Light at the end of the Tunnel?

 Just over four weeks now without a wargame, an unheard of experience for me, maybe even a first. I will also admit that during some of that time wargaming was not the first thing on my mind, the oak panelled study, the drawer with my service revolver did make an appearance a few times. I am still on the mend however slowly and things are improving.

Jimi is coming round to fight a small Dux Britanniarum skirmish tomorrow, I thought about WWII, then a War and Conquest clash but I now know that might be pushing things a game too far. With help from the missus, a saint that woman, a saint, as I cannot yet lift up boxes full of metal troops or terrain I have sorted out a nice little table and am looking forward to the game. I have not played Dux Britanniarum since 2015, a real shame as it is a nice little game.

As I said above I have kind of retreated a bit from all things wargaming but not entirely, I arranged friend Stuart to print me off a few pieces of BEF armour, and I bought the nice renaissance Cardinal set from Perrys just in case I ever get around to adding Papal troops to the Italian Wars, cannot really make my mind up about these just now. In order to round off my supports for the BEF in 1940 I got a Warlord 2 pdr and a 1st Corps Boys anti-tank rifle, the former easy to build which is unusual in my experience of Warlord guns and the latter a nice little crew.

Matilda I.

A9.

Vickers MkVI.

All of the above have taken eons longer than I normally take to finish something, mate Phil Robinson helped me out with decals for the British tanks and info on where they went, much obliged Phil. I am still on with the gun and rifle crews, after some time my back hurts. I had an issue with one of the Perry figures and they sent me out a replacement very quickly with no fuss.

Papal Leader.

I have had a hard time reading as well not helped by my biography of the Emperor Justinian being like wading through treacle, I should have known better and did not follow my own due diligence and missed the BCE and CE nonsense. I know the Byzantines would argue about angels on a pin head or some such but get over it or better still ignore it and get on with the battles, I gave up. I am back on track again with the excellent Sword Beach by Stephen Fisher, at last an in depth look at what happened on a British beach, warts and all.

I have also had time of course to watch plenty of TV, but sadly have found nothing to write home about. I did try 'Eric' although it didn't seem like my cup of char. The main character was an alchoholic wife abuser, his mate at work had been lifted for interfering with children, there was a deviant club almost next door, most of the men were gay or wierd and peadophiles were behind every lamp post, is this really entertainment? I retreated to binge watch Seinfeld and have now moved on to Rising Damp and sit chuckling over the comic genius of the writer and performances of the actors, especially Leonard Rossiter, knowing it would never see the light of day now.

Jimi did turn up today and he took charge of a Saxon warband hell bent on plundering a village before the local Lord turned up, I mentioned above it was 2015 the last time I playd and it will be 3015 before I go near it again. The game is certainly not a 'pick up' game and I floundered at the first hurdle as Jimi decided to have a duel between the Champions, we gave up with that. The Saxons at first made for the village but as the Romano-British moved fairly swiftly he turned his men to meet them, two leaders did however kick a couple of doors down in an effort to find some loot, they didn't. In the first combat I threw some levy into an attack with a hand of fate cards which could have brought down King Kong, first blood to the British. We got a second attack in each but it was going to be a long slog so as we were running out of time we called a halt.

Not a great game but we enjoyed a few hours of banter and threw some dice, it was a great pick me up for me and I realised maybe another week of recovery and I should be back to wargaming normal, at least here.

And just when I thought I was finished with British SYW infantry, friend David Bickley dropped these guys on me while Julian popped off this lovely ACW cavalryman on his way past. What a lot of nice people in this hobby.