Bear-All Showcase – Sixeleven

Welcome to the next post for the Bear-All Showcase.

Hopefully you have already seen the original post asking for people to come forward and come forward in their 1s they have.

So without further-ado here is Erin and the answers (no cheating now), here we go…..

1) Name (alias) – sixeleven (sometimes enri)

2) How long have you been into the hobby?

March 1992 is when I first set foot in a games workshop store and made my first purchase (the starter paint set! I still have the mithril silver from that set), so I always go by that date! (I was hoping to see a day and time as well then)

3) How were you introduced to the hobby?

Like many others my age, it was heroquest that began the obsession. I got bought a copy for Christmas 1991 and it satisfied all sorts of fantasy gaming urges that I was getting, my only real fantasy gaming ‘experience’ prior to that was playing talisman on a rainy Sunday afternoon at a friend’s house. I saw the awesome painted models on the back of the heroquest rulebook, painted by Mr Mike McVey and figured that there must be more out there if I just looked hard enough.

4) What attracted you to the hobby all that time ago?

I think I was looking for some kind of outlet for all the fantasy mish-mash in my head, I’m the kid who’d get excited when there was some obscure fantasy film on the TV or that would bury their head in books of the fantasy genre. I think it all boils down to escapism. I’ve always been fond of the fantasy genre, couple that with a dad who was into air-fix kits and I think the natural outlet for my escapism needs was always going to be wargaming.

5) Has that same attraction changed over time?

It’s hard to say, I think *I* have changed over time.. the attraction is still there but my spare time has dwindled drastically. Thanks in part to the joys of getting older and because I now have my own family to look out for so priorities have to be shuffled around, gaming is at the end of the day, just a hobby. Bills and family come first! I don’t see the attraction changing any time in the future either (at least as far as I can see it) and I’m looking forward to opening up a whole world of gaming to my son when he’s at an age where he can appreciate it all (part of my reason for buying into GW’s latest ‘dreadfleet’ offering – it’s something to tuck away until a rainy Sunday afternoon in years to come when it can be dusted off and played (can I be your son too?))

6) Can you put collecting, building, converting, painting, gaming into order of preference
please

Building (especially terrain) / Converting / Painting / Gaming / Collecting

7) Why is building your top preference?

I’ve always been of the artsy fartsy persuasion so creating and building things is a natural extension of that, I enjoy taking a bunch of basic materials and seeing what I can do with them – you see a sheet of card, I see a building / you see a chunk of Styrofoam, I see a bunker complex built into a cliff face – the opportunities are endless!

It’s satisfying to see a game played over a beautifully crafted set of terrain as well, rather than “this coke can is a tower, it blocks line of sight” – it helps with the immersion / escapism thing!

8) What does a bear do in the woods? poop!

9) What was the first miniature you ever bought/painted?
The first miniature I ever painted would have been the wizard from heroquest, the first miniatures I bought were the old metal terminators sometime in the early 90s, the box set was the one that had about 7 terminators in it, one librarian, one captain and 5 normal terminators (so a complete Grey Knights army then ).

10) Do you still have it?

unfortunately not, but it’d be awesome to compare those older models with the work I do nowadays! I had a bit of a clearing out binge ages back and threw away everything from my early days in the hobby. I regret that now and if I could go back and kick myself, I would!

11) What is your favourite ever miniature?

Sweet Jesus, talk about a hard choice… probably the epic scale khorne ‘lord of battle’ – mostly because it was released in the first white dwarf I picked up and I poured over every little detail in the pictures of it! I’m sure there’s plenty of better models out there but that one makes me all warm and fuzzy so I pick it purely for nostalgia reasons alone

12) Bacon OR Sausage?

….both. with a splash of ketchup. in a baguette. om nom.

13) What was your first gaming system?
‘space marine’ – 6mm awesomeness. Still my favourite system to this day (albeit in it’s current guise of ‘epic armageddon’) – that is unless we’re counting heroquest… but as GW set that up as a feeder to their main hobby then I’m willing to discount it for now!

14) What gaming systems do you currently play?

epic armageddon, dystopian wars, blood bowl mostly.. I’ve recently dabbled in warmachine and I’m trying to get back to playing 40k regularly and I have a long-term ‘get a fully painted fantasy army sorted out’ project. That’s going nowhere fast at the moment though so it’s on the back burner for the foreseeable future!

15) What is your favourite system you have ever played?

space marine / epic armageddon

16) Why?

the massive scale of the battles that can be fought, titans en masse, huge tank formations…. it’s a really slick system and flows well, it’s a break from the usual GW norm of ‘my turn, your turn’ and uses the much better ‘you go, I go’ style – It just feels more complete than the likes of 40k and warhammer, it has a nice amount of abstractness to it that you can fudge things and not get bogged down in fiddly little details and just enjoy the overall experience of a huge battle. ..and did I mention the titans?

17) What do you look for in a new game?

First and foremost, great looking models.. secondly, does the game background tickle my fancy? is it too far removed from the fantasy or sci-fi ‘norm’ to be entertaining? After that, then it’s a question of whether or not the local players will want to invest in it. There seems to be a bit of a democratic process involved in our games club, if something new comes out, the feelers go out and if there’s an interest then it’ll get played. People are always free to suggest other games systems to try out too!

18) Is toast really that lethal?

Proper deadly

19) Can you put these into preference – Miniatures, Fluff, Rules

Minis / Fluff / Rules!

20) Why is miniatures the most important?

Generally speaking, I have to have a painted army.. I can’t stomach playing with unpainted models (Ahem Brother ban the pewter marines) (although unpainted ‘in progress’ models are ok for a while!) so I have to feel I’m going to enjoy painting them, rather than feeling that it’s a necessary evil to get going… this is the reason I’ll probably never get around to collecting a horde army like orks or ‘nids!

21) Original or re-made?

If a re-make adds significant value to the original, like some new rules and gorgeous models, without botching whatever made the original great in the first place then it’s all good.

Thank you for taking the time for answering the questions. If you want to see more od sixeleven check out his blog and follow him on Twitter

The Showcase

Now the good bit the miniatures, enjoy;