Winter is Coming

 The miserable season is rapidly approaching, it is now dark on the way to the club and on my return, it becomes a bit of a chore to muster the enthusiasm to leave the comfort of my living room and a lovely wood burning fire to venture into the cold, usually wet, darkness. Made easier no doubt in the future when the stove is banned and my heat pump barely raises the temperture inside as we huddle around home made sustainable candles.

I was at the club this week to play our delayed English Civil War game with Stewart Simon's beautiful figures, I know I have said this before but they are a joy to look at and play with. We fought the Battle of Ormskirk where a large Parliamentarian force should have rode down the meagre collection of Royalists outside the town but of course this was Pike and Shotte. Simon and Henry suffered very badly trying to encourage their men to move swiftly forward, the Royalists also had problems but as the defenders the dire command rolls did not have as serious an effect on things. The Royalist reinforcements turned up and some furious cavalry action put the lid on Parliamentarian hopes of winning.

Ormskirk and the Parliamentarians.

The Royalists.

Despite trying to slow down I have finished another unit of mounted arquebusiers, well it is no big deal to paint up six men and horses, but I also put together my casualty wagon from Perrys, they have a nice collection of small and large wagons perfect for a baggage train, I plan to get a few more later. I have now moved on to another Landsknecht pike block, Wargames Foundry figures this time, I find Foundry expensive but there is no doubt of the quality of these pieces, they are lovely and so easy to paint. The front ranks have been started so give it another few weeks and they should join the army.

I was given some tents and three artillery pieces by Dan at the club, his renaissance forces are 15mm (or 10) and he had no use for these anymore. I have still to work on the tents but right away dipped the guns into a jar of Dettol, after two days I fished them out and brushed the old paint off, just as new, these will be a welcome addition to the artillery trains of both armies. I bit the bullet and ordered up the remainder of my Imperial forces, these consist of another unit of heavy cavalry and some foot arquebusiers, and of course crews for the above guns. That should be it for 2023 and both my planned armies will be finished by the end of the year.

What will be next you ask, well some wagons explained above and then four small contingents covering Venice, Florence, Milan and the Papal States, I am thinking of a pike block and two cavalry, maybe one heavy and one light along with a commander. My pike blocks are six stands I am toying with the idea of making these four. I had decided to stick with my ping pong table once the new room is ready but add another one, in reality half of one to give me 13.5 x 5 feet. I saw a nice build on Facebook which would allow me to keep a ton of stuff underneath, so might therefore go for a bespoke table of 12x5, I am not going six as that is a foot too far, this size is more than enough for a home table and my particular needs.

As I mentioned before The Atlas of Battles and Campaigns of the American Revolution 1775-1783 has now been published and I have received my complimentary copies, two of which I have given to my sons, maybe they will get around to reading them one day. My name was added to the title by Helion and approved by the author David Bonk, that was a nice surprise. I have read one review by Colin Ashton over at Carryings on up the Dale, I could hardly get my head through the door afterwards. No sooner had I digested this than I was contacted to provide the maps for a two volume authorised history of  The Army Air Corps funded by the Ministry of Defence (me in other words, albeit in a small way), this to is in full colour so I am looking forward to starting this.

I am taking part in another Chain of Command campaign being fought at the club based on the Gazala battle in the Western Desert, I command a German Schutzen platoon and my and the campaign's first game will be on Tuesday night. I do not have anything for the Western Desert so Rob and Stuart will be providing everything, I only need to turn up. I don't have anything planned at Casa Anderson yet for November so might start thinking about that in the next couple of days.