I have just learnt that my good friend and wargaming buddy, Carlo Anziano, passed away yesterday after a long and hard-fought battle with cancer.

I first met Carlo at Salford University, and enjoyed many, long gaming sessions with him: mostly roleplay, with some of the Call of Cthulu games being the best I have ever played. I still recall the session at my somewhat grim digs in Gilda Crescent Road, played at night, with the lights dimmed low, that ended up being so frightening that Tina, Carlo's girlfriend and then lifelong partner and then wife, wouldn't go down the corridor to the loo on her own!

Our friendship continued after uni, still centred around gaming as well as the usual meet ups at weddings and the like. There was a particularly good Flashing Blades campaign, I remember, where Carlo's character, the laconic if immensely strong Sergeant LeGros, battled a maddened bear deep underground, providing the delay needed for his comrades to escape...and picking up a new bear-claw necklace in the process!

After our uni group got busy with careers and families and the like, I still met Carlo at almost every wargaming show I went to. Salute, Colours, Warfare and others. He was usually with his friends of the Huntingdon Wargames Society, putting on and playing in a spectacular game with many of his own figures on show. We always found time for a chat and a catch-up, and usually a beer or two too. It was good: the natural order of things, something to look forward to. I shall miss him.

My utmost sympathies go out to Carlo's family, other friends and, of course, Tina.