Tuesday 19 August 2014

The Prophetic Contents Page


WD92. Image from catawiki.com
White Dwarf 92 was the first issue of Games Workshop’s long-running gaming magazine that I read. Published in August 1987 this means two things. First, I’d managed to miss the first ten years of the magazine (issue one was published in June/July 1977) and second I’d hit the sweet spot of GW’s creativity with a host of fantastic (pun noticed if not intended) games on the immediate horizon including the all-new Warhammer 40,000 - Rogue Trader and the seminal third edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle along with a supporting cast that would include Warhammer Armies, Slaves to Darkness, Adeptus Titanicus, Blood Bowl 2ed, Dark Future, and Space Hulk

Oh, in terms of this blog, of which this is the first post, this means a third thing. Oldhammer.




The DeLorian. Image from Comicbook.com
My current gaming interests are largely retrospective and the time-circuits of my DeLorian are set to 1987-1990. Rather appropriately, back in 1987 Graeme Davis, answering readers’ letters in WD92, found himself responding to complaints that the magazine was in decline: ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he wrote, ‘but the best issues are always a year or eighteen months ago, and the current ones pale by comparison.’ Plus ça change...

This should all make some sense of the blog title, WD-92. It’s not particularly subtle. Though I was rather pleased to discover that WD-40 (my second favorite lube after GT-85) describes itself as a ‘Multi-Use Product’ because that’s how I remember White Dwarf and how I hope this blog will develop. For future readers, this means, by way of a prophetic contents page, that my future ramblings will likely focus on Blood Bowl, Warhammer Third Edition, Dark Future, and Epic Armageddon. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noted the anachronism that is ‘Epic Armageddon’ in the list. Not Space Marine or Adeptus Titanicus (though I played both and may again). Heresy perhaps, but for me EA is the better game. As, again for me, is the current version of Blood Bowl. Not everything gets worse, even to the mind of a self-professed lead-luddite. For this I crave your pardon. You can always skip those bits, or tell me why I’m wrong.

Finally, in this post about nothing, what makes the WD-92 banner symbolic of what Oldhammer means to me, is something you can’t actually see. What you can’t see is that it was created by someone I’ve never met in the expectation of nothing in return. Thanks Mortis Logan. Oldhammer, it seems, is about community and generosity as much as it is about any particular ruleset or collection of miniatures. But enough of that jibber-jabber, the next post promises to be all about a particular ruleset and collection of miniatures: Blood Bowl

*****

Related links:
Orlygg’s Realmofchaos80s

4 comments:

  1. I totally agree with your point re Blood bowl - whilst the 2nd edition minis are fantastic 3rd edition is a much better game. I've never played epic armageddon but I did play space marine and adeptus and 2nd edition epic. 2nd edition was a cleaner game but didn't work well for games involving more than two players. Space marine on the other hand did work for 3+ player games although it had it's flaws.

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  2. Cheers Nathan. I think that's why BB is still going strong, the current rules make for a great game. Epic seems to be doing ok too, again, the latest incarnation of the rules is really slick. There will likely be a fair bit of Specialist Games action on here in amongst the more obviously Oldhammer action that is Warhammer 3rd Ed.

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  3. Great, I've added to my blog. It would be great to put a translator for non-English speakers.

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  4. Thanks Carlos, that's a great idea (the translator is now there). The pictures on your blog are amazing, I'm certainly going to follow with much interest.

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