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 another person with a lot of time on their hands on a Monday 
, the Man from Gruntz, here we go…..
1) Name (alias) – inrepose (Twitter & Forums) and/or trybeingnihilist
2)How long have you been into the hobby? 30 years (Old Man)
3)How were you introduced to the hobby?
First started with miniature painting at school in 1980. A friend pulled a handful of metal mixed goblin and lizard men from his blue-nylon blazer pocket in our form room and got me hooked. He sold me one I think. I had just read the Hobbit and was starting the Lord of the Rings, so I was ready for fantasy miniatures.
I then started collecting the models myself and bought them mostly from Dillons the bookshop which stocked Citadel models in Crawley, West Sussex (South of London).
I mostly painted models and roleplayed with Runequest, I.C.E Rolemaster, Stormbringer, Pendragon and Cthulhu during the 1980’s. These were glory days of 24 Hour roleplaying sessions with Hawaiian pizza for breakfast! My first wargame with miniatures was Battletech in about 1989 I think and I still play it.
4) What attracted you to the hobby all that time ago?
I loved lego (a man after I own heart) and small collections of bright shiny things. My dad was a lecturer in electrical engineering and had box’s of odd electronics and wave form monitoring devices in the garage. Anything small intricate and shiny was an attraction. My mum loved antiques and I would spend weekends trawling through little collections of brassy things which also got me hooked on small esoteric junk. Probably the biggest pull was loving the painting because I had built lots of tanks and aircraft from Airfix, it allowed me to continue the hobby of painting but with orcs and things that I was reading about in Lord of the Rings etc.Has that same attraction changed over time?
No I think looking at a finished model after painting it well is still my biggest attraction. I have to complete things though, even early paint jobs in the 80’s were always finished with bases modelled with milliput. This also applies to the terrain. I really don’t enjoy putting down a green cloth, I prefer to see the effort go into the terrain, models and setup. It is the complete end result that gets me buzzing.
5) Can you put collecting, building, converting, painting, gaming into order of preference please?
Gaming, Painting, collecting, building, converting.
6) Why is gaming your top preference?
I really enjoy the finished result. I want to see the models fight and I invest character and story into every miniature I paint and play with. If a model just ends up on a shelf for display it is a bit boring and no better than your gran’s ornaments and trinkets. (This man is in deep people)
7) What does a bear do in the woods?
Play with themselves.
8) What was the first miniature you ever bought/painted?
I think it was a Troglodyte or Goblin?
9) Do you still have it?
I am not sure I have the original, it could be in a box under a ton of other lead.
10) What is your favourite ever miniature?
Battletech Gunslinger. I loved the way it looked for about a year before buying one and painting it. Followed by the Battletech Madcat and Caesar mechs.
11) What is it about that one, which makes it your favourite?
I think I coveted it in the Ral Partha catalogue. I used to spend ages pawing over the various Ral Partha catalogues and ticking off models as I bought them. They would have a couple of pages of colour paint jobs which I would look at over and over and over again…
Then I finally bought it and lavished time on getting it just right. (I remember a time with the Citadel 1993 Catalogue doing something similar)
12) Bacon OR Sausage?
Bacon.
13) What was your first gaming system?
I.C.I Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERP). First Wargame was Battletech – A lot of people in the UK don’t realise how massive Battletech was because pre-Internet days it was not as big in the UK as the US and Germany.
14) What gaming systems do you currently play?
Gruntz mostly because I have to keep playtesting it. It is only fair on the people that have bought the rules that I keep my energy on it. I tend to play obscure new rules to try them out like Twilight, Pulp City and Bushido. I like trying new rules and collecting different models, rather than going crazy on the latest big release from some of the mainstream companies.
15) What is your favourite system you have ever played?
Battletech followed by Full Thrust.
16) Why?
I liked Battletech because I had some 12-16 hour games and it was at a time when I was carefree i.e. No Children, in education or just starting my career in IT. I had the energy and time to play through the night without a care. There are technical game mechanics and systems I prefer but from a moment in time Battletech is my game of choice.
17) What do you look for in a new game?
Robots. Actually I would say it is more a case of “What I like to see as absent from a game”. I think anything with Gothic Space Elves and Space Orcs falls into the category of “Lack of imagination, lets just put Tolkien based mythical races in space” . I did once have a space orc army though! I just eventually (with age) started to act more true to my grumpy self and finally realised that elves and orcs should live in forests and caves. I am not a GW hater though and really like their models and buy them. I am really hoping that when/if Privateer Press release a futuristic game that they don’t just give laser guns to Trolls and invest time in making some unique futuristic factions like Infinity the game.
Troll like rant over.. I also look for elegant rules, light weight without heavy use of tables. Ideally with a 2D6 mechanism used to control probability e.g. Battletech and Warmachine.
18) Is toast really that lethal?
Only if it has an image of the Virgin Mary on it.
19) Can you put these into preference – Miniatures, Fluff, Rules
Rules, Miniatures, Fluff.
However I am guilty of sometimes putting miniatures first…
20) Why is Rules the most important?
Continuing my theme of not liking miniatures getting dusty on a shelf. I like to see them gamed with and not as shelf ornaments, so the rules have to be number one. However I am guilty of shiny syndrome and will invest in a game if it looks good before playing it. You also sometimes have to buy the game that others are playing. My current group are not Battletech players, so I have stopped buying and painting the mechs. So it is often a case of following a trend at the local club or you get left out. In fact concentrating on Gruntz has been tough for this reason because out of a club of potentially 40 people there are not 15mm SCI-FI players – they all play 40K. At times I feel like the outcast and have to rely on conventions and forcing close friends to play with my models. This is a recurring theme for me though, even with Battletech I often found I had to provide both armies to get a game because players were more interested in buying the latest Warhammer army.
21) Original or re-made?
Like breast implants? Not sure what you mean here. (It’s ok we all see you only think of 2 things robots and….)
Finally extra questions for those who also happen to work in the industry in this case rules writer.
22) Is working with miniatures all day cool?
I wish I could work on it all day but my love of computers is almost as important to me, so my job in IT is fun.
23) Is it harder to find time to do the hobby when the hobby is the job?
Yes sometimes writing and playtesting Gruntz can be a chore but deep down I am loving it.
24) Are you slightly more insane because of it? Certified lunatic and obsessive compulsive.
Thank you for taking the time for answering the questions.
If you want to see more of the Gruntz ruleset go check out the website.
The Showcase
Now for the exciting bit the showing off of miniatures, enjoy;
