. The local RPG scene was shifting away from adventure simulation and towards amateur drama. This change became even more pronounced when people began to abandon TSR in mass for White Wolf's Storyteller games.
Your typical Exalted player in casual wear
I stuck with RPG games because, at least in my neck of the woods, Role-Players were overwhelmingly female. Since I was perfectly willing to overlook little problems like acne, weight, anime-fandom, and cosplay there were way worse places to be on a Friday night than sitting around a candle-lit table with six girls rolling dice and exploring our characters' deep-seated angst. But, I was giving all my serious attention to wargames.
This was the time of GW's renaissance, the late 90's and early 00's, and I was perfectly happy to think of myself as a 'Games Workshop gamer.' I knew there were other games out there, but I really didn't feel like I needed them. In four or five years I probably put together at least a 500 point force for every army under the sun. I even had those Night Lords with the insane bat-wing helmets.
What are we? BATS! What do we want? Insects!
God, I miss those models...
My interest in GW started to fade right in the middle of the movie-inspired LoTR craze. For me, the old magic just wasn't there anymore. I kept on playing Warhammer in a dispassionate way, maintaining a WHFB armies until 8th Edition and a couple 40k ones until 6th (40k lost me at Zoom Speed), but GW became a sideshow while I explored the wider world of wargaming. First by filling out my armies with other companies' fantasy figures and soon after came my long, dark slide into historicals.
Over the last decade I've played a ludicrous number of different wargames. My bookshelves are packed with different rules, and no matter how obscure or bizarre the period I probably have rules or figures that are spot on. The last year I've started to get into Flames of War in a big way. Which is strange because up until now WW2 was pretty much the only sector of wargaming that didn't interest me. But, I got 3rd Edition on a whim and really liked it.
"Alright Cedric," I hear you say, "you're a chubby chaser who likes to play with toy soldiers. That describes half the guys I know and my grandma. Why have you taken to the internet to tell me about it?"
Good question. Though I resent the categorization as a 'chubby chaser.' I have no problem with big girls, but its not like its a thing for me or something...
Ours is an interesting moment in the history of wargaming. The hobby is starting to shift away from the one-size-fits-all style of gaming, back to the more chaotic DIY approach that typified wargaming prior to GW's consolidation of control over the market in the early-90's. Things have become incredibly dynamic. Large numbers of professionally produced new games are coming out, crowd funding is rapidly changing miniature development, and 3d printing is lurking on the horizon.
Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen; however, as we move into this brave new world I want to take the opportunity to talk about the current trends in the hobby, and how various wargaming sub-cultures are adjusting, not just with the big games, but with a lot of the smaller games as well. Ultimately, I think too many of us, regardless of what games we play, are used to thinking about the hobby one way. I'm hoping that, thanks to my obsessive reading about wargames, I can address some of those assumptions, encourage people to look at what other people are doing, and maybe try out a different approach to some aspect of the hobby. Remember: it's always good to learn about other people, even if all you discover is that they're wrong.
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