THE LAST WORD

Owner of North Star Military Figures

With Nick Eyre.

You often find, when a veteran wargamer talks about how they got into the hobby a number of key words appear: Airfix, Donald Featherstone, Charles Grant and

Spencer Smith Miniatures. But this isn’t my experience. Like all boys growing up in the ‘70s, I had plastic soldiers and model kits, and built dioramas and took up 1/35th scale military modelling but wargaming passed me by: I’d never heard of it. The school library didn’t have any of Featherstone’s books in it and none of my friends played wargames, or Dungeons and Dragons. We did play with our Airfix soldiers, but I don’t draw a direct line from knocking the soldiers down with marbles to my later wargaming hobby. What did get me into wargaming was

JRR Tolkien.

Not the man himself of course, but his books. From my early teens I read through The Hobbit, LotR and the Silmarillion, one after another. I was hooked immediately. I don’t need to describe to other Middle-Earth fans just how engaging and allconsuming a love of Tolkien’s work can be, and the young Nick was drawn in completely.

The link from reading about Middle-earth to wargaming was coming across early fantasy figures. By chance, in little shop in Halifax, I came across a cabinet of painted figures. ‘Lord of the Rings figures!’ I said in delight, and went to counter to ask if they were for sale. ‘Yes here’ said the shop assistant pointing to the counter spinner right next to me selling Ral Partha and

Citadel metals in plastic bags with header cards. I’d never seen anything like it: Dwarves, Elves, Wizards and a Balrog. Hurrah! I loved them immediately. At first I bought them to paint and build into dioramas, much like I was doing with military models: I still wasn’t aware of table-top gaming.

Shortly after my initial discovery of these metal figures,

Games Workshop opened a shop in Nottingham. This became my regular destination to add to the collection, always picking out the most ‘Middle-earth’ figures. One Saturday, whilst paying for my latest goblins, there was a magazine on the counter: Miniature Wargames issue 3. I opened it up, and there was a photo of a Balrog figure. ‘Ooo, I’ll get that’ I thought. Suddenly a whole new world of Ancients, Ultra-Moderns, WRG and Nikephorian Byzantines opened up for me. I subscribed to the magazine and my education began. Ironically, that photo of a painted Balrog was the only fantasy picture that appeared in MW for 10 years or more, as the readership was very much against it in those days, but by chance there it was to draw me in.

Although I was being introduced to historical gaming, I really wanted to be refighting Tolkien’s battles. The Citadel figures were broken off the dioramas and glued to squares of

“One Saturday... there was a magazine on the counter: Miniature Wargames issue 3. I opened it up, and there was a photo of a Balrog figure. ‘Ooo, I’ll get that’ I thought. Suddenly a whole new world of Ancients, UltraModerns, WRG and Nikephorian Byzantines opened up for me.”

card. I bought my first set of rules not long after getting MW #3, and that was 1st Edition Warhammer.

Sadly, what also began in these early days was that I joined the ranks of the ‘Butterfly Wargamer’. I fluttered from one period to the next without really finishing an army in any, so I have not achieved playing those Tolkien’s Battles that had initially inspired me. As well as figure gaming, I got into the ‘counter and hex map’ games that were popular in the ‘80s. I bought SPI’s Middle-earth game (of course), but I had a whole series of other fantasy, SF and WWII ones.

I’ve since worked my whole life in Wargaming. Whether it’s a curse or a blessing, I grew up in Nottingham, the world centre of wargaming. Instead of going to Polytechnic at 18, I got a job at Skytrex. After a year or so I moved to Games Workshop, then in the ‘90s worked for various other Nottingham figure companies before starting my own in 2002/3, where I am now.

That love of Tolkien’s work has ebbed and flowed over the decades, but never left me. The problem is, as people who know me from gaming will testify; I’ve big collections of Spanish Civil War, American Civil War, FrenchDutch War, but not Middle-earth. That is starting to change now with the Oathmark range we’re making with Osprey Games, so the plan is to start playing those Middle-earth battles that inspired me to get into the hobby all those years ago. ■