A trip to Wellington

I went up to Wellington on Friday to attend Nick's funeral and pay my respects.. As one would expect it was a moving ceremony and definitely reflected Nick, his sense of humour and interests. You don’t realise the impact that one person has on so many lives until they are no longer there and Nick’s passing will leave a massive hole for all who knew him. 

One thing that did strike me over the past couple of days as I spent time with the Wellington guys is how important the friendships that are forged whilst gaming can become. Nick was part of a truly special community in Wellington, “The Regiment” are a group of guys that “get” each other, they share similar interests, senses of humour and are definitely comrades in arms. 

The events of the past week have made me reflect on my own involvement in gaming. In the past 18 months or so I’ve taken a conscious decision to step back from the local gaming community and have stopped attending, and running, gaming events. I think I’ve been to TAG once in the past 12 months and probably only 2-3 times last year. Most of my, rather infrequent, gaming of late has taken place at home vs Kent and we have only probably only managed a half a dozen games all up. Nick’s passing has made me realise how important some of the friendships I’ve made in gaming are and how precious has been the times spent gaming and attending events with my mates with whom share the same interest in this quirky little hobby of wargaming.

So I think I need to try to make more of an effort to remain involved in gaming community and try to make an effort to attend a few events next year. I’m not going to go to as many events as I used to, and at this stage don’t intend to run anything locally, but will try to get to a couple of events to maintain my gaming friendships. Valleycon is at the end of January in Wellington and is a FoW early war event so think I shall try to attend that next year (I’ve been to it a couple of times in the past). In the past Pooch and I have discussed attending Panzershrek as a doubles team  but never actually made it so we have also pencilled that in for 2016 too.  So if anything positive has come out of the past few days it is the importance of maintaining friendships, pity it took an unexpected and tragic event to remind me, and no doubt many others, how important they are.

On Saturday Pooch,and James (aka Pooch Junior), and caught up with the guys at the Hutt club. I was pleased to see two games of Impetus underway and am once again smitten. It’s probably been 2 years since Kent and my last game but am now keen to dust off our armies and get back into it. 

Impetus now has a big following up there and the guys use the standard 12cm basing. Seeing the 12cm bases on table I must say that they look good. The Hutt guys are planning an Impetus day in February next year and I’d like to attend (assuming it’s not too much of a clash with cricket- or if I can swing two trips to Wellington in quick succession) so maybe it is time to get my Mongols painted up and on table. It would be good if I could convince Kent to pop up as I think he'd enjoy the gaming up there. 

I also think I see another massive mission- this time to convert a few armies to the standard Impetus basing system as I was truly impressed.

Here are a few pictures from the games on Saturday.  

Simon is working on his Scots, Poochie and I arrived just as the game vs Tim's Feudal English (I think) ended.

Tim's Fireforge knights- very nice. 

Tim's Fireforge foot sergeants. 

Tim's dice rolling tower/ camp. Very cool!

The other game going on was between Shae (sp?) and Chris. Shae was teaching Chris the rules (I think it was Chris's second game) but they were two very well painted, and based, armies. I'm not sure which army Shae's was but Chris fielded an Imperial army (mid imperial?)

 The Imperial Roman's camp. 

Today, before heading home I went to the War Memorial museum in Wellington and was blown away by it. I'll post some pictures in the next couple of days. 

Craig

Sad News

It is with great sadness that I must report the passing of a good mate, Nick Garden. I first met Nick at the very first Flames of War competition in the South Island, Conquest, back in 2001 at Kendall School hall in Christchurch. IIRC Nick ran a British infantry list with 2x Churchill platoons. FoW had only recently come out and the five rounds had the 2 published missions: Free for All and Hold the Line alternating all weekend- ah good times!

Nick soon became a good friend and we attended many, many competitions together. Originally from Dunedin he moved up to Wellington for work but came down a couple of times a year to game (usually for my TAGCONs/Day of Days and for Southcon in Dunedin). He took part in all the TAGCONs and Day of Days I ran and always had a place for me to stay when I headed up to Wellington for gaming.

Nick was a top bloke and I had many enjoyable weekends playing FoW and hanging out with him. Here is an example of one of our many, many tussles at the tabletop.

Nick was a wealth of knowledge, a formidable opponent on the table (making it to Number 1 in NZ with Flames and was usually very, very high up in the rankings), and was a hell of a nice guy. I had many, many enjoyable evenings hanging out with him and Poochie before, during and after competitions. We'd sit around discussing the highs and lows of our day, analysing tactics, talking military history, having a laugh and generally just chilling. In fact when it came to planning our themed Day of Days events Nick was, along with Poochie, a driving force in the informal organising committee, which was for all intents and purposes the three of us brainstorming ideas. We'd sit round saying "hey this would be a cool theme...", "what about...") and getting things up and running and as the events got closer  a flurry of emails would be exchanged as we honed the ideas/ rules. The events wouldn't have been so successful and so much fun without his guidance, input and participation.

Nick was also a talented painter and also ran a blog, Lintman's Wargaming blog (which lapsed in recent years). In the past few years he took part in an increasingly varied range of gaming, such as joining in the large 28mm events put on.

Nick's passing is far too soon for someone so young, he will definitely be missed

Nick taking part in the Chunik Bair project.

Farewell Nick, rest in peace

Craig