Rhys, “He who understands nothing of how much it will cost”

So who am I? Well I’m in my 30’s, I have been gaming since the age of around 12 when I was first introduced to a war game called Space Marine a product of Games Workshop often called Epic.

I played my first game after school and I was hooked immediately. Giant robots (called titans) that could blow up buildings crushing hundreds of space elves (my friend played Eldar) inside! How is that not the coolest game ever? I lost… a lot. Something to do with blowing up buildings and not attacking enemy titans, or troops, or trying to capture objectives (unless the objective was destroying buildings with my Titan’s huge metal fists!)

So from there my small group of friends (I know, surprisingly I didn’t have a lot of them in school) moved onto playing other war games. We followed the usual path of Bloodbowl, Necromunda, 40k and Fantasy before time and space became more and more in high demand and we progressed onto easier to carry, faster to play games like Magic the Gathering, Arcadia and a personal favourite Rage.

Rage was amazing. The simplicity of a game in which the aim was to upgrade and develop your pack of werewolves and then use them to hunt down evil creatures or opposing players in the central play area “the hunting grounds”.

My friends and I then learned that this game was based on a role play game; Werewolf The Apocalypse. A game, I decided, I had to own and so I set off to town in search of a store that might stock this mythical text! (The internet and internet shopping wasn’t really a thing back then). Upon my return I owned my first RPG and so started the next chapter of my geek quest.

Fast forward about 5 or so years and I am walking into the student union for freshers fair. Moving past the stands of sports teams and debating clubs that held no interest for me I stumbled upon 2 guys playing Magic. I stopped and looked again. There are books I’ve never seen, games I know nothing about, fliers for things I didn’t realize even existed. Tentatively I introduce myself, I didn’t want to interrupt them the game looked close. But after a short time my name is on a list and I have a location where I would meet the local WARPS (wargame and role play society) members.

So started the 3 years of gaming where I was introduced to board games, role play games, war games, card games and even live role play. I also met a number of my closest friends with whom I still role play weekly. I learned to play and to a significant level mastered a card game Legend of the Five Rings, traveling the world to play in European and World Championships.

So where am I now? In truth sat at home in front of my PC writing this blurb. Why? Well I am pretending they’re my memoirs and I have become fabulously rich after creating a game which became the number one family game of all time and replaced Monopoly (please God someone replace Monopoly I deserve hours of my life back. Wasted each Christmas when someone suggested a “quick” game, but I digress). The real reason I am writing this is because I need to flesh out a website that I have created using my own two hands in the hope that it will help me get a new job. But also as a by-product will give you some insight into one of the creators of one of your, hopefully soon to be, favourite games.