Our Members: Who We Are - The Company of Strangers

The Members of The Company of Strangers:

Gordon Rose

One of Gordon's early pastimes was pushing around little groups of Airfix toy soldiers, which the members of his family foolishly bought him from the age of three. He didn't get into formalized "gaming" with them until his fourteenth year, when his older brother gave him a copy of Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming for Christmas. This began the hobby that would consume most of his free time over the next thirty-plus years.

While still solidly collecting and painting toy soldiers (purchasing his first lead miniatures the summer he turned fifteen), Gordon branched out into board wargames (during the heyday of SPI and Avalon Hill) three years later with the purchase of Avalon Hill's Panzer Leader. Gordon now requires the equivalent of two to three bookcases to hold his wargames, many of which he hasn't even played. (He just seems to like "the feel" of ownership.)

After a few years of wargaming the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, and WWII, Gordon discovered the realm of roleplaying games one summer while serving with the Canadian Armed Forces Land Reserve. One of his buddies returned from leave with a new game called "Dungeons & Dragons." Well, the bug bit big. Gord now found that he had an outlet for gaming in a more social atmosphere than locked in the basement pushing hundreds of tiny soldiers about the family ping-pong table, and it didn't cost a mint, either! (Of course, this last point hasn't stopped Gordon from since paying out a small fortune in roleplaying games and materials.)

During this time, Gordon managed to include starting a career, continuing his military career, and getting engaged during his non-gaming moments. Life was busy and gaming happened when it could. He and his buddies (most from the military) would gather at his house and he would game master for them, sessions often lasting until the sun could be seen coming back up through the apartment's windows. After serving as an instructor platoon sergeant for a summer basic training course (oddly enough the summer just after he finally got married), one of his trainees became interested in D&D and subsequently introduced Gordon to his university's science fiction club when school started up in the fall. One of the members of the club was David Graham, and the two have been gaming together in some way, shape, or form ever since.

During the last thirty-three years or more, through numerous position changes (he is a corporate trainer by craft, currently a Training Manager with a national firm), retiring from the Reserves as a company sergeant-major, the birth of his daughter, a divorce, and the marriage/divorce/babies of his friends, and a lengthy semi-career as an event host in SF/F fandom (being nominated for - but never winning - an Aurora Award twice), Gordon has tried his hand at almost every aspect of gaming: miniature wargaming, roleplaying, board games, board wargaming, card games, collectible card games, collectible miniature games, computer games, video games, etc. He even brought his daughter into the fold of roleplaying and miniature gaming - but now refuses to play with her as she is just too damn lucky and Gord can't roll dice to save his life. (Literally, when it comes to roleplaying).

His collection of wargames takes up most of his storage space, the other half being taken up by unpainted miniatures of almost every period and genre. His painted armies include French and British Napoleonic armies; Ancient Romans and Gauls; Fantasy Knights, Dwarves, Orcs and Wood Elves; and Clan War Samurai, all in 25-28mm; and WWII and Modern Micro-Armour. He also has a fair collection of fantasy miniatures for roleplaying (collected back in the day when they didn't have pre-painted plastic miniatures… harrumph!). Unpainted? You can pretty much name it. He only recently sold his Magic card collection, and gave his daughter's boyfriend his GW Warhammer 40,000 collection of space marines and elder. Somewhere he still has his L5R card collection, as well as a few other collectible cards games; as well as his collection of Mage Knight and Heroclix miniatures. His collection of rules for miniature wargaming takes up two shelves in his library, very close to the pride of his collection: a group of soft- and hardcover books on wargaming that includes eight of Donald Featherstone's books, including the one that started him onto the serious gamer path.

These days he is a member of the Company of Strangers, firmly ensconced in the Grognard position (that's "Grumpy Old Fart" to those who don't parlez), playing or running games as his opportunities arise.

As long as you can put up with his griping about "the old days," with "wood burning rules and steam-powered dice," he'll play practically anything! At heart, he is still very much a gaming slut.