"What is your proudest contribution to The Wargaming Hobby?" Topic

Not all of us can be H G Wells, or Donald Featherstone.
Yet, each of us can contribute in no small way to The Hobby.
What have YOU done?

I think that I can say that I am the very first person to contribute to full frontal male nudity in a wargaming magazine.
In the early 80s, I had a British army in an Ancients WRG Tournament. I tried to have as many manufacturers as possible. Back then, all figures were "true 25mm" scale.
I had a lot of Lamming chariots. Wonderful kits. The driver was sky clad. It was easy to substitute other figures for the driver, leaving an exhibitionist for a soldier. Especially with open hands!
So I had a command stand with a Warrior warrior holding a head on a spike. Naturally, I substituted a Roman head. There was a musician or something there.

But pride of place was a naked dude with his Willie swaying in the breeze.
Lo and behold, a photograph was taken of this command stand! And it appeared in an issue of the Courier in the early 80s!
That is my contribution. What's yours?

I spent waaaaay too much money.

I started my own miniatures company, Kings Mountain Miniatures and I make the best AWI figures that you can buy.

Probably not as good as having your willie swaying in the breeze, but that's all I got.

My proudest contribution ? Getting my son involved in the hobby. Just plain wonderful.

I helped build up 3 different wargaming conventions that were in trouble, getting them to the point where they were self sufficient. Havoc, Nashcon, and Siege of Augusta. Hundreds of people a year enjoy those conventions.

Written the odd game. Some of them even came out good :)

I started True North Productions which was the first company to produce 15mm Early WWII figures. Also, I started a 1/144 ground attack aircraft line to go with them (Realmwerks)

My second proudest moment: My wife correctly correcting a Park Ranger about some Union maneuvers at the Battle of Shiloh. I was going to burst -- it was sooooooooooo cool.

Lastly, my third proudest moment: Pat Condray telling me I was correct about some obscure matter about the Crimean War.

And those lines are still being cast today, by Old Glory, for Don Perrin.

Being married to the TSR Hobbies Dungeon Babe:

Plus working there myself in 1980-81, then Metagaming, then Coleco, and thus able to say on my resume that I am the stormcrow of game companies (all since defunct). Contributed development and design to a number of published and unpublished games, modules, and rules sets. And being the proud owner of the world's only Magic Bagpipe.

Crowdfunding the RAFM Space 1889 Martians in colonial service uniform, long before Kickstarter was a thing.

Built a diorama for a benefit auction to support The Civil War Preservation Trusts campaign to acquire General Lee's HQ at Gettysburg.

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

Being part of the organising group for painting 5,000 special Perry Miniatures 54mm figures for the massive Battle of Chunuk Bair diorama in New Zealand's 'Great War Exhibition':

link

My DeepFriedHappyMice.com web site…

Starting a History Club at the local high school. Several of the students went on to wargame, one of them even started a wargaming club at his college which is still going on.

The great friends I have made.

Made a lot of people happy with the terrain I've sold them over the years.

Probably writing and publishing Martian Empires and producing a matching line of figures to go with it.

Running Black Hat as a small company and building it to a point that I earn a living from it….

Mike

Introduced the hobby to a young lad who was suffering an incurable combination of ADD and Autism. His parents had taken him to see regiments of specialists. Poured drugs and treatments into him. Nothing worked.

He couldn't be left unwatched for more than ten minutes. Came into the GW store I was working in, back in my Red Shirt days. Showed him how to play, taught him to paint. Changed his life.

Given something he wanted to focus upon, he could now be left to model, glue and paint for a couple of hours. His mother told me I'd performed a miracle. She honestly couldn't believe the transformation.

Can't deny I still feel pretty good about that.

Helped found HMGS Pac NW and ran the first couple of Enfilade conventions, which is still going strong today!

Mike

TimeCast…

People all round the world playing with our toys.

:-)

I help fund figure companies with my money.

Ditto the I spent lots of money

Macross – that's a great one! I think you won the thread…

First, I did the production work on the second generation of "The Zouave" for a couple years.

Second, I've done what the last two posters have done!

I invented the terms "Sa-loot" for the stuff you haul back from Salute, and "deja rule" for a rule you thought was from this game, but is actually from another.

True story.

Discovering in 1998 that The Sword and The Flame was for sale due to the bankruptcy of Greenfield Hobbies, regaining the rights (plus about 5000 Esci plastics!) and publishing the 20th anniversary edition of TSATF in 1999.

Figures added to lines at my request so now you, too, can have them. That is for certain.

And perhaps helped in a significant way expand what is now a very large and diverse range of figures from a well known manufacturer by giving substantial responses to inquiries of what was needed and why. Can't say for sure but at least several of their varying ranges track almost exactly with my responses.

And having bought north of 30,000 figures over the years, I've certainly underwritten some bottom lines to some degree or another – in some minor way. Would have to buy a lot more than that to sustain most companies I'm guessing.

Me. I am still working to contribute, but am getting a start here:

link

Designed BLUE MAX

Co-designing and publishing Source of the Nile.

chinstrapminiatures.com

Booking the traders and doing the hall layouts for the Carronade show in Falkirk, Scotland

I sculpted the 15mm Franco-Prussian, Austro-Prussian, and Italian Wars lines for Old Glory 15's in my "spare time" while I was working full-time and coaching three different sports for my high school. Looking back I have no clue how I did it…

Working with John Hill on the development of Across a Deadly Field.

I started a "100 Club" request with Eureka Miniatures for three lines.
Highlanders in campaign dress.
Glover's Marbleheaders.
Ragged Continentals.
I spent the next two years or more promoting them on several Yahoo groups and TMP. When they finally reached the tipping point, Nuc exceeded me puny expectations with many more figures than I had hoped for. I'd like to think that this lead to the whole Eureka Age of Reason line, and perhaps more.

+1 MacrossMartin

Money.

The friendships and gaming have been great

In terms of contributions, what I feel proudest about are the troopers I painted up for Santa Moe to auction over the years in Toys for Tots – if you don't stand up for children you don't stand for much

Where to start? Where to stop? :)

I like to think of myself as the Warren Zevon of miniature wargaming. Only not dead.

Being treasurer and membership secretary of WARGAME DEVELOPMENTS since 1980;
Being one of the COW (Conference of Wargamers) co-organisers for ten years;
Helping to develop Matrix Games into a viable, working style of wargame.

Can't say I've done much for miniatures gaming, but proud of Junta first edition and the work put into SPI Musket and Pike. True, most of the assumptions in that game turned out to be false, but it sure was fun to play.

I wrote The Armies of Belgium and The Armies of China for Bolt Action.

As Mexican Jack Squint said, where to start and where
to stop ?

Founded a gaming group in our area almost 50 years ago
and today this area is almost exploding with gamers of all
sorts, many of them miniatures gamers

Founded a regional gaming con in '70's that is still
going strong (been through many names)

Founder member of HMGS (Wally's Basement vet)

Began running games for kids ONLY at H'con. Parents
could WATCH – and some did !

Have provided support to anyone requesting it by traveling
to run games up and down the East coast, the Midwest, NE,
West and Deep South. (yeah, I got a lot of miles on me,
and can't do that anymore – sorry)

But my proudest moment(s) all involve the times I spent
helping to develop Larry Brom's many rule sets, play
testing, arguing, etc. No better times in my gaming
life.

Just being willing to run games at cons. I've done that since the late 80's

Macross, another +1

Everything else pales a bit compared to a transformed life. Well done.

Being a founding member of the small group of great guys who started Cincycon. I also ran Warparty the Cincycon predecessor show for about 5 years give or take with just my wife and kids with FREE admission.

Loads of shows, stores and get together games since the late 70's.

Having my then 7 year old son fall in love with miniature gaming and gaming now in his 20's.

Having gaming buddies for almost 25 to 30 years who are some of the best guys I have ever known.

Isn't this hobby wonderful!

+1 to all of you!

Especially Ed Mohrmann for all he's done for the gaming group in our area and to Liliburlero for TSATF.

40 years of bad dice rolls giving my opponents some great victorys.

Perris, thanks for the Franco-Prussian sculpts. Our group is running a campaign using your figures.