Goonhammer Historicals has been going strong with our weekly articles, starting all the way back in mid-2020 with Lupe’s Getting Started in Ancient Rome. As we shore up our offerings and really provide more structure to our team, we wanted to introduce our writing staff so our readers know exactly who is who, our interests, and expertise. For 2023 we’ll be doing a lot of new series and deep dives so keep watching this space!
Name: Aaron “Lenoon” Bowen
Age: 35
Favorite Games: Sharp Practice, Blucher
Favorite Period: Napoleonic
Currently Working On: More French, seriously
Favorite Minis Line: Baccus
Where Are You From?: The Grim North, UK
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: Historicals are actually pretty new to me in terms of playing rather than reading and collecting. I came in from the tightly-bound GW ecosystem, and I’m still exploring, working out what games work for me, and annoying opponents with rules illiteracy.
Over the last year here at Goonhammer I’ve been furiously writing, learning, editing, reviewing and painting just about everything I can in the Napoleonic period. I’ve been really enjoying putting my own spin on things and breaking out into new (for me) spaces like the Haitian Revolution, attending a Lard Day and new (tiny) scales. This year I’m going to do some smaller projects at skirmish level and hopefully even finally learn how to play Chain of Command well.
The thing I’ve most enjoyed about being here is learning. That includes devouring a massive amount of books about Napoleon, but also talking to the rest of the historicals team, pinging ideas off the massive enthusiasm and knowledge we’ve assembled to bring you all this historical content. I really need a new portrait image for Goonhammer as well – perhaps an Old Guard with a Bionic Eye?
Name: Michael O “Mugginns”
Age: 40
Favorite Games: Bolt Action, Sharp Practice, SAGA
Favorite Period: American Civil War
Currently Working On: eastern front Italians for WW2, Napoleonic French
Favorite Minis Line: Sash and Saber ACW, 28mm
Where Are You From?: Michigan, USA
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: I’ve been gaming since about the age of 12, when we started with Johnny Reb II and 15mm plastic ACW guys based on cardboard. Right about that time we also got into WHFB – but this is the Historicals section.
Since that time I’ve been fully immersed in a lot of games – mostly the last decade or so in Bolt Action, running events at Michigan GT, building the local community, etc. I put a ton of time and effort into painting Fallschirmjager, US Marine Corps, and the army I like the most, my Slovak Rapid Division.
Since then I’ve come to love TooFatLardies games – especially Sharp Practice. I love it because I can play ACW games without having to paint 2,000 minis (although I am rapidly approaching that model count now after years of painting new cool units). More recently I’ve become enamored with the Ironclads, having never really played or been into naval games. I’m painting 1/600 scale stuff and really enjoying it.
Other games I’ve enjoyed that fall outside of the ACW include SAGA, mostly with Vikings, Chain of Command with various forces, French and Indian War Sharp Practice, and Forager (the Napoleonic very small warband level skirmish game).
Name: Dan “Zuul the Cat” Rucker
Age: 36
Favorite Games: Bolt Action, Dracula’s America, Saga
Favorite Period: It’s hard to pick one. Big fan of Second World War, Napoleonic and Middle Ages.
Currently Working On: A Chindit army for Bolt Action and a retinue for The Barons’ War.
Favorite Minis Line: Has to be the Barons’ War line available from Footsore Miniatures. They also have a U.S. Storefront as well!
Where Are You From?: Orange County, CA – like the early 2000’s smash hit TV show, The O.C.
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: I got my start in miniature gaming the same way everyone else around here has – largely through Warhammer Fantasy & Warhammer 40,000. One of my best friends and I are been history buffs our entire lives and naturally grew into playing historicals. Now that we’re both new dads, it feels only right that we now primarily play historicals. He did just “gift” me five sprues of union infantry from the Epic Wars line from Warlord Games. My core gaming group is comprised of four of us and we bounce from Bolt Action to whatever historical period and miniatures snags our attention.
As mentioned above, I’ve recently become a new dad which has impacted my painting ability quite a bit. This year I’m hoping to do a series of articles for Goonhammer that include Bolt Action articles and a Barons’ War series, including how to paint and apply transfers.
Name: Edwin “Lupe” Moriarty
Age: 36
Favorite Games: Chain of Command, Saga
Favorite Period: please don’t make me pick one
Currently Working On: An endless pile of 15mm napoleonics
Favorite Minis Line: Victrix 12mm World War 2
Where Are You From?: London, mate.
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: My big focuses this current year will actually be historical wargames I’m writing – game design is my day job, and I’m planning on doing a decent amount of work in the historicals sphere in 2023. As well as our Flower Wars project, I’m working on a Tank Platoon skirmish game for small scale tanks in the second world war with another designer. It’s dubbed Project Jupiter at the moment, and it’s shaping up into something I’m excited about. I also have some sketched ideas for a modern era skirmish game but we’ll see if that pans out.
For my own hobby I’m going to be building, painting and then playing with a heck of a lot of Epic Battles miniatures. I have a full Waterloo starter for the French and the British, and I’m keen to get actual divisions painted to play Soldiers of Napoleon with. I’ll probably be writing a few articles about that at some point. Other topics I’m keen to cover are my 10mm table (which in super proud of) and also maybe fleshing out my 10mm ww2 collection to play some larger company scale games.
Name: Marc “Ilor” Renouf
Age: 50
Favorite Games: Chain of Command, Sharp Practice
Favorite Period: Second World War, American Civil War, Viking Era
Currently Working On: Italian Bersaglieri force for East/North Africa
Favorite Minis Line: Victrix Dark Ages
Where Are You From?: Michigan, USA
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: I avoided historical wargames for a long time because I’m a huge military history buff and I knew that if I started it would become an obsessive rabbit-hole for me. I was not wrong. Now I play a variety of games, most of which come from the Too Fat Lardies’ stable. Chain of Command is probably the one I get to the table most, and for the last several years I have predominantly focused on the North African theater of the war. I’m looking to continue that with Warlord’s new Italian Bersaglieri kit, which has recently come into my possession.
But lately, I have been on a bit of a pirate kick. After hemming and hawing for a long time, this past summer I finally jumped into Blood & Plunder (Firelock Games) with both feet, which has led to me assembling, painting, and rigging ships. Big ships! And as a Naval Architect by education, oh how I love ships! Look for a “How to Rig Everything” article in the coming months.
And of course we have the Aztec Flower Wars project going on, and I need to paint more ACW cavalry, and I’d like to get a playable Jomsviking force together for SAGA, as well as a Viking-era Dux Britanniarum hack, and man my backlog is a nightmare!
Name: MommaNegan
Age: 20
Favorite Games: Bolt Action, Pike and Shotte
Favorite Period: World War 1&2, Japan’s Edo Period and the Boshin Wars
Currently Working On: Battle of France German Pioneers and BEF
Favorite Minis Line: Perry Miniatures
Where Are You From?: Germany
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: As most folks I got my start in wargaming through Warhammer and while I’m still deep into that, I have since expanded a little into historicals and other games (such as The Walking Dead All Out War). I guess what sums up my interests the best is historical stuff and that is applicable not only to the tabletop genre, but also to history of miniatures and such(see my Skulz articles).
In regards to what I’m looking forward to? Well for one I really want to do some nice painting articles, combined with learning about the real life history, but for another I also really just want to talk about the historical periods that personally fascinate me.Specifically right now are painting my two Bolt Action forces(German Pioneers and French/BEF) and also painting up my Shinsengumi police force and write a bit about them.
Lastly I am actively working on an alt history tabletop skirmish game, so I might talk about that a bit in the future too.
Name: Perigrin
Age: 23
Favorite Games: Turnip 28, Battletech (Its historical, TRO:1945 exists)
Favorite Period: Frequently varies, mostly Republican Rome, the Medieval Period, and the Early Modern Period
Currently Working On: Battletech models and clearing my Fantasy Battles shame-heap, followed by some actual historicals sometime in the next few months
Favorite Minis Line: Perry Miniatures Medievals, easily
Where Are You From?: Kansas City Metro Area, Missouri. Has successfully escaped.
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: According to many people here at Goonhammer, I was built in a lab. This is because I have an excessive tolerance for old game design, and have “Old Man Opinions” despite my relative youth. I got into wargaming with Battletech and Warhammer, with my exposure coming from the various video games released for both. The release of Lion/Dragon Rampant was the catalyst for me really diving into this hobby on the whole however, because 8th edition Fantasy was a bit too much for me in terms of model count, I constantly got my ass kicked in 6th and 7th edition 40k, and it was much harder to convince people to play Battletech then than it is now.
After 8th edition 40k came out though, I ended up on an extended break from historical games due to a lack of people to play them with, as everyone I knew wanted to play 40k. I’ve been getting back into historicals this year, mostly through the lens of Turnip 28. I have painted well over 100 models for that, and the siren song of historicals pulled me back in afterwards. Generally I have been plugging away at Battletech articles here at the hammer of Goons. I am excited to start work on some historical stuff for the site though, because historicals are cheap and appeal to me when it comes to painting. I really enjoy batch painting huge piles of infantry and cavalry at the same time. I’ll probably take it a bit slower than last year though, seeing as I painted all of those Turnip models in one week-long hobby purge a couple months ago and nearly gave myself an RSI.
Name: HardyRoach
Age: 30
Favorite Games: Chain of Command, Sharpe Practice, Blood Bowl
Favorite Period: Early Modern
Currently Working On: WW2 Senegalese Tirailleurs, Napoleonic Hungarians, Aztecs
Favorite Minis Line: Bad Squiddo Soviets, Perry Miniatures War of the Roses
Where Are You From?: Bath in the South West of the UK, currently living in London
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: I started off gaming with the Lord of the Rings GW game back in like 2004, then transitioned into Warhammer Fantasy and a little bit of 40k. After a few years I started on historicals with Flames of War, and stayed there for the next decade or so. A few years back I got drawn back into Games Workshop through Blood Bowl and Necromunda, but I have neither the patience nor the finance to get back into their big games – I’m just too spoiled by the prices of historicals at this point.
I was indoctrinated into the cult of TooFatLardies soon after I joined up with Goonhammer, and Chain of Command has swiftly become one of my favourite bits of wargames design. Like a lot of wargamers I have a tendency to flightiness – I jump from project to project, rarely actually finishing anything unless I have some deadline. Currently on the backburner, along with the historicals pile, are several Burrows & Badgers gangs, and numerous bags of conversion bits and Hot Wheels cars for putting together Gaslands crews.
In the coming year I’m looking forward to working more on our Aztec Project. I’ll be contributing to some game design stuff along with Lupe, though sadly my day job prevents me from devoting myself to it as much as I’d like. My article on the Soviet Women’s Rifle Brigade seems to have gone down well, so I’ll be looking to put out another article with a similar scope and idea behind it, most likely on the French colonial units that were present in Europe during the early years of WW2. After that, maybe something not WW2! Who knows, one thing at a time.
Name: Thundercloud
Age: 43
Favorite Games: Warhammer Ancients (I know, this really dates me), Sharp Practice, Warmaster Ancients, Test of Honour
Favorite Period: Late Classical
Currently Working On: Aeronautica, Warcry, more marines, 1940 Home Guard, Oldhammer.
Favorite Minis Line: For historicals the Perrys make great minis for a lot of periods. I’m pretty partial to the Grey for Now Games Sengoku era minis as well.
Where Are You From?: The UK for my sins, of which there are many.
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: This year has been a quiet one for gaming for me, and I think I’ve even written less articles due to being busy at work. I’ve written more long form articles that are almost degree thesis in length, and I hope several people have read them. I started wargaming with Heroquest, Space Crusade, and then Rogue Trader and Epic Space Marine, and dipped into Featherstone style wargaming with toy soldiers. The last twenty years have seen me try a lot of different systems, and even write for a couple, but GW keep pulling me back in (especially by bringing back a lot of things I used to play and wanted to on a much larger scale, like the Epic scale games). I’ve hit the age where I’ve switched time and disposable income, so now I can afford to even buy some stuff from Forgeworld, I just don’t have the time to paint or play it, and so I’m concentrating on low model count skirmish games. I’d love to see a proper WW2 Kill Team style and sized game, though Test of Honour scratched that itch for me for Samurai. I’d love to get into a WW2 plane game, and I’ve got a rough Aeronautica conversion done for it.
I think my big new year’s resolution is going to be to turn some of the little historicals projects I’ve done into something I can show to other people. I’ll also do a few more History of Miniature Violence articles, as now I’m getting older and seeing a new generation of gamers come in, I can see that they tend to just accept the way things are now, and don’t know that it was different before, it changed and evolved, and gaming needs to keep evolving into a fun, inclusive hobby full of art and socialising that creates communities and spaces for people to express themselves.
Name: Michael DiCianna aka Enz0 da Baker
Age: 30s
Favorite Games: Warhammer 40,000, Pikeman’s Lament
Favorite Period: Whatever I’m reading about. WWII, Napoleonic Wars, and the mid 17th century are the eras I game.
Currently Working On: Italian Wars and Austrians to fight Napoleon.
Favorite Minis Line: Right now, Perry’s War of the Roses stuff. And Space Marines.
Where Are You From?: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: I got into war gaming as a 40K player, and I’m getting into the competitive scene, roughly. But historicals are becoming my passion. I’ve always been a history buff, and I’m excited to add my hobbying to my education. 2023 will see the launch of my series on a Napoleonic-era Imperial Austrian force.
Name: Jackie Daytona
Age: 42
Favorite Games: Battlegroup, Saga, Never Mind The Billhooks
Favorite Period: Anything with pike blocks
Currently Working On: Screaming naked Gauls
Favorite Minis Line: Oathsworn, specifically their Burrows and Badgers range
Where Are You From?: Belgium, Europe’s favorite battleground
Tell us more about yourself, your gaming, and what you look forward to working on at Goonhammer: Like Thundercloud, the first minis I touched were boxed respectively in a Space Crusade and Heroquest box. My first real wargaming experience was with 2nd edition 40k which I stopped playing, only to repeat the process in 4th edition. I tumbled back into the wargaming hobby some years later when a mate introduced me to WW2 gaming with the Battlegroup ruleset, and combined with cheap Battlefront starters, it started something that more or less spiralled out of control. Apart from historicals, I’m a sucker for niche indie games, there’s something enticing about exploring different little games and doing a project on them. That’s also the reason my favorite minis range is not the Perry’s, although they do take up the second place. I’m reading a lot of books on the American Revolutionary War right now, and I’m trying to think of ways to cook that into an article series.
