Well, now I've caught your attention......this is a blog about gaming miniatures, both old and new school but with a leaning towards old school. I've been in the hobby since the 70s and seem to show no sign of stopping in the foreseeable future.....
A jolly pile of goodies popped through my letterbox a little while back (thanks Rob!) including this old prog. 1983 marked the 7th or 8th Games Day - there was a Northern Games Day up here in Manchester as well (see prog pic at the bottom) so there may have been more? Anyway, they started in December 1975 at the Seymour Hall in London and went from strength to strength!
Enjoy!
Northern Games Day, my neck of the woods. There were a few shows back in the day, Northern Militaire being a great one.
There are more Games Day posts if you hits the tag listing on the right.
As always do leave a comment or shoot me an email enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk
Today (March 4th, 2023) marks the sad 15th anniversary since Gary went to DM somewhere in the beyond... pretty sure he's still outfoxing everyone he meets.
As he appeared in Futurama...
One of my favourite image of him...
Onto the article... taken from Wargamer's Newsletter 127, October 1972.
FANTASY BATTLES
by
Gary Gygax
I offer the following details of our fantasy battles:
The rules used are those designed by Jeff Perren and I - CHAINMAIL, Guidon Games, P.O. Box
1123, Evansville, IN 47713, U.S.A., at $2 plus postage. The revised and expanded version should be
available by the time this is read. The booklet contains brief information about the scales used for the
different figure-types, and the expanded edition has things like how fast goblins, ores and dwarves can
tunnel under the walls of a besieged stronghold.
Tolkien purists will not find these rules entirely satisfactory, I believe, for many of the fantastic
creatures do not follow his "specifications", mainly because I believe that other writers were as
"authoritative" as he.
Because I have a large force of 40mm Elastolin figures, we use a base 40mm as man-size, but 30mm
will do as well.. Regular troops have only a few added touches of paint, but hero-types have such things
as gilded or enamelled armour, jewels, and carefully painted devices on their shields.
Orcs and elves are 30mm - that is what it says in the book. However, because we have not got around
to preparing them, Orcs are 40mm Turks and Elves are bowmen of the same scale.
Trolls and ogres are 54mm. I located some inexpensive plastic Indians in this scale, and a bit of
conversion produced sufficient numbers of block, grey, green and purple creatures of this ilk.
Metal mediaeval figures in 25mm scale can easily be painted up to make goblins and dwarves, while
converted Airfix "Robin Hood" men serve as Hobbits.
Giants are made from the 70mm Elastolin figures. At the moment we have only a pale blue fellow
with a head of bushy hair (snipped from one of my daughter's dolls when they weren't looking), who is
brandishing a huge club. He was originally a Viking with sword and shield, but this shield was stripped
off, the sword removed and a puttied matchstick became the bludgeon.
The Balrog has caused considerable problems, and right now we are using a giant sloth from an
assortment of plastic prehistoric animals, which (converted) makes a fearsome looking beast, albeit not
quite as Tolkien described it.
Nazgul, like the Balrog, are also difficult. Presently we are employing unconverted 40mm Huns on
black horses, but we would like to put wings on these steeds and cloak the figures riding them.
There are two dragons in our force of fantasy figures. One I made stegosaurus: First, the head was
enlarged with auto body putty, a wire was inserted into the tail and puttied to make it longer - and
barbed, the spines on its back cut to small points, the spikes on the tail were clipped off and added as
horns at the head end, cardboard bat wings were puttied in place, and finally the entire affair was given
many coats of paint, gilding, and glitter (as sparkling gems on its belly). The other was made by Don
Kaye using a brontosaurus, with two smaller heads added to the long neck, spikes along the back,
wings, and so on.
A large stock of plastic wolves, bears, vultures, and the like are used for lycanthropes or whatever
other fairly normal looking creatures are called for. Soft plastic "horrors" and insects from the dime
store serve as elementals and giant insects.
Perhaps the best part of fantasy wargaming is being able to allow your imagination full rein.
Whatever the players desire can be used or done in games. For example, for one match I built a chest of
jewels as the object to be obtained to win. However, I did not mention to either team that I had added a
pair of "basilisk eyes" (large pin heads dotted appropriately) which immediately turned- the first ogre
who opened it to stone. The possibilities are boundless.
The way the rules are selling here, it seems a good bat for some model figure firm to start producing a
line of properly scaled fantasy figures!
Mr. Bortham's observations about the possibilities of the Airfix "Astronauts" as Heinlein's "Starship
Troopers" (or other future warriors) has also crossed my mind as a fair possibility. In fact, if Mr.
Bortham eventually puts his ideas into a set of rules I can state, as Rules Editor for Guidon Games, that
I would like to see them with eventual publication in mind.
Some of the Futurama episode...
Gary on the BBC back in 1982... also shows footage of UK Games Day!
With many thanks to a great hobby friend, I thought this might be of interest... great to see many of the old companies that are now long gone listed as being present. It was held at the Royal Horticultural Society's New Hall on Greycoat Street... possible pic below. I know I went to at least two of the Games Days back in the day down in London, but I cannot for the life of me remember which ones. One trip was organised by the GW Manchester shop and another I drove down to. No programmes kept unfortunately... not sure why as I normally keep everything.
And on to the programme...
I've scanned and uploaded them as .png files which should allow them to be enlarged (or saved and looked at later).
Any thoughts on anything please do leave a comment and/or email me on enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk, even if it is to berate me for my penchant for coffee :)
Old Military Modelling and Battle for Wargamers magazines are a great source of pics and articles....here are a few of recently unearthed ones....
At home with Hinchliffe.....the wargaming minis (or most of them) are still available today although Hinchliffe itself , as a company, is long gone from the wargaming world.
Barry Minot was one of the big boys of the fantasy market at the time....I plan to do an in depth review of The Quests of Thane Tostig at some point as I just found my old, old rule set.
South London Warlords (who still run Salute every year) in the early days.....
From left to right, Bill Brewer, Brian Cameron and Chris Thompson
And lo there came unto us a fledgling new company.....
Skytrex imported the new Heritage Lord if the Rings minis....
Minot also did historical....
Although Bryan Ansel had now formed Citadel, Asgard was still going strong...
Part of my personal GW history.....early 80s payslip......looking at the salary, God alone knows how I went to the pub most nights!
A query answered by Steve Jackson himself....one a brief note and the one below in letter
Games Workshop statement of practice.....I have a load more paperwork from these GW employed days that I may upload at some point
Contract of employment
My earliest Games Day programme
Possibly my earliest show....it may have been 1975 but I'm not sure...too many glasses of not so fine red wine. My father, God bless him, took me, Dixon miniatures had just released a new range of Mongols and I couldn't afford them. Great memories.
Possibly the last show but definitely my last programme!
In 1979 Games Workshop took the back page advertising....
