The Future of History

 As I get older, I am more intrigued by the past rather than present.  I’d like to see where it all came from, and how we reached the current state of wargames.

 

I didn’t start getting in to wargames until the 80’s, so they had already been building on the foundations at that point.  I’m pretty sure Risk would be my first steps towards wargames beyond playing Chess in elementary, and junior high school.  I was exposed to, and eventually played Diplomacy in senior high, and this remains one of my top 10 games to this day.

We played Axis & Allies, and most of the Milton Bradley Gamemaster series, my favorite being Fortress America.  We also got into some chit based wargames, playing most of the minigames by Steve Jackson Games, and TSR.  I never got into ASL or Star Fleet Battles but we did play Star Warriors, and a lot of Car Wars. 

In the 90’s we moved on to more miniature-based wargames, playing Space Hulk (another top 10 favorite), and Battle Masters as well as getting deeply into Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Lately I’ve been picking up a lot of smaller skirmish games, including most of the Osprey Wargames Series and most of their separate games.  I haven’t actually played a lot of them yet though.

 

I’m currently very interested in going back to the beginning and playing through a bunch of the original games that set up the framework and foundations for the games that we currently play.  I don’t expect to get hooked on them but I would still like to see how we got to where we are now.

 

I’ve picked up a lot more games than I have played.  I’m not sure I’ll ever get through them all, but I would like to try a bunch of them.  Of course, I will probably need to pick up a bunch more to be able to play through the classics.  That said, I did only play three new games last year, so I am probably being quite optimistic about this.  This may have to be a goal that will carry me into retirement.

 

Some of the highlights on my list presently are:

Kriegspiel The War Game 1896 by Frances Hindes Groome

 

Wells Floor Games 1911

Wells Little Wars 1913

Fletcher Pratt’s  Naval Wargame 1943

 

All About Wargames 1957 Jack Scruby

Avalon Hill Tactics II 1958, 1961, 1972

AH Diplomacy (1959) (1961) 1976,                                                        have, played

Parker Brothers Risk (1957) 1959                                                           have, played

The Strategic-Tactical War Game 1961 Jack Scruby

Donald Featherstone War Games 1962, 2008                                       have 2009                                         

 

AH Kriegspiel (1896) 1970

TSR Chain mail 1971

TSR Tractics 1971, 1975

Ironclad 1973 Tom Wham

Gamescience Alien Space Battle Manual 1973 by Lou Zocchi

AH Wooden Ships & Iron Men (1974) 1975, 1981

TSR Fight in the Skies (1966) 1975          (basically similar to Dawn Patrol?)

Metagaming Melee 1977                                                                         have The Fantasy Trip reprint

AH Squad Leader 1977

Metagaming/SJG Ogre 1977, 1979                                                        have, played

Task Force Games Star Fleet Battles 1979, 1983, 1990

Yaquinto The Sword and the Flame 1979

 

 

The rest of these are an overview of some of the ones that I have collected and played.

 

SJG Car Wars 1981, 1989 1990                                                               have, played

TSR Dawn Patrol 1982                                                                               have

GW Warhammer 1983                

FGU Heart of Oak (1978) 1983                                                                 have                                     

GW Warhammer 2nd ed 1984                   

FASA Battletech 1984                                                 

Milton Bradley Axis & Allies (1981) 1984                                                have, played

AH Advanced Squad Leader 1985

TSR Battle System 1985                                                                            have

GW Warhammer 3rd ed 1987

Ral Partha Rules According to Ral: Chaos Wars 1987                  

FASA Renegade Legion: Interceptor 1987                                         

FASA Renegade Legion: Centurion 1988                                            

WEG Star Warriors 1987                                                                            have, played

GW Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader 1988                                               have, played

GW Dark Future 1988                                                                                 have

GDW Sky Galleons of Mars 1988                                                             have

GW Adeptus Titanicus 1988                                                                     played

TSR Battlesystem 2nd ed 1989                                                                 have

GW Space Marine 1989                                                                             played

GW Space Hulk 1989                                                                                 have, played

FASA Renegade Legion: Leviathan 1989                                                played

GDW Twilight 2000: The Last Battle 1989                                              have

 

DBA De Bellis Antiquitatis 1990

GDW Ironclads and Ether Flyers 1990                                                    have

TSR Battlesystem skirmishes 1991                                                        have?

West End Games Star Wars Miniature Battles 1991                            have, played?

GW Space Fleet 1991                                                                                have, played

Full Thrust 1991, 1992, 2008                                                                   

GW Warhammer 4th ed 1992                                                                   have, played

GW Warhammer 40K 2nd ed 1993                                                          have, played

GW Man o’ War 1993                                                                                have,

West End Games Star Wars Miniature Battles 2nd Ed 1993              have

GW Titan Legions 1994                                                                           played

GW Necromunda 1995                                                                            have, played?

GW Warhammer 5th ed 1996                                                                  have, played?

GW Epic 40K 1997                                                                                        

GW Gorkamorka 1997                                                                             have

Mongoose Babylon 5 Was 1997

GW Warhammer 40K 3rd ed 1998                                                         have, played

FASA Crimson Skies 1998                                                                      have

FASA VOR: The Maelstrom 1999                                                           have

GW Battlefleet Gothic 1999

GW Mordheim 1999                                                                                 have

Foundry Rules with No Name 1999, 2008                                           have

Canvas Eagles 1999                                                                                have, played

 

 

Since 2000, I have played much less, but have still continued picking up games that have caught my interest.  Especially as some of the old classics are being reprinted.

 

GW  Warhammer 6th ed 2000                                                                 have

GW Lord of Rings Strategy Battle Game 2001                                 

GW Inquisitor 2001                                                                                       

SJG Car Wars 5th ed 2002                                                                       have, played

Privateer Press Warmachine 2003, 2023, 2025

WizKids Crimson Skies 2003                                                                  have, played

GW Warhammer 40K 4th ed 2004                                                           have     

GW Kill Team                                                                                              have

Battlefront Miniatures Flames of War 2004                                          have?

WizKids Pirates of Spanish Main 2004                                                  have, played

FFG Wings of War 2004                              

Mongoose A Call to Arms (Babylon 5) 2004, 2007                              have

Corvus Belli Infinity Miniatures 2005

Mongoose Starship Troopers 2005                                                        have

GW Lord of Rings Strategy Battle Game 2nd ed 2005 The Mines of Moria

GW Warhammer 7th ed 2006                                                                   have

FFG Dust 2007                                                                                            have

GW Warhammer 40K 5th Ed 2008                                                            have

GW The Lord of the Rings War of the Ring 2009                              

Wells Expeditions Arcane Legions 2009                                                have

FFG Dust Tactics 2009, 2010, 2014                                                        have, played

 

GW Warhammer 8th ed 2010                                                                    have

Mantic Kings of War 2010, 2015, 2019, 2024

Ares Games Wings of Glory 2011

GW Warhammer 40K 6th ed 2012                                                            have

FFG Dust Warfare 2012                                                                             have

FFG Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures 2012                                             

Alien Dungeon AQMF 2013, 2023                                                            have

GW Warhammer 40K 7th ed 2014                                                            have

Battlefront Dust Tactics 2014                                                                   have

GW Age of Sigmar 2015                                                              

Osprey Frostgrave 2015                                                                             have

Spartan Games Halo: Fleet Battles 2015

Dust Tactics 1947 2016                                                                             have

GW Warhammer 40K 8th ed 2017                                                            have

GW Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game 2018                                        have?

SJG The Fantasy Trip 2019                                                                       have

 

GW Warhammer 40K 9th ed 2020                                                            have

Osprey Oathmark 2020                                                                              

GW Kill Team 2nd ed 2021                                                                           

GW Warhammer 40K 10th ed 2023                                                         have

GW Warhammer The Old World 2024                                  

 

 

This is an exhausting but by no means exhaustive list.  I am sure that as I play these, I will encounter other milestones that should be played.  This also doesn’t include a lot of wargames that we have already played that aren’t as iconic.

 

Second Generation Video Games consoles – there is another

  

The first generation of video game consoles included the Coleco Telstar, the Atari Home Pong , and the Odyssey series.  They were mostly variations on Pong-like games, some with overlays for the TV, but they also included some tank games.

 

The first of the second generation consoles was the obscure Fairchild Channel 4.  It came out in 1976 and was discontinued in 1983.  It came with two games preloaded and had another 26 games available for it.  It had a unique controller with a triangular 8-way joystick / rotary dial and action button.  It sold the least of the second generations, with about 350,000 units.

 

The Atari VCS (later Atari 2600) system came out next in 1977 and wasn’t discontinued until 1992.  It ended up with between 470 and 500 games.  It had  paddles, and an 8-way joystick with an action button.  It was the clear winner of the console wars, with about 30 million units sold, more than twice as much as all the other second generation systems combined. 

 

The Odyssey 2 came out in 1978 and was discontinued by 1984. It had a full keyboard, an 8-way non-centering joystick with one action button, and about 50 games.  It sold a respectable 2 million units and was clearly fourth of the top four systems.

 

The Intellivision came out in 1979 and did not get discontinued until 1991.  There were 129 games released for it originally.  The controllers included  a 12 button keypad, 4 buttons, and a 16 direction disc.  Because it changed hands between Matell Electronics and INTV, the numbers are a bit tricky, but it is figured to have sold between 3 to 5 million units. 

 

The Colecovision did not come out until 1982 and it was discontinued in 1985.  It also had about 137 games released for it.  The standard controllers were a full keypad, with two action buttons and a stubby joystick.  The company claimed about 6 million units were sold, but it is believed to be closer to 2-3 million units.

 

There was also a Vectrex system that came out in 1982 and was discontinued in 1984.  It included a built-in monitor, and only had about 28 vector style games with screen overlays.   It had a controller with a small 8-direction joystick, and 4 action buttons.   It only managed to sell between 500 to 600 thousand units.

 

Grognard test

 I've spent the last couple days digging through the Grognardia blog.  He's an old school gamer - mostly AD&D, Traveller, and Empire of the Pearl Throne.  He is a lot more prolific than I am, with more than a post a day for many years.  There is a lot to sift through but there is a lot of good content.

One of his posts was a Grognard Test, originally from Stuart "PaperandPaychecks" Marshall.  The site it was originally from is gone, but the questions are reproduce on the site.  I was only able to answer one question - question 7.

The bonus question mentionsinvolved two names - Morgan Ironwolf, and Aleena.  Neither of whom I recognized by name.  A quick qoogle search later confirms that I should know both of them, as I had come across both of them back in the day.

Phantom of the Paradise of Winnipeg

 In 1974, Brian De Palma released Phantom of the Paradise.  It’s a difficult movie to classify.  It’s been classified as a horror/musical or a rock musical comedy horror film.  The studio didn’t know how to market it so the advertising was minimal.  In most places, it came out, and quietly closed quickly. 

Except in Winnipeg.

In Winnipeg, it ran for 18 weeks at the Garrick Theatre.  It continued to run off and on through 1976 for a total of 62 weeks.  The soundtrack album sales, in Winnipeg alone, were 20,000 and this pushed the album to a Gold Record status in Canada.

The movie was rated as PG or Parental Guidance – which meant that you were supposed to get your parent’s approval to see it if you were underage.  But, back then, that didn’t mean much at the ticket office.  The next rating up, PA or Parental Accompaniment would have meant that you would need a parent with you if you were underage. 

This was also the time when they would not empty the theatre between showings.  The idea was that, if you came late, you could stay through the next showing to catch the part that you missed.  This also meant that you could stay for repeat showings with one ticket.

I was too young when it came out and I didn’t catch it in the theatre like many others here did.  I did see it for the first time on late night TV when it appeared and I certainly had friends whose older siblings had the album.  When I was much older, I got the CD, and later the DVD.  It was a film that my young daughter watched several times at a probably inappropriate age, along with Tank Girl.  She liked the music in both of them.

Even though the movie did not do well traditionally elsewhere, it had it’s influences on many other things – The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the KISS/Alice Cooper makeup, Darth Vader’s outfit, as well as Guillermo del Toro, and Daft Punk.

It has also had a few celebrations up here where they have played the show on the movie screen, as well as bringing up some of the cast.  Because of this, this is now the movie that I have most seen in the theater – with 4 viewings. 

They just had the 50th anniversary, and brought up much of the cast that was still alive.  In addition, they ran a documentary, Phantom of Winnipeg, the night before the celebration, and had Kevin Smith there to answer questions.  It seems the director of the documentary is a very good friend of his and he came up to support him.

 

For more info, you can also check out this site – with more of the history, or even the wiki.

Intellivision Memories - part 2

1982 was another big year, with 17 new games coming out, of which we got at least 12 of them.  The Intellivision II also came out, which shipped with Lock ‘n Chase up here in Canada, and Burger Time in States.  The Intellivoice, which had been advertised for the last few years came out, and we got one as well.

I am not sure if we got Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  I remember playing a fair amount, but do not seem to have the box for it.  We did not get Frog Bog, Shark! Shark!, Sub Hunt, or Royal Dealer.  These are all available on the Flashback.  I did play a fair amount of Shark! Shark! Back in the day, and would have played a lot of the Royal Dealer, which allowed you to play Crazy Eights, Gin, and Gin Rummy against a computer.

Lock ‘n Chase was based off of the arcade game, which was based off of Pac Man, and we played it a fair amount.  Night Stalker was a maze game, and we played it a lot as well.  Sharp Shot was aimed at a younger crowd and had 4 simple games on it – Football passing, Space Gunner, Submarine, and Maze Shoot.  I played this one quite a bit with the younger siblings.  While we did not get the arcade version of Tron for the Intellivision, we did get the two Tron games that they did release – Deadly Discs, and Maze-a-Tron.  Of the two, I played Maze-a-Tron more.  Space Hawk did not get played a lot.  I played a lot of Reversi, and was able to beat it regularly.  USCF Chess should have been played a lot more than we did but, if you played at the higher levels, the computer took too long to calculate its move.  I did like Utopia, and would have played much more if I could find an opponent to play against more often.  We did get all three games available for the Intellivoice, but can not find the box for Bomb Squad.  I played Bomb Squad the most of the three, followed by B-17 Bomber, and the least of Space Spartans.

 

Of the 12 games that came out in 1983, we only got two of them.  Which is unfortunate as most of the games from this year do not appear on the Flashback.

We did not get Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin, Bump ‘n’ Jump, Buzz Bombers, Kool-Aid Man, Loco-Motion, Mission X, Motocross, Pinball, or the Intellivoice game Tron: Solar Sailor.  Of these, I would have played the AD&D, and the Loco-Motion the most, and Bump ‘n’ Jump was a game I played in the arcade a bit.

We did get Vectron, which I did not play a lot, and Burger Time, which I played a lot in the arcade and quite a bit at home.

 

We did not get a lot of games by other manufacturers.  I have only 4 cartridges in the box.  Pitfall from Activison was played a lot.  We also have three from Coleco – Carnival, Donkey Kong, and Lady Bug.  Of those three, we only played the Carnival a bit, while we played more of the Donkey Kong.  I played the most of Ladybug, which I had first been introduced to on my friend’s Colecovision.

Of all of the rest of the games that came out by other companies, the only ones that I should have gotten was Donkey Kong Jr from Coleco, and Pac-Man from Atarisoft.  We didn’t get the Pac Man as we had played their version on the Atari 2600 and it was so terrible that we did not get their version for the Intellivision which actually looked pretty close to the arcade.

 

Intellivision memories - part 1

 When we got an Intellivision in 1980, there were only 8 games out for it.  In addition to the Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack that came with the system, we bought an extra 3 games to ensure we had a variety to play.  We never did pick up the remaining 4 games, but I might grab them if I get a chance, just to complete the original collection.

We did not get NBA Basketball, ABPA Backgammon, Checkers, or The Electric Company Math Fun.  I probably would have played the Backgammon the most of these.  Versions of all of these are available on the Flashback, including the Super Pro version of Basketball which allows you to play against the computer.

The other ones from this year we did get were Major League Baseball, NFL Football, and Armor Battle.  We did play Football a bit, but you needed the playbooks to really make it work.  The Armor Battle was played a bit more, and we really played the Baseball a fair amount.  At least until I got really good at it, and very high scoring runaway games became the norm.  I also played a lot of the Poker & Blackjack, since you were able to play that solo.

 

Eleven games came out in 1980.  We ended up getting five of them.  We did not get the NASL Soccer, NHL Hockey, or PGA Golf but all of these are now on the Flashback with the Super Pro versions which allow single player against the computer.   Not wanting to promote gambling, we also did not get the Horse Racing, or the Las Vegas Roulette, both of which are on the Flashback.  The Electric Company Word Fun was considered too young, so we also passed on that, and it also appears on the Flashback.

We did get a few of the Sports games.  We did get Auto Racing which we played a lot.  We got the Tennis, and US Ski Team Skiing, both of which we played a little.  The Skiing did not make it to the Flashback.  We did get Sea Battle which we also played a bit, but preferred Armor Battle to it.  We also got the first game under the Space category, Space Battle.  This one I played a lot of until the following year when the new games came out, but even then, it remained in rotation.

 

Of the seven games that came out in 1981, we got all of them except for the Boxing, which also appears on the Flashback.

We played the PBA Bowling a surprising amount.  We played Snafu a lot, being very similar to the Tron light cycles.  Triple Action had three simple mini games in it and got a lot of play as it had an airplane combat, a tank combat, and a racing game.  Astrosmash got played the most of the Space games, and I got very good at it, able to roll through all the backgrounds.  Space Armada was a Space Invaders clone, and we played it a fair amount.  Star Strike was based off the Star Wars trench run but wasn’t great.

The original big three - there is another

 In talking about the big three, I should mention that there was actually a fourth - The Magnavox Odyssey2.  It first came out in 1978, making it part of the original three with the Atari 2600 in 1977, and the Intellivision in 1979.  It was the lowest selling of the three and, even though it lasted until 1984, by the time the Colecovision came out in 1982, it was already largely forgotten. 

It had 8-directional joysticks more akin to early computer joysticks, and came with a built in keyboard.  The cartridges also had a handle to make them easier to remove.  One of my friends had one of these so I was able to play a few of the games. 

But with the choice of this, the Atari 2600, or the Intellivision, the choice was clear for me.

The original big three - video game systems

 When they cleaned out their basement, my parents passed along the Intellivision and cartridges.  I looked through them to see what I had.  I might be missing a few, but I seem to have 28 original Intellivision cartridges and 4 extra ones by other companies.  Only two of the boxes (Space Armada and Triple Action) were in really rough shape.  The rest of them seemed okay.  I was only missing two of the overlays (1 for Major League Baseball, and 1 for Triple Action).  

In another box was a silver Atari 2600, and a Colecovision with one of the controllers opened up and the wires cut.  They said that they got these much later when they helped someone move.  I never had these as a youth.

Of the three systems, the Atari came out first, in 1977.  It had a joystick and you could also get paddles.  My cousins had one, but I was never impressed with the quality of the games.  It was a lot of people’s first game system so it usually ranks high but it was the lowest of the three to me.  People usually give it higher marks as it had the most games, but both the Colecovision and even the Intellivision had emulators that would allow you to play Atari games on their systems.  The Atari was finally discontinued in 1992.

The Intellivision came out in 1979.  The graphics were miles ahead of the Atari.  It also had some solid sports games for the day.  Their controllers has a keypad as well as a disc instead of a joystick.  People either loved or hated the disc; I loved it.  This is the system that I pushed hard to get, and played deep into the 80s, even after we had upgraded to the Nintendo Entertainment System.  It was discontinued in 1984 but it continued under different labels until 1990 as INTV.

The Colecovision did not come out until 1982.  Of the three, it had the best graphics, with any games looking identical to their arcade versions.  It also had, what I consider the worst controllers.  They had a keypad like the Intellivision but the controller was a bit thicker and did not fit the hand as comfortably.  It did have a stubby joystick with a flat top.  It did have a lot of expansions available, with a normal joystick and buttons, a steering wheel and pedal, a roller controller (track ball), and a super awkward super controller with a nice joystick.  One of my friends had a Colecovision so I was able to try it. It was discontinued in 1985

Old Toys

 As a child of the Eighties, I lived through a golden age of toys.  With the adoption of plastics, there was very little that could not be done for toys.  Model kits were still a common thing and, even though I never managed to get into them, model trains and rockets were readily available.

 

I had a few early Lego sets, from before the minifig, and some of the early space sets.  The non-rectangular fancy elements were very few and far between back then.  We would build spaceships, and hide secret compartments inside of our builds, but Lego was fairly pricy back then and I did not amass a huge collection.

 

I had even less Playmobil.  They were even more expensive than Lego back in the day but have become much more reasonable as they haven’t increased nearly as much as other toys have. 

 

Both of these companies have embraced licensing.  I picked up some Lego Scooby Doo sets, including the big castle.  I have yet to get around to building it though as I don’t yet have a good place to display it.

For the Playmobil, I bought a bunch of the Ghostbusters figures, and the Ecto-1.  I did not buy the building as again, I don’t have proper room for it.  I picked up the Scooby Doo gang and the Mystery Machine.  They had blind bags of the ghosts/creatures and I got most of the first wave.  I even picked up the Back to the Future figures, and got the Hoverboard Chase set and the Advent calendar on sale.  I finally saved up enough to get the Delorean.  I don’t have any interest in Marty’s Pickup Truck set except it includes the Jennifer Parker figure.

The James Bond vehicle and the A-Team Van are priced much too high for me, being over $100 each.  I don’t have enough interest to justify the cost.  The same is true for the Enterprise.  While it would be neat, at over $500, the price and size are so out of scope to even consider.

 

Now I have to save up for a Detolf from IKEA to be able to display them.  I have a space between the bookcases already.

Asterix and Obelix books

When my sister used to go to Brownies, which was held at a local library, we would hang around and peruse the stacks. This is where I was first introduced to some of the foreign graphic novels. This is where I first encountered Asterix & Obelix. They also had Tin Tin, and even Lucky Luke but you always had to be careful as some of the books were in French. 

Even back then, there were already a multitude of books in these series. The faux Roman and Gaul names really caught my fancy as did the antics of these two characters. 

 When I started working, one of the things I started buying was Asterix books. I did not get many though, due to availability and the quality of printing. The books from this era suffered from the same issue that the early Games Workshop books did – in that the glue that held the covers was noticeably lacking and would often separate. 

 Recently, while going through the books and magazine section in Walmart, I noticed three Asterix Omnibus collections. It seems Papercutz is reprinting the series in three-book collections. So I have been picking them up again. I have the first four already, and the fifth is coming out at the end of December. With volume 39 just being released in the regular series, I am about a third of the way there. 

 So far, my only complaint is that they name the Druid Panoramix as in the French versions, not Getafix as I am used to from earlier translations.

Yearbook rant

 I’ve been pushing my daughter to pick up her yearbook from last year before the schools close again for another summer.  I suppose yearbooks are not quite the thing that they were when we were younger.

Even back in the Eighties, yearbooks were a pretty tough sell to the kids.  I remember we had various ads that we had played over the announcements in order to get the students to buy one in time.  One involved us singing an ad to the tune of ‘We Are the World’, and another reminded them that if they did not buy one in time . . . and ending in a flushing sound.

This was back when you used to get your yearbook on one of the last days of school.  This allowed you to get well wishes, and signatures from all your friends before they went their separate ways for the summer.  This was your final chance to get that special someone to acknowledge you and write something nice for you to remember them by,

It was always a bit of a scramble, trying to finish the books in time and get photos from the grad celebration added in time, so the publishing company has managed to move the delivery dates to the following school year.  This does mean that you don’t have a bunch of people there to sign it when you go to pick it up. 

This cuts out on all the clever variations of ‘Have a great summer!’ and ‘See you in the fall’ but makes it less of a keepsake.  Plus, kids these days have their photos on their phones, and are able to keep in touch with their classmates a lot more than we did.

Painting – Lead it Be

I popped in to one of my local stores last weekend to pick up a pin vise. I’ve been assembling the Marvel/DC Universe figures over the last while and some of the limbs are so thin that they need to be pinned. The weather had warmed up enough that I was also able to prime a bunch of the ones I’ve already assembled.

While there, the owner showed me some figures that he had painted. He knew I used to paint (a lot more than my recent figure painting totals would reflect). These were the first figures that he had painted, having mostly been a card gamer. He had painted some of the Rebel Legion figures in a light green color. He was going for an ‘army men’ look.

I congratulated him a bit for painting but then mentioned that if he hit them with a wash, the details would really pop. We discussed drybrushing a bit as well.


Later, upon reflection, I realized that I had done him a disservice in this. While I would apply a wash and then highlights, as well as basing, he may not want to take these extra steps. In fact, in doing these extra details, it might even take away from his design aesthetic.

I messaged him later and pointed out my error. I circled back and welcomed him into the painting fold, advising him that he had taken his first steps into a larger world. I stressed that he did not need to make any other changes to what he had done, unless he wanted to. I blamed my years of Games Workshop 3-color-standard.

Just a reminder to us to think back to when we first started out painting. We need to celebrate what has been accomplished, and point out the good. If asked, we can give advice to nudge the new painters along the path but they don’t ever have to get to the same destination that we are at or heading to.

I remember seeing a 40K battle at a convention in Regina back in the late 90s. One player had painted his Tyranid army in pastel colors – blue, pink, yellow. A lot of the people walking by did not like it, but I found his sherbet-colored forces quite striking on the table.