What's Your Ultimate Oldhammer Moment?

The internet seems to be awash with various people, some of whom display remarkable stupidity, drenching themselves with icy water for charity, or just because everyone else is doing so. Its a curious part of social media. Oldhammer has not been immune to these odd little trends either, with the recent 'Top 10 Favourite Miniatures' posts spreading across the community and making quite excellent reading for us all. 

With Rick Priestley and John Stallard

So I was hoping to start another one for us in the blogging community, only this time we will be considering our own personal 'ultimate Oldhammer moment', whatever that may be. 

Of course, these moments will be as varied and personal to each blogger as the 'Top 10' lists were. But I suspect that the stories that make up these moments will be well worth sharing. The only trouble is actually choosing your greatest moment out of everything your Oldhammer experience has thrown 

Meeting Bryan for the first time! 

at you. After all, was your Ultimate Moment chasing down that rare model you have been after all these years, acquiring that essential publication, beating a painting challenge or just getting a big game in? Due to the difficulty of picking just one moment, let's say you are allowed a couple of 'Runner up' options, too!

Now this post hasn't come without thought, and I have spent a couple of days pondering over all of the wonderful things that Oldhammer has done for me over the last couple of years. Its rather hard

With Tony Hough and Kev Goblinmaster Adams.

when you have to choose just three but I think I have succeeded. Meeting plenty of old school legends is definitely up there (as these pictures will show) so I would happily place those experiences as one of my 'runner ups'. 

The other 'runner up' is less tangible and has no photographic evidence to show off. Its when this blog became a search term on the internet! It meant that people were actively Googling this blog because they were eager to read my rambles about Old School British Fantasy gaming!

Quite, why is still a bit of a mystery?

For me, the greatest moment I have had so far as part of the Oldhammer Community is actually something I that I have not mentioned much, as it wasn't really anything to do with me, though I took part. It was the game that Warlord Paul put on for Steve 'Citadel Collector' Casey, Nik Dixon, Thantsants and myself at Slayer Gaming in June.

That game became known as the Battle of the Burning Tower and can be read in full here on Warlord Paul's personal blog, the Black Hole!

Why did I choose this rather obscure event as my all time greatest Oldhammer moment then? Especially after many other glories (winning that limited edition wizard for instance!) and surprises? Well, to me the answer was simple... That rather small key game had everything I have ever wanted from a wargaming experience. Let me elaborate further on what I actually mean...

Firstly, everyone who attended the game had brought with them their miniatures, all lovingly collected and painted over quite a long period of time, with specific models painted up just for the purpose of that game. Some of the models on show were really well thought out (Steve Casey's Klint Westwood and Clyde were brilliant, and ultimately needs to be replicated in my own collection) and despite the varying styles, all looked superb on the table.

Chaos run in fear of the undead while the Deathfist advances. The Citadel Collector aka Steve Casey looks on, lovin' it!

Secondly, the game was beautifully run by Paul. Now, I suspect that a great number of you who read this blog have probably never played a properly crafted GM scenario. In these situations there are no 'line them up and knock them down' approaches and you really don't know what is going to happen. Buildings cease to be just blocks of scenery and become rather exciting prospects. What do they contain? A friend or foe? How can they be best used? Under Paul's guidance, the game was developed and ended with a nice set piece battle - which is the spectacle that so many of use crave.

Thirdly, we made up rules and narrative as we went along. By questioning Paul, we were able to establish that the tower may contain flammable materials (on a roll of 6, which of course we got) but only after a fireball spell was cast. The result? A massive explosion which killed the guards but miraclously left Klint and Clyde alive but rather singed! There was no need to flick argumentatively through the rulebook and waste playing (or chatting) time rules lawyering. Paul was in charge and has probably the greatest working knowledge of Third Edition anyway. The result of this was that the game ran so, so smoothly and the hours melted by rather alarmingly!

We roleplayed conversations between the major and minor characters, which added another dimension to the proceedings.

Additionally, we were in a non-Oldhammer environment. remember, when you are gaming at the Foundry or around a fellow Oldhammerer's pad you are playing to the converted. They know what to expect, but to the eyes of gamers brought up on and totally over exposed to the horror of twenty-first century CAD designs our legions of beautifully painted old school models (nearly all of which were individual models and not plastic clones) are truly a thing to see! It was a proud moment for us all to chat to other gamers about our collections and accomplishments as a community.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, was the camaraderie between us all. As gamers, we all clicked and there was no silly one-up-mans-ship going on, just a shared appreciation of the scenario and game. And that is the most important thing about what we do in my opinion. I am sure many of you will be familiar with the antithesis of this and may well have come off badly to unsportly opponents in the past - Kroot conga line anyone?

Well that is all from me. But I hereby lay done a challenge to all of you who have a blog. Take the time to consider your greatest Oldhammer moments and share them with the community. If you have a blog, post about it, if you don't have a blog then share your moments in the comments sections below.

Orlygg