So, who am I? And why would you care about what I think or what I have to say? That's a very good question... and I don't really have a good answer. But, it is traditional in blogs to have a page to introduce yourself, and so here I am. Hi.... My name is Iain. I am an English guy, now living in Singapore, with my girlfriend - Ms CS - and her son - Shortround (not their real names!). I was born in the 70's and I was very much a child of the 80's. Growing up, I existed largely on a diet of Transformers toys and comics, and Asimov books and science fiction. I was there when Transformers landed in the UK, and was collecting them from day one, starting with the UK edition of the comic around issue 11 and staying with it until the end. I stopped actively buying and collecting the robots around 1990, just before the introduction of Action Masters.

It was around the same time when I found my introduction into wargaming, starting off with 40K Rogue Trader, the first edition Space Hulk, and the original Space Marine and Adeptus Titanicus games. I always stuck pretty much to tabletop miniature games, happy to go and play roleplay games or board games, but never really seriously engaging with them. Although I followed the 40K background and lore - subscribing the White Dwarf, reading the novels, etc - I never really got seriously back to 40K (although I still own too many minis and 'armies' that never see the light of day) but I kept with Space Hulk and later Advanced Space Crusade. (I have the dubious honour of probably being the only person who loves this game... I even defended it from Jervis, its creator!) Around third edition of Epic (Epic 40K) I got more into the Specialist Games, especially Epic and Battlefleet Gothic, and started a fan website and a BFG fanzine. I had always been interested in gaming outside of Games Workshop, and had numerous rulebooks, but this took off more when I moved to Singapore in 2013. I got included in a gaming group here that orbits around Dust and a number of skirmish games from a variety of manufacturers. Last year, I decided to return to my first loves, and to start to build and collect the games that I love, and worry about getting people to play after I have the rules and two forces and terrain.

I returned to collecting Transformers around 2008. Although I had bought a couple of robots online during my university days, it was a sunny weekend visiting my parents when I stumbled across Classics Sunstreaker and Tankor (Octane) in a local hobby shop, looking for wargame minis. And that was the start of my descent. I amassed a decent collection in the next five years, before it all got put into storage for my move to the other side of the world.... where I have slowly been busy rebuying the highlights of collection v1.0 and adding to it!

I have kindly described my collecting style as 'eclectic'.... given that the only guideline that I have is the 'rule of cool' - if I think its cool, I want to buy it. This has led to an 'unstructured' collection. I am not much of a Generation 1 collector, I love my original bots because they are part of my childhood, but its not G1 that I am so interested in without this connection. My main Transformers focus is Generations, exclusives and third party robots. Outside of this, I love Macross and my Valyries are some of the highlights of my collection. However, Bandais insistance on underproducing releases - making it near impossible to get preorders and releases, and rocketing secondary market prices - and Arcadias frankly eye-watering retail prices have effectively priced me out of that side of collecting right now. The third core robot presence are the Gobots, which I have always had a fondness for, despite their often derided status. I have long held the view in transforming robots that the alt mode should drive the design, and Gobots and Machine Robo embraced this. Hard.

Like most wargamers, I have often played with rules, and the symphony of a rulebook is one of the highlights of the hobby for me. I love seeing rules describe the action, and how they limit, allow and guide tactics and options. I enjoy creating lists and armies, and considering interactions between rules. I slowly dipped into the creation of rules, starting with proof reading and fan rules and supplements, and taking the reigns of the Tau army list for Epic Armageddon for a time. From here, my first 'proper' rules writing experience was an opportunity with Dark Realm Miniatures. I knew Doug through Epic for many years, and my website was one of the catalysts for him to start DRM as a company. When he wanted to branch out from 6mm miniatures into a space game, and he knew about my involvement in BFG, he asked me to work on a set of space rules for him. From here, I collaborated with Marcin at Assault Publishing on a couple of rules sets, before joining the team more formally to work on a couple of sets of rules that I had floating at the back of my mind.

I hope that you find something to take away from this site. Its really a collection of my, often disconnected and semi-random, thoughts and plans. I am not a world class miniature painter, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of Transformers characters, and I am not a celebrity writer or games designer. I am just a regular guy, with a huge passion and enthusiasm for the hobbies, worlds and characters that I love. This is my blog, my journey, full of mistakes and attempts, detours and u-turns, successes and failures. Welcome, and enjoy the ride.

CyberShadow