A visit to Hob’s Hobbies in Strathmore one day in 2017, was the start of a one of a kind hobby for Warhammer Age Of Sigmar player Garnett Green. The Strathmore area player took part in this weekend’s Warhmmer tournament, his first tournament. Earlier this year was his first time in league play as well.

Green explained that back in 2017, “I saw two of people that I would now consider friends basically playing it in the back. They were playing just two armies going at each other, and I thought, ‘Wow, that's really cool.’ I basically asked John (Hilton – O’Brien) what's that in the back?”

The owner of the hobby craft establishment explained that they were playing the table-top game called Warhammer.

“I asked him how would I get started,” said Green. On Saturday he was found playing with his army of zombies, playing against Jeromin Vilic, a more experienced player and a professional painter.

Saturday’s tournament was hosted by Hob’s Hobbies and organized by Nic Fortin. Warhammer Age of Sigmar, is the fantasy version of the table-top game.

There were 12 players in the tournament with about one quarter of the attendees being local players.

Hilton-O'Brien explained that they had originally planned to hold a larger tournament in the Civic Centre but because of COVID, the numbers were down and so they moved the venue to the store.

He explained that the game has its own unique sense of humour. “The models are gorgeous they are made in England not in China so the quality is extremely high.”

Take a good look at the humour in the models themselves, that are sometimes a bunch of cows with swords and axes.

“Those are orcs. But those aren’t professor Tolkien’s orcs no, they are skinned up as English soccer hooligans. They spend a lot of time making fun of fantasy and science fiction,” said Hilton-O’Brien.

Depending on the intricacy of the models it could take Green a few minutes to construct a model, or longer say for a model with 40 pieces it could take up to a day to build and paint.

Green says what he enjoys the most about the game is building and painting each model.

“You can just be as creative as you want with it.”

The winners of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar tournament are:

Paul Ting - Best overall

Ian Margaret - Sportsmanship

Graham Larsen - Magic

Jeromin Jesus Bilic - Monster Slayer

Mike Anthony - Most units slain

Garnett Green - Cavalry killer