The Way Into Warhammer

Hello all!

So, over the last few weeks the Sunday posts have had a more personal release from me for a couple of reasons.

First up, I find writing a very relaxing experience, and being able to pour my brain into one of these articles is a very therapeutic activity. The second being that at the moment, I’m very much taking things slowly after it’s become very obvious that I’m struggling with my mental health somewhat. Thankfully, I’m getting the support needed and I’m in a position where I can take some time off to work on the things that need bolstered. It has also allowed me to return to writing in a manner I’ve not been able to do in many years. Going forward, I’d like to continue these more personal writings for Sunday releases for as long as possible, and if you guys have a topic you’d like to see covered in this manner, please let me know.

So, onto this week:

Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Tentpole fantasy films that have dragged people into fandoms like an unforgiving whirlpool, each new soul adding to the mass and thus to the momentum that keeps it spinning for years, decades after they began. It may be something smaller, Firefly perhaps, or some series of books, or was it 2000AD?

Whichever it was, wherever it began, the love of Sci-Fi or Fantasy brought you here, delivering you on the path that cul-de-sacs around Games Workshop, possibly taking all the tenners out of your wallet as you travel the walkways of warhammer. With that in mind, I’ve been considering what brought me to Warhammer way back when. I know when I was introduced, my Cousin Stephen was heavily into Fantasy Battle from the mid-80s and had a pool table set up with a battleground that slotted over the top* covered in the minis of that time. I remember my other cousin Matthew passing down his White Dwarf collection and his minis to me around 1990**. I remember White Dwarf 153 was my first issue I bought myself, but what put me in the right mindset? What had filled me with fantasy furore?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and so I’ve travelled down Memory Lane to work out each step. in doing so, something stood out, a single film that starts it all. Without it, my love of Lord of the Rings may not have started, the joy in 80s fantasy scenery would not have bloomed. Whilst the first steps begin with such things as He-Man, Transformers and the early 80s cartoons that filled the time, around 1987 or so, I saw Flight of Dragons, and it opened up my love of Fantasy that persists to this day in a multiple manners. I could wax lyrical about the film itself, but that’s something I’ve done multiple times over my career in podcasting and writing, so instead please allow me this indulgence.

First of all, The Flight of Dragons is based on two separate books, Gordon R. Dickson’s “The Dragon and St George” and Peter Dickinsons’ “The Flight of Dragons”. The film takes the story from the former with art style and feel from the latter, combining them both into a mixture of magic and maths that elevates above both. From the film’s credits I took the names of the books, discovering them both in the Sharjah English School Library, and poured over them both. The art of “Dragons” was drank in witch led me to the Rankin Bass animations style and then to artists like Paul Bonner, who of course spends time as an artist for early Fantasy Battle. The research of ten year old Adam as he goes through the subject material returns later on in life when the Warhammer Armies and Codex books start appearing. The feeling of childlike joy from those books lives on in 3rd Edition’s core rulebook, pouring over two books at once and cross referencing things and concepts as they appear in both. Over the years this, and the other big tentpole fantasy of my childhood “Warriors of the Valley Of The Wind”*** have hung about me like comfortable clothes, always there as the first footsteps into fantasy that led to Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons and so much more. Over time, films like “Willow” and “Conan The Barbarian” have strengthened it, but without Flight of Dragons, I am not so sure I would have that deep love that persists in me now, in my fourth decade. If you want to know more, I direct you to this 2008 episode of the Old Oilhouse Lock-In

Until next time, I remain..

Adam

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*Which is what I always see in THAT SCENE in Drachenfels

**He also is the reason I love Megadeth

***The first dub of “Nausicaa”. Its a terrible dub and the early 2000s release is a thousand times better, though less funny.