Larry Leadhead is a long-running Web cartoon strip from Canada, aimed at the tabletop War Gaming community, jointly devised by long-time gamers Doug Hamm and Eric Hotz. To a lesser extent, it gently parodies and highlights the eccentricities of those strange people who sit down at night with toy soldiers, plastic model kits, glues and paints, seeking only to get the most accurate scale models of the real thing, and who will then subject their creations to the thrills of simulated warfare where the dice are king.
This is Hamm and Kotz's definition of Larry Leadhead:-
"LARRY - is young (ish), and has been an avid gamer for many years. His collection of miniature figures is, well... huge, with armies, units and models of virtually every description. He games in both historical and fantasy with some sci-fi. He also has a very large collection of board games and computer games. He is married, with no kids (his wife says he is child enough for her!). His hobby takes up much of his time and mental efforts. He will never get around to painting all the tabletop gaming stuff he buys — this is physically impossible, although he will never admit it, or perhaps, may not even be aware of this fact. Larry is easy going, patient, and rarely loses his cool — he lets his friends do most of the fussing and fretting. In short, Larry is your typical gamer and will probably remind you of someone you know (perhaps he will even remind you of yourself)."
A selection of strips dealing with the small fine details of life out of the toy soldier collecting and boardgaming community may still be found around the Net, although the original archive appears to have vanished without explanation. The final strip's page (May 9, 2012) is [1]
here via archive.org.
Tropes that appear in this work, if the dice favour you:
- Artistic License – Statistics: all the justifications the players use to justify their dice rolling.
- Player Archetypes:
- The Real Man: Tim
- The Roleplayer: RPGs are played. There is even a nod towards uniformed Cosplay and re-enactment.
- The Loonie: possibly everyone. Dave stands out.
- The Munchkin: Dave, who is something of a Rules Rapist.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Refer to this strip for an example of serious Potty Failure in the wargaming hobby.
- Real Is Brown: Discussed in the strip mentioned above.
- Crack is Cheaper: It can get to be quite an expensive hobby. The smells and chemical components of the paints and glues don't help. there's a reason why the glue and the paint thinners carry warning labels like "Do not use in an enclosed unventilated space".
- Loophole Abuse: Dave and Brian, each of whom is something of a resident Rules Lawyer.
- Men Are Childish: Pretty much all the gaming guys.
- Random Number God: Appears as capriciously as you might expect. Larry's dice rolls are renowned, for all the wrong reasons.
- The Scrub: Brian, a true Rules Lawyer.
- Sports Widow: Cindy and the other club wives, who are in various degrees resigned to coming second to their husbands' obsessions with toy soldiers and models.
- Tomboy: Sandy, the token girl player.
- Warhammer 40,000: the guys have dabbled, find it of interest, but prefer historical gaming. Sandy, however, is an addict and she wields an amazing Ork army.
