DON'T PANIC

I am still around. Becoming a father the second time round is a little consuming and I’ve also been indulging in a little irony of a pastime.

10 years ago I used to Wargame a lot. I stopped partly because I got too busy, partly because space was a problem and mostly because of the hand over fist money grabbing tactics of the main producer of the games and figures. Many a time would I walk into the local outlet and have a red shirted individual  (If only they had the same life span as a real red shirt!), jump all over me trying to sell me something I really hadn’t come in for and tell me that I really must have this really expensive addition to my army. Now for me it wasn’t too much of a stress because I knew what I was in for and told them politely to examine their anal orifice with their own personal genitalia as they departed and then bought what I wanted anyway. What I objected to was the same approach on budding young gamers who were told say two days before an updated army list was due to be published they really needed the old one and at least 500 points of lead figures (yes back then they were real poisonous lead!) which were about to be phased out in the new list. Ok that scenario is a bit exaggerated but gives you a fairish idea!

Now I am pleased to say that that particular company has changed its policies a lot and have dropped the high pressure sell. In fact the last time I was in most recently to get some new paint (My old paints were 10 years old and some were casualties on the long haul), the staff were genuinely helpful and in fact told me not to buy something because it would be a waste of money as an update was due. Not only that but actually suggested cost cutting solutions. Thinking this may be an anomaly I rechecked with a different member and the same result occurred. I won’t mention the company but bravo, now if you can just cut some costs down as you are still too bloody expensive we’ll really be getting somewhere. I’ve found an outlet that is not belonging to the main company and they can cut at least a fiver (Five pounds sterling or about 8 dollars I think) off vehicles! If they can do it so can the mainline stores!

Now due to having some evenings free I am back on the war trail. That’s the irony really as I detest war in real life but a lot of my pastimes revolve around violent tactical conflict! It’s the tactics really that I like and the competition against a live opponent. Computers are all well and good for games but the level of AI’s brainpower in games is still nowhere near as complex as a human brain. Also as much as graphics are bloody spectacular up until the online revolution roleplaying was pretty linear on computers. However old style role-playing has a lot going for it. Its social and cheap since you are not stuck at a screen paying £5.95 a month for time on game after buying it in the first place just so you can gang up on a poor computer brained and thoroughly predictable bad guy but are in fact not paying a bloody thing more than you originally shelled out on the game whilst sitting in a well lit room with a bunch of mates and going into tangents that even the most powerful PC cannot as yet or I doubt for a while even compute! All this and exercising your imagination which if you let it can outdo even the best graphics card.

Wargaming is a little more expensive but painting the figures is almost as much fun and challenge as actually pitting yourself against an opponent. Oh yes and of course in Roleplaying and Wargaming of the non pixellated variety there are no cheat codes. You actually have to use skill and thought to win! What an unusual concept!

Think on that a while! See y’all