So I found a couple of photo's of recent games to share with you.  First off, we dug out the Napoleonics for the first time in well over a year, with my whole collection just about stretching to two decent sized armies:



A hypothetical, with fairly simple scenario rules, using Black Powder.  Each army was around 300 figures strong as an Anglo Portuguese army tried to hold off King Joseph's Franco Spanish Madrid army.  We had an all day event so there was time enough to set up and play the battle at our leisure, in the end the British weathered the storm for a solid victory.

On a normal Thursday evening I managed to get a game of Saga in against Paul.














My Vikings faced his Rus in a Warlord wounding scenario.  Paul started with his warlod waaay at the back, but towards the end of the game a suicide charge by my Bondi managed to reach and wound him, winning me the game.

Going back further I also got a 15mm game or two of Napoleonics:



Using other members collections and the Napoleonic variant of Fire and Fury.  My command of another Anglo-Portuguese army saw me fight a successful withdrawal in the face of a larger French force.  This has now tempted me in to a 15mm Austrian or Russian Naps army, as the numbers and size of the models... Ah but realistically it'd not happen for years, so never mind!

Still.  Three games, three victories.

A Flurry of Activity

Yes, I have played some wargames again.

Not many, but they are happening; at some point I may even show you some.  There has been enough time to paint too.

I tell you all this now, without proof as one of life's other perennials ensures I can't display the evidence.  The laptop is playing up and won't permit the internet on it.  Typical really, if its' not one thing it's another.  Suffice to say I join you today from Lunch at work.

Ho hum.

Maybe there will be more to show soon...

Remembrance Day

MCMXIV, by Philip Larkin

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word - the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Fiasco 2014

I went to my first wargames show in two years at the weekend:

Fiasco was in its' usual place at the usual time.  I found a lot of the games on show to be visually underwhelming, but I may not have been in the zone so to speak.  Only a handful caught my eye...

 6mm ACW done with realistic terrain.

 Some sort of El-Cid/Crusades game.  To be honest I'm sure I'd seen this before, but nice models.

Legendary Games, playing 'In the Grand Manner' as is typical for them, Same figures and terrain as previous games of theirs I've seen, but appealed to my interests.

I avoided talking to people as much as I sought out old friends, but I did run in to one or two welcome faces.  It was nice to catch up in a way, but it is always complicated.  I have long been one of those who would prefer to pass through this sort of event anonymously and unobserved, it was after all mainly a shopping trip for me.  I came away with a couple of books and two battalions of 28mm Spanish Napoleonics.  I was in and out within two hours.

There will be many places where you'll get a fuller review of the show, for my part it was enough to dip my toe back in the scene and find the waters aren't completely hostile.  Even if the smell a bit foul at times.

Painting Filth

I got a place in my life for some painting again:

Man I am rusty though.  These took an age to do for what they are.

Straight to eBay and sold for a pittance.  Ah well, they were only ever for the sake of practice.

Your Terrible Hobby

http://yourterriblehobby.com/

Hilarity and truth in equal, sad measures.  Mainly the crimes are those of 40k players, which means I have little sympathy.  Historical gamers may have cause to feel superior, but there are plenty of dubious fetishistic Nazi armies out there, not to mention Weird World War and so on...

We are all a little guilty, no?