Io Amateur Wargamers

Across that valley lies an army of darkness such as mankind has never seen. The only thing between them and total victory is this pathetic pocket of resistance. Without a leader, without a plan. And into this bleak arena steps a man. The man for the moment.

Block capitals aren’t helping here, but this reads ‘Io’ rather than the number 10. As in Io the Jupiter moon (and I suppose ultimately the human woman that knobbed Zeus, according to the Greek lads). ‘But why are we in Io?’, I hear you ask. Well, it’s where old Trans-Am wheel-arch nostrils himself, Arnold Rimmer originally hails from. What the amateur wargaming element relates to isn’t specifically expanded upon, but in my head it conjured up visions of nerds, lead figures, Dungeons & Dragons and the like. ‘Warhammer twats’ I remember Stewart Lee once calling them.

With that in mind, a lot of the fontwork here is based around that. Broadswords, hobbits, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and etc. My thinking was that the Amateur Wargamers would’ve been a solar-system wide phenomenon and that the top ‘Io’ metal-esque panel element would be changeable depending on where you are. So effectively there would be Amateur Wargamers in Europa, Titan and so forth. Obviously, though, the planet graphic would be altered to reflect the terrain of whatever the celestial entity is. This orangey fella is a vectorisation of a telescopic view of Io, if you hadn’t already worked that out.

If you’re wondering why any of this is happening, Rimmer mentions the AWGs when the Dwarfers end up on an abandoned waxwork theme park planet that is enduring a civil war between two rogue factions; villains (including Hitler, Caligula and Al Capone) and heroes (Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe, Winnie the Pooh). He imparts himself as General to the hero wax people in order to bring ‘peace’ to the planet and – like the majority of his own personal military heroes – ends up getting everyone killed.

Maybe he should’ve just stuck with the Risk stories.