HISTORY - IN THE BEGINING

 When Suddenly…

Having no access to this other blog anymore, I decided to repost parts here in a kind of history lesson. 

About a decade ago I decided that rather than build numerous armies for the Horse & Musket period I would simply build a pair of armies that would be used for all the rules I wanted to game. Having chosen this radical approach I knew that gamers being gamers, I would encounter those that could not wrap their head around the idea of Seven Years War figures being used for Franco Prussian Wars, or Napoleonic’s being used for the Glorious Revolution. That drove me to my second radical step. I would build armies from Eureka’s Toy Town line. When asked, “What are you playing?” I would simple answer, “Toy Soldiers.” I knew this would not be to everybody taste, but if you have read this far then you must be one of those that this appeals to.

 The idea was liberating. I could paint figures in any uniforms I could dream up. I could pick flags I liked and even create new ones. No one could ever come to my game and say, “Sorry, but that is the wrong color for the 43rds turnbacks, and they had seven buttons on their gaiters not five. How can you play with them knowing that?” When asked, what are they painted to be? I simple say, “They are cool uniforms.”

One of the Earliest Games 
The Armies of Otherwhen (Foreground) and Nodd on the Fields of Mars

 Since I was not using historical forces I needed to create ImagiNations. For my inspiration I first chose an army from one of my favorite stories/movies, The Wizard of Oz. I have always had a soft spot for the Wicked Witch and so was born Otherwhen. I based my second army on the idea that as a youth the prince of the neighboring kingdom, Nodd had been betrothed to the princess of Otherwhen, but had fallen in love with another beautiful fair-haired maid and married her instead. This insult would put the two nations at war for all eternity. Thus was born the Toy Soldier wars of Nodd and Otherwhen.