Long term readers of the blog will remember his Dark Angels army and that my Space Wolves used to destroy them almost every week, while his Thousand Sons would always give me a run for my money.
That's him on the right, with spiky blonde hair, wearing an Affliction t-shirt, with a massive cup of coffee nearby and his Dark Angels army laid out on the table.
This photo sums him up really well. His entire wardrobe consisted of t-shirts covered in wings, skulls and guns, he always had a massive cup of coffee on the go and his dice rolls were always so full of passion for his army that the dice would fly in all directions! Although some actually stayed on the table.
To make things worse, his Assault Squad led by a Chaplain (nicknamed the Cheese Vicar) became James' signature unit, using their jump packs to get into charge range and start butchering their way through most of your army.
The Juicy Bone: Warhammer 40K
And that led to the development of The Juicy Bone. Basically, you'd have to 'bait' the Assault Squad and Chaplain into the open. So eager to charge in and kill things, James could not resist The Juicy Bone, even when he knew it was a trap.
But he didn't care about winning (much), so long as it was a close game with plenty of carnage and it told a great story.
Speaking of 'juicy bones', if there's one thing James loved as much as his Dark Angels army and a good game of Warhammer 40K, it was zombie video games.
Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Left 4 Dead, Dead Nation, Dead Island, The Last Of Us, Dead Rising, Call of Duty (zombies), House of the Dead (overkill), Lolipop Chainsaw, DOOM 3, Dead Space and probably loads more.
Let's not even start on all the zombie movies we watched over the years!
And so to pay tribute, our group of friends are doing a Zombie Evacuation in October, where we try to run our 'juicy bones' 5K across the Cambridgeshire countryside, crossing obstacles, dodging the undead and making it to safety without getting infected.
The only problem is that we're all wargamers... with wargamer physiques.
Which means we're terribly unfit!
Anyway, we've set up a JUST GIVING PAGE for James.
If you would like to donate we'd be truly grateful. And I'm sure James would appreciate it after having to play 40K against me for all these years and have his games publicised for the whole internet to read.
Speaking of which, here are some of my favourite games against James!
Deathwing VS Space Wolves Weekend
Thousand Sons VS Space Wolves
The Most Boring Game Ever!
Last but not least...
Our group of friends has kindly been given permission to take James' entire 6,000pts Dark Angels army for a last epic battle.
This will also be happening in October.
James and I played with his entire collection on just two occasions.
Once against three combined Tau armies and once against 3 combined Space Wolves armies.
Both times were awesome and we found that the Dark Angels army as a whole really comes to life in these massive games with Deathwing, Ravening and Regular Dark Angels companies working in synergy.
So for it's final battle, the Dark Angels will face 3 combined Tau Empire armies in a special scenario to recover something secret from a crashed space ship, made from a smashed up Millenium Falcon.
Don't worry, we got it for a fiver on eBay!
I'll be Games Master and devise the scenario rules, as well as handing out Strategy Cards to each player to keep things exciting.
So there's two things you can look forward to reading about at the end of October.
Now to install that Zombie to 5K app on my phone and get my unfit self running!