Why We Fight

I started as an role-playing gamer, and it was many years before I seriously took up miniatures gaming. I ran a larp for... too long. Video games remain a weekly distraction. I enjoy board games with the crew.

But in the end, there's always a role-playing angle to it. Wargames are fun! But I will inadvertently come up with a thumbnail sketch of a story to hang th whole thing on. Different forces have a different character about them, from the methodical plodding of the Kontrol Battalion to the kinetic flow of the Space Demons. I can't help myself. I have a stack of abandoned files, half-written backstories and the like, from when these things just started putting themselves together while I was riding the Metro to work or what have you. It's a weird subconscious urge.

As is, I am cobbling together sketchy notes on my various 15mm scifi forces and shaping it into a vaguely coherent setting. This morning's inspiration was explaining the Essence from Blasters and Bulkheads in an otherwise non-space fantasy setting. Because sometimes I will be playing Gruntz, sometimes Blasters and Bulkheads, but there will be some crossover for the figs. So I want the story to work together. Along similar lines, my scattershot terrain purchases are slowly being sorted into a 'mining colony' board setup and a 'space port' setup. At some point, I will name the port and the mines. Then I start visualizing the port, and hey, the GZG Crusties I picked up could totally be the indigenous aliens who form the major workforce at the space port, and thusly also be the militia that end up defending it in a pinch. Since it won't be a super-advanced port, I start thinking, something out of the way, a little behind the times, etc. Brief notes get taken, to eventually be expanded on. Even if, really, I am mostly writing just for myself? Maybe to spice up the occasional batrep here. I'm good with that. It's a natural instinct.

(The title for this post is taken from the classic WW2 propaganda movies, the Band of Brothers episode, and the Angel episode, because those three taken together are me in a nutshell.) (Oh, and the image above is a Banksy piece; I confess I'm a fan.)