Barry Hilton - My preoccupation with all things spooky is a source of amusement to my wargaming friends but from an early age I have always been interested in ghosts, witches, haunted houses and things that scare me. Recently when clearing out 50 years of family hording from my mother's house I found an old board game from the 1960's called Haunted House which I used to love playing with my pals when I was a nipper. I wonder if any of you remember it? Just proving to myself that some things travel with you throughout your life.
That morbid fascination has continued through Hammer Horror movies, Stephen King novels, Dracula, Frankenstein and other Gothic staples into Zombies, Undead and all sorts of similar nonsense. Suffice it to say my favourite Carry On movie is Carry on Screaming! , Live and Let Die was Roger Moore's finest Bond outing (for me anyway), I love Tim Burton's stuff and I can't get enough of the late Jim Bowen's wonderful 40mm Occult range... I think you have the picture.
Finding a way to include some element of Satanic nonsense in my wargaming is a sub-plot which runs and runs. The discovery in Antwerp last year of information relating to the Bokkenrijders was a little notch on the old magic wand! Incorporating these ghouls into Donnybrook didn't take to much work even convincing Mr Harrison to be complicit and indulge my weaknesses!
Donnybrook is nearly there now, a nice Wargames Illustrated feature on the Bokkenrijders is in the can and my themed game at Crisis 2013 is all about those scary Bokkenrijder - Goat Cavalry chaps.. so Happy Halloween to all of you out there and I hope you never need to suppress your interest in the slightly less mainstream avenues of the wargaming map just to save you from embarrassment!
