All quiet etc.

 Its been a fortnight since I put fingers to keys, no reason other than I just could not find the enthusiasm. I haven't really been busy either but most of what I have been doing is just pottering around finding stuff to do.

I finished my second Blood Bowl team using mainly contrast paints and I am impressed with them, I already use a red, white and blue for my SYW uniforms but delved into some others for the fantasy figures. I have been passing away my empty evenings now with the odd game online and the other day I traveled to darkest Darlington for a couple of games with my son, surprisingly I won both, a bit of fun for a few hours and I enjoyed it.

I have had other games, a couple of weeks ago before the lethargy struck I played an early war game of Chain of Command on the Eastern Front against Simon's Russians. It was the first day of Barbarossa and I had to fight through a village and capture a bridge. My platoon was backed up by a Panzerjager I while the Russians brought a T-26, I laid down a preliminary barrage and the Russians suffered under it not managing to bring many defenders to the dance. I laid out some decent fields of fire and Russian casualties mounted while their morale fell. At the bell it was obvious the Germans would take the objective, Simon has not played a lot of Chain of Command and we forgot/misunderstood a couple of rules as it has been a while. I am not sure CoC is suited to a club night where you get three hours, unless both sides know what they are doing and some of the donkey work, choosing supports etc. is done before hand otherwise the faffing about and terrain building takes away 30-45 minutes.

 This weeks game was Seven Years War, a large French vs Prussian bash, Dan had added several more battalions and it was quite a large game, it looked really nice. I was in charge of the French left and ploughed forward as I outnumbered the Prussians opposite, the pressure was certainly on but they just kept hanging on, I did not manage the breakthrough I was looking for. Elsewhere our centre for a time looked in danger of collapsing but in the end it too held while a large slugfest was happening on the far right of the line. A real shame we ran out of time to get a definitive result, living with a draw.

 I have a game this Sunday, American Civil War, a meeting engagement somewhere in Virginia, Hood's Division against the First Division, First Corps. I also have plans for the weekend after that when Matt Smith visits, Dead Man's Hand on the Friday night, Operation Chariot on the Saturday and an Ancient game on Sunday where I will get the opportunity to take the Seleucids against the Twelfth under their new, temporary legate.

 On the painting side I finished off the four most expensive figures I have ever bought and now wish to forget the pain. I also put the finishing touches to my iron girder bridge, I decided to give it a wooden plank floor and I think it looks the better for it, I might add the odd tuft of grass on the sides, weeds get everywhere after all but that's it.

 I am looking at Byzantine forces of 900-1000AD, my guide is the old GW book 'Beyond the Golden Gate' which is an excellent source for wargamers. I am also of course looking at other sources but by god it is confusing so many Greek terms for basically the same units and they seem to change over time as well. As usual, nothing concrete which we wargamers require otherwise it plays on our mind and it only takes one person to say "yes, but......." Well, I am past all that now, the army will be as historically correct as I can make it and get it to fit into the War and Conquest universe and damn the nay sayers.

Before launching this army, and I could still be persuaded to jump to Italian Wars or the Thirty Years War I want to add more to my SYW collection, Front Rank stuff is still not available at the moment and Crusader figures which I have heard good things about do unit deals with only one standard bearer, note the fact most battalions carried two, duh. Having been stung by the French Connection I don't want to spend an extra £6 just to get a standard bearer. I await an email from them. Now that I know I am adding to this small collection I will also get some suitable buildings at last.

Right that is it, no mapping for now as waiting on authors to get back to me to finalise four projects, i do have one on the American War of Independence but again, cannot proceed until the author makes his mind up on how many maps he wants. Kind of hoping for a bit of peace until after the festive season but I know there are at least two more projects in the pipeline going to land at some point.

Now, what on earth are Menaulatoi and how do I represent them............