A Tale of Games

WELCOME YOUNG AND OLD AND EVERYTHING BETWEEN!

I've been meaning to create this blog for over two years now and finally have the brain waves aligned and time to make a little something out of it. I have been playing games since the Atari hit shelves and have not stopped. So this blog is a little about everything, but mostly games. Been concentrating as of lately on my current passion which is miniatures and miniature gaming. I painted miniatures quite a bit in my late teens and early twenties and even worked a short stint as a Game Workshop employee. Form some reason there was a long time taken as a break. Many times my hobbies were sold to take care of my family when money was needed and every time it was hard, but alas, had to be done. 

So when I spoke to someone at Flatland Games and heard how cool they were at this store I had to check it out. I went to Flatlands out in Wixom (Mighigan that be folks!) and purchased myself some starter paint sets and some Wyrd miniatures. My wife followed that with my ultimate mini love, Space Orks, a pack of runts and herder. I couldn't wait to bust into these. Almost at the same time, White Dwarf; the companion magazine to Games Workshop had just come back and true physical form again. I dived into these, and started participating in some painting contests at the newly renamed Flatlands (Now Imperium Games owned by Adam Goldberg, not the comedian/writer) and buying some or receiving miniatures as gifts and the rest is history. 

I love painting. I love teaching how to paint. This blog will be part of that passion. I love to learn and share, so as I learn something new I will post it here, test it and give credit to whomever I learned it from. I have been spending the last 2 years researching all that I can miniature related. I have bought strange materials and tried techniques that I would have never even thought about in my twenties. And I can't wait to learn more!

 Part of the inspiration for this blog is all of the incredible people that have really made me feel welcome, at forty, back to the games I have always loved. I started getting back into gaming (specifically war games, Warhammer, etc). People like all the peeps at Imprerium Games (formally Flatlands). I got to say that I haven't met a cooler lot of people ready to talk, teach, and encourage everyone about games. I know there are other stores locally, but this is the one I keep coming back too.  I connected immediately to the owner, Adam, when we learned we worked at the same Games Workshop at just slightly different moments in history. His passion for games can be seen by the great staff and gamers that gravitate to his store.

The spark for this idea came though when I was delving into research on the current Age of Sigmar and all of the new rules. I was looking at tutorials and knew I wanted to try undead. So I found the TOMB KINGS; and in process, found Tyler Mengel's site MENGEL'S MINIATURES. Tyler's site inspired me into creating my own blog on my gaming exploits. There are few on the planet that love Tomb Kings more than he does. His latest love, since Warhammer has abandoned the old TOMB KINGS, is the Nighthaunts, with in a ironic twist of fate, have become the latest hot undead army. And one connection leads to another as I found out that Tyler is deeply connected to the very store, Imperium, that inspired me to return to gaming. World works in mysterious ways.

Before the miniature bug bit me, I was seriously developing my mind on table top rpgs and tabletop gaming in general. For another 2 years prior to this, I was doing the same level of research into D&D, Pathfinder, and various other RPGS. So in addition to wargaming, I will be using this also for inspirational role playing games, moments and blogs related to all things fantasy.  

My other plans are to have this blog also be a launching platform for a podcast show, ran by yours truly with guests from all these eclectic lot  of gaming bandits I have met in past 2 years. Maybe some live gaming, who knows yet. Well let's get this party started!

PS: Definitely want to thank, my pal Levi Krause, for hooking me up with some rad (1980s called) art for the title. I am an artist myself, but I wanted Levi's magic touch on this.