For our first article we speak to Adam Aka Grufflock, former Leader of the Old Oilhouse!
Strap into the way back machine here fellas.
So, in 1988 or so, my family and I would come back to the UK for the summer while we were living in Dubai (Sharjah to be exact). Whilst we were back, my cousins were playing a lot of Warhammer (and listening to a lot of Megadeth, but that is a tale left untold for now). Now, when I say playing Warhammer I do indeed mean.. Warhammer. The Warhamemr Fantasy Battles game, that lead to 2nd edition being played, as well as such bits of brilliance as the D&D skirmish game (Anyone remember that?) . Flash forward to around 1991, and we had moved back to the UK after the Gulf War.
I have asked for Heroquest time and time again...
For Christmas, I get a copy of.... Dungeons and Dragons Starter. Do not in any way get me wrong, that was superb, great fun to play, but it was not Heroquest. I played that for a while, until my birthday, where I gained Heroquest at long last (and also saw the Conan films for the first time), as well as having all my cousin's white dwarfs and a big box of the Warhammer Regiments and Skeleton Horde. From that day, until around 2001/2002, I was hooked.
Yes. Heroquest ended up with all expansions. As did Space Crusade......
In Warhammer, I played Skaven, (25000 points by the end), Chaos Dwarves and Greenskins. In 40k, Blood Angels Space Marines (in a Todd Mcfarlene's Spawn colour scheme. It was the 90's after all), and Tyranids.
There was something in the water come the turn of the Millennium. The last things I bought proper was stuff to make Starcraft style marines, but the heart had gone from the hobby. The price had jumped up the ladder so much, and the mindset of the hobby was changing in a way I wasn't enjoying. I found myself being more interested in toys, and that's where my interests slid for a very long time. Products like the Lord of The Rings game, and the “sell sell sell” mindset of the stores turned me off until...
Age of Sigmar.
I always said there were three things that GW would have to do to make me interested.
- Bring back Chaos Dwarves
- Bring back Genestealer Cults
- Bring back Warhammer Quest
All done within 18 months...
In all seriousness though, the Age of Sigmar release caught my interest whilst my toy buying was waning and I was looking for something else, PC and Console gaming apepars to have mostly starting to pass me by, and I found myself craving something that had a bit more to it than “Buy, put on shelf” or “play, put down, forget”. The tales of AoS, swiftly followed by the Genestealer Cult book burning up my imagination, and as I got deeper and deeper into the world of AoS, the more it sparked the fires, until I decided to attempt to redo some ideas I had back in the day, and sculpted my Wraithking, Drachenfels. Then a small Skeleton Horde was built, followed by Ironjawz, then some Seraphon to teach my other half to play, then without realising, Clan Skyre began to grow once more.
At this point, I started to wonder if I could sell a limb or two.
I've enjoyed seeing AoS building up since it's release, it feels a lot like when I first arrived in The Old World, and got to see the Warhammer Regiments book leading to 3rd Edition, then 4th. The ability to build the minis, paint and sculpt has scratched an itch I didn't realise was there until I got the nails working.