What has Covid ever done for us....

 With the possibility of freedom approaching next month, unless the Sierra Leone or Equatorial Guinea or whatever variant they can scrounge up scuppers it, I thought I would look back on fifteen months of hell. Gaming was basically out of the window, so what did I do with all that time?

Although I had already started a move to the Eastern Front I spent a lot of time expanding the forces I had, I got caught up in the whole End of the Reich thing and moved my 1944 forces to take in the fall of Berlin, this involved a lot of new vehicles and several new troop types, Kriegsmarine,Volksturm and Hitler Youth for the Germans, assault engineers, airborne and NKVD for the Soviets. I caught the Ostfront bug as the time passed and I expanded my troops to cover the early battles, for the Russians this really meant only vehicles while for the Germans I needed a new platoon in jackboots and fieldgrey. I know there were differences in Soviet uniforms as the war progressed but as far as I know no manufacturer shows this and let's face it, who would know apart from 'that guy.' At the beginning of the Lockdown I also built an Airborne platoon for the British, why, I have no idea other than it was want rather than need. Added to all this was several more battalions for the Seven Years War forces, Scots and Irish for both the British and French. I was just about to hang up my brushes for a few months but now find myself building up a French force for 1940, I have thrown myself into this and am enjoying this quirky army with its old fashioned uniforms and colourful tanks.

 My terrain also benefited from my enforced incarceration. I found that I needed industrial buildings for a campaign so built up a full factory with mesh fencing, I was also given a stunning pithead from a guy in the village which really set off the industrial complex. I then went back to my Normandy stuff and added little bits here and there, scatter and new walls mainly with some extra trees. With Budapest and Berlin in mind I jumped in with both feet to build up an entire table of ruins, these are 90% done as I still want to find more rubble for the streets. Now that I can cover the whole war in the East I have also added some razed and ruined buildings which will be used for Stalingrad if I ever get that far.

Before Lockdown I always folded up and moved my table after a game, but I have now decided that as the space is actually mine and not the Post Office's I am going to leave it up, I have also moved all my wargame resources into the shop. Perhaps some people think this is inappropriate for a Post Office but I don't care, besides most people simply walk past the table and show complete disinterest.

I have managed some games and these were mainly solo with the help of friends who chose forces and helped with deployment and orders. I then branched out with several campaigns where again friends took charge of the forces involved while I just fought the battles. In the past couple of months I have experimented with remote gaming and have hosted a few and played in several. I was more enthusiastic at the beginning of the plague and things have kind of tailed off for now with hopefully the prospect of face to face games coming back.

 Can I blame Covid for all this, probably not, I have a tendency to jump in with both feet when I take up something new, I am reminded of this when I look at my 50+ WWI aircraft, my huge Old West town, half of which I have just mothballed, and my X-Wing starships. With the plague possibly ending I don't have anything on the cards for long term.

 The club has been given the green light for June 8 with 'anti covid measures' in place, at the moment I am not sure what these are so I am waiting to see before rejoicing. I do have that ACW game on the 30th and mate Mike Jordan got in touch for some War and Conquest in July, Mike's Romans are a real challenge and are desperate to fight the Thunderbolts.

Things are going well with the French, despite my moans about the awful artillery kits they have turned out to be quite nice once I fixed the 75mm and added paint and crews, I do wonder though why the crew of the 47mm anti-tank gun are lying down. I have built all the tanks and primed most of them along with several infantry squads, I am really looking forward to painting the bizarre camouflage schemes on the vehicles. 

75mm infantry gun

47mm anti tank gun

25mm anti tank gun

Infantry squad

FT-17

Work in progress