Heroes for Wargames (1986) is a very odd but wonderful duck. The cover says it is a guide to “painting and collecting miniature figures for roleplaying games” but that doesn’t really do this jumble justice. Yes, there are painting guides and guides for building dioramas, but that isn’t really the focus. There isn’t a focus, as such. The book is all over the place, introducing the hobby of RPGs, introducing the hobby of miniature painting, loitering in the workshops of Citadel Miniatures, sneaking peaks in John Blanche’s sketchbook. It’s all over the place, and it is entirely delightful.

I guess, primarily, it is page after page of photos of miniatures, both painted and unpainted. I love this sort of thing — I loved these sorts of photos in adverts in Dragon Magazine, and I love them in this book. I think I like these in particular because I am not super familiar with Citadel designs, but I have some foundation in them thanks to osmosis, so it feel like…like a revelations of sorts. If nothing else, it is a time capsule for the Games Workshop that was truly punk rock and pushing a weird nerd hobby in a Thatcherite UK that wasn’t really having it. Love seeing Maggie on the orc banner, that cracks me up.

Fantastic art throughout. Melvyn Grant did the cover; not sure his deal, but it’s a banger. Back cover by Bob Naismith. That painting was also the box art for Citadel’s Monster Paint Set. That’s not something that would ever wind up in my collection, I don’t think, but the art is rad, and I’m happy to have it here.