What's in a Name

With the Romans nearing completion I need to identify them, Cohort I or II is not enough, they represent a military unit of a formidable and well organised military machine with a pedigree which covered hundreds of years so it would be unforgivable in my books to simply plonk them on the table as a representation Roman unit. My troops are based in the East so that cuts it down to around five or six legions which were almost permanently stationed there apart from when they were required as ‘fire brigades’ elsewhere. There are a couple of famous legions, III Gallica and IV Scythica come to mind but I don’t always like to plumb for the obvious so I have gone for Legio XII Fulminata or in layman’s terms ‘Thunderbolt Twelfth Legion’, aka Paterna, Victrix, Antiqua, Certa Constans and Galliena.

 

This is one of Caesar’s original legions and seems to have been active in the East from the end of Augustus’ reign, it lost its Eagle in 66AD during the Jewish Revolt but returned to form under its commander T. Flavius Vespasian whom it supported gaining the Imperial throne. During my chosen period it fought against the Parthians under Lucius Verus, then moved with Marcus Aurelius to fight the Quadi in modern Slovakia before remaining loyal to Marcus when Giaus Avidius Cassius revolted. It did not remain loyal in 193 when it sided with Pescennius Niger against Septimius Severus and it was punished by being reduced to the status of a reserve for a time. It was still guarding the frontier as late as the 5^th Century.

There is something about military numbers which I think fascinates us all, you can see a 3 but if you see 3^rd Regiment of Foot, there is instantly a history, battles, campaigns and characters for us to delve into, we can simply skim the surface or we can garner enough information to bore someone to death. It even doesn’t have to be numbers, in my Dark Age armies the units are identified by their banners, the Horses, the Wolf the Praying Man etc. and of course when I had medieval armies it would be a lord, Bruce, Warwick, Douglas or whatever. But it has to be something, I could not simply throw a bunch of troops onto the table and say, the blue guys will fire at the red guys or some such thing.

What is even better is when your miniature warriors gain their own reputations, and I know I am bordering on madness here. My Iron Brigade for instance has yet to come close to the real one, my 39^th New York should not be put where you need stalwart troops, but you can rely on the 44^th, nearly all my elites are not worthy of the name despite the lavish paint jobs and beautiful banners, numerous pep talks and tantrums. My most notable unit ever was the Comte de Alencon who only ever lost one fight, I was crazy enough to record every battle back then, when he was surrounded by Sung Chinese infantry and chariots, hit in the flanks and rear. Even my opponents eventually asked me to point him out on the table, top man.

So how will the ‘Thunderbolt Twelfth’ fare, I have no idea who will be the stars and who will be decimated but the time is approaching when they will have to draw their weapons in anger and begin to build their own reputation, I am expecting big things.

For Parliament and Expense Claims!

It is now dark when I set out for the club so "the nights are fair drawing in" as we say north of the border or nowadays "get that bloody ref." Anyway it was a miserable night as I braved the traffic coming out of Lancaster, Andy was setting up a 28mm Black Powder ECW game and as usual he arrived weighted down like a pack mule. There were only three of us so Andy umpired while I took Parliament and immediately started totting up my expense claim for later, while Simon came out for the King.

The Cavaliers deploy.

Parliament deploys.

 Andy had intended to do a scenario but as it was a club night and we were short of time we just put down two forces opposite each other and had to, or stood around as it turned out. Simon is not as experienced at this kind of warfare as many of us and he straight away threw three cavalry charges at my line, needless to say I was surprised and they were easily beaten off with two cavalry troops dispersing and a third knocked back behind their lines. 

Prepare to receive cavalry.

Both lines now commenced a firefight all along the line, I withdrew my own cavalry out of range of the muskets but not of the artillery and lost one troop to continuous fire from a big gun on a hill. The only real damage done by this waste of lead was Simon losing his dismounted dragoons.
 

The line holds and opens fire.

 I now saw an opening, opposite my right there was only one regiment and the gun on the hill, I decided to launch a troop of cavalry supported by dragoons and a further regiment from the commanders brigade. Off went the cavalry and dragoons but the commanders brigade simply refused to move. Now this is what I dislike about this set of rules and similar ones, why on earth if the Army commander orders his men to do something under his very nose would they all refuse, where is the historical evidence for such a thing. The upshot of course was that my plan to assault the enemy left fell apart.

Let's just pretend we didn't hear 'im.

I did eventually manage to get the regiment into an attack position but I remain sceptical whether it actually had the range or not to charge not knowing the rules, in they went along with the cavalry and we then spent some time looking for an explanation of who had actually won the melee. In the end it was deemed that Simon had lost one musketeer unit and my cavalry had had to retire, so I was left in the better position at the end of it. I claimed victory only because I had killed more of Simon's units than he did of mine, from a military point of view if his regiment lost the next round of melee he would have had infantry, cavalry and dragoons ready to fall on his flank, on the other hand if he had won then I think we would again have gone back to a stalemate and resumed the firefight.

Decision time.

I know the rules are for huge, simple games and Andy has huge armies but I still don't like them and I was disappointed there was no index in the rules to help when we needed clarification. Elsewhere there was a Bloodbowl game and a large Frostgrave game, I don't get the Frostgrave thing, I have played it and it was enjoyable but interest seems to have reached fever pitch in the wargaming community putting it on a par with Lion Rampant, but of course I would be biased as fantasy has never been my thing, I can admire it from afar but that's it really. Having said that I am doing Dystopian Wars next week, I can do sci-fi no problem and I have seen the huge collection Simon has so I am looking forward to this.

Now £400 should be about right to put in front of the Speaker for a nights entertaining.

Доброе утро Россия

I'm back in the PO on what should be my day off as we still have my grandaughter and she is more at home with Granny than evil Papa who doesn't play Pony World with her. I check the blog stats the way most people check Facebook and I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that I am getting a large number of hits from Mother Russia, more so than the UK first thing. I was told that some of the hits are robots, though why a robot would want to peruse my musings is beyond me unless it is an X-Wing AAR. I had a small but significant following from Taiwan for a time but they have obviously moved on to other things. I cannot make head nor tail of the stats to be honest, some of the sections don't seem to add up but hey ho. What intrigues me the most are those out of the way countries where one poor soul has come here via Mongolia, Tunisia or Guam never to be seen again, I wonder what they were looking for in the first place.

The most popular post by far is '5,000!' which is one line basically, does that mean I rabbit on too much or do people get to it expecting something exciting and then head off to the real posts, I don't know.

Anyway onwards and upwards after a week or so with no maps I completed two one off specials over the weekend and now have two more projects, Polish armour in Europe and another on what looks like a British action in NW Europe, I have only briefly scanned the latter.

Well Done Scotland

Since the demise of the England vs Scotland football match I have had no interest in sport whatsoever and despite myself that was the only game which could fire me up, even though we lost most of them, even on my wedding day we were cuffed 5-0, but every time you always just thought, this time.

When Scotland played Samoa a week ago I watched the second half having nothing better to do and although I understood none of it I did leap out the chair on several occasions and make gutteral 'yesssss' sounds as they went on to victory.

Today I went and had a snooze and when I came too it was just in time to sit through the second half of today's match against Australia, Scotland were so many points behind and I thought here we go again. But no, I watched them catch up and overtake the Aussies with a couple of minutes to go, the phone went and I shouted "no, call back!" Like the rest of the Jocks I was gutted as the Aussies pulled it out of the bag in the dying seconds of the match, and I commiserated with the manager and captain as they were asked banal questions by the interviewers even as the result sank in.

Well done lads.

View From The Window

There is a clear view this morning although it is still pretty grey and grim, it is also cold so it's an excuse for the missus to fire up the wood burner she has wanted for so long, I have to admit it throws out some heat, enough to make its way up the stairs and warm the rest of the house. Nothing stirs of course at this time of the day, I am up early again as we still have guests and rock and roll music is coming from the living room. Village life is settling down for the winter, all outside work on houses has ceased, gardens tidied and grass cut perhaps for the last time and any entertainments have retreated to the village or church halls.

The missus was out the other night and I had settled down to 'Being Human' some nice cheese, crackers, grapes and a Hungarian dessert wine, I know how to treat myself, whence there came a knock at the door. Now I don't get people knocking on my door I don't have that many friends and certainly none who would want to disturb me when I am settled, so I eased myself out of the seat and hit the pause button. It was a neighbour from a couple of doors down, "Can you drive me to the vets the cat needs putting down." I hesitated as the missus was out, no phone and I would have had to lock up and she didn't have a key when my neighbour provided the perfect excuse, "perhaps you have been drinking?" I had been drinking so I apologised, she apologised and went for a taxi and I returned upstairs feeling guilty nonetheless.

I had my skin cancer removed last Monday morning, it took about forty-five minutes and was a doddle, I thought I might have a bad night once the anaesthetic wore off but I was wrong, not a twinge or tremor, as long as you don't mind a piece of your cheek being cut out the experience was fine and the care excellent. I was brought back down to earth later that afternoon when I went in to get an update on my elbow operation, the consultant had left his door open and I heard him complain that he just couldn't face anyone else today and that he was leaving, his last patient (me) could be put on the second doctor, I was therefore in the hospital at least 45 minutes more than I should have been, having already waited over thirty minutes.
 

I went into Lancaster the following Thursday and had my original large white bandage on my cheek, I now know how people who are different feel when walking the streets, you would have thought I had two heads. People either stared openly or took furtive glances when they thought I was not looking, kids huddled into their mothers as I passed, I do admit to making scary faces at some of them. I had an overwhelming urge to dribble at the mouth, hunch over and shout "the bells, the bells" but my courage deserted me, besides, her indoors would not have been amused. The reaction of my customers was even better, half of them simply asked me straight up what was wrong, the other half looked everywhere but at my face.

This neatly ties in with the BBC documentary "Is Britain Racist" to which I took great offence. The gist of the programme was that most of us are racist but we don't know it and the journalist Mona Chalabi went to great lengths to prove her theory. We got the moronic English Defence League trundled out, people who scare me and I am white, people whom most of us would not let through the door. Then three or four people were asked to spend a day in areas where they would of course stick out, apart from a few cat calls these generally went without incident, no doubt much to the chagrin of Ms Chalabi. She then popped into a pub and showed some people pictures, guess what, in the main white people preferred white people and black people preferred black people, when they were told it was 'not a racist test' most took it as such and squirmed in front of the camera instead of telling her where to go. I have lived in this country for sixty-two years and until I was 56 never had any dealings with anyone who was not white, that it would seem is enough to make you a closet racist. I now have a Tanzanian daughter-in-law and have been to Tanzania to her wedding and I meet her family now and again and colour simply does not enter the equation.

Are you on tenterhooks over another Scottish referendum or like me you don't care and are intelligent enough to know that the SNP will try again at some point and things should be left at that.

PS. It would seem I have been remiss in mentioning the return of No.1 son after seventeen years abroad and I am in danger of having this brought to my notice for the rest of the day. This has had the side effect of providing me with a base just outside London in Chorleywood from which to explore the capital and attend some of the wargame shows which until now have been out of reach and perhaps allow me to meet up with some W&C buddies from time to time. It also sadly means I shall have to venture abroad myself to get my favourite tipple, a bottle of which he presented to me last night.

I Deserve it

I haven't splashed out on myself for some time now having bought the whole Roman army and put it aside to reduce as time goes on, I have also picked up a couple of novels, seven actually, from our book swap in the shop so not so much buying of books either.

All that changed yesterday, a grateful customer gave me a book token as I had been dropping off her pension every week as she was housebound, before you put me up for an award she only lives a good longbow shot from the PO. So I went into Lancaster yesterday and stopped by Waterstones, Military History must not sell or has suddenly become unpopular or more likely uncorrect as the section has been reduced and there were no new hardback books on the shelves. Disappointed and with the token burning a hole in my pocket I retreated to the graphic novel department, again a shadow of its former self, but I did pick up volume one of Suicide Squad and no sooner had I got home than I ordered up the other four, I do hope they are a better buy than Guardians of the Galaxy.

I am finding the new Max Hastings book on spies a bit heavy going, the gist seems to be that no matter how good your spy is if he is not believed or considered dodgy or his handlers draw the wrong conclusions, which seems to be par for the course, he is pretty much useless, and this permeates the whole book so far. The Japanese chapter was interesting and I found it amusing that wargames held before they attacked everyone showed they could not win, but the head honcho dismissed the results and went ahead.

I also bit the bullet before the missus comes knocking for my share of the wood burner, damp proofing and kitchen and got a new battle mat for my Romans, those boys better fight well. It is the same as my green one and it is like thick mouse mat material and comes in at £65.28 from Czechoslovakia, ten pounds of that being tax. I couldn't get a larger picture of the mat, but that is a dry riverbed going across it, I have seen one and it is lovely. Being a nut I am also going to get some hills and use my sharp sand to turn them into suitable slopes for the mat and I will need trees and one or two other pieces to fit the Roman East.

I have cavalry on the tray now, I decided to bite the bullet and get on with them, which leaves two infantry cohorts next in line.

Why Wargaming 7

Having put the wine bottles in the proper recycle bin I decided I had to get somewhere local or localish, I looked online for clubs in the area, anything I found was at least an hours drive away and driving around the Lake District is not easy of a winters evening especially not in the Batmobile which I am sure has skates and not wheels for three months of the year.

Then of course the penny dropped or the light bulb above my head came on, you get the idea, Lancaster! I checked them up online to ensure they were still operating and found out they were and HQ was still Lancaster Grammar School. I phoned and found out that they played Dux Britanniarum and was also informed someone else played X-Wing, so that was a good start, I was also invited to come along and see for myself, which I decided I would.

Like someone going on a first date I showed up, was welcomed and slotted into a game of Sails of Glory, during game play I quizzed the players and generally managed to enjoy a few hours with people who talked my language; history, soldiers, rules, games etc. I had also arrived just at the time a Dux B campaign was about to start, my troops were given land in Northern Britain and prepared to hold it to the last drop of their blood. All in all an excellent new beginning.

However, being human I still felt something was missing, the club tends to play multiplayer games and no one is left behind but I still wanted to fight big battles and looked at my now almost complete War & Conquest Dark Age armies and wondered if they would ever get out of the boxes. I noticed on the Scarab forum that a tournament was being organised at Wargame Foundry and for other reasons as well as wanting to play I decided that I would go for it, launch myself into the unknown, never having actually played the game being a minor problem. I was told the list was full, too bleedin' late.

I don't know what happened but a slot was found, perhaps due to my enthusiasm on the forums I don't know, but I was grateful, booked my hotel and impatiently awaited the big day.

I turned up at the hotel early as I met an old Navy buddy for lunch, I fretted away in the room until I thought it was the right time to go and look for a bunch of wargamers in the bar, I took a suitably military book with me for identification purposes and sat where anyone who looked would obviously see me as an old hand. I think what they saw was an old guy pretending to read a book making furtive glances around the place looking for a like minded soul, it was a mercy I was not told to move on. Then an opening, someone shouted 'Reece' at a guy at the bar, one of the players was a Reece, how many Reece's could there be in a pub in Newark on the night before the tournament. I gathered my courage, tucked my book under my arm, grabbed my by now lukewarm pint and trotted over to 'Reece', the blank looks on their faces said it all, there apparently were two Reece's here and this wasn't the one I expected. Mumbling wargames stuff, apologies and something about mistaken identity I retreated to my room, feeling the stares at my back.

The next morning I hesitantly approached breakfast, again looking for wargamers when I was confronted by a chap seemingly organising some other guys at the buffet and due to the miracle of the internet I did recognise from forum pictures "Phil Turner I presume?" The rest as they say is history.

Well there you have it my journey so far through a life of wargaming. I have now reached an almost perfect stage where I have a thriving local club and outside that I have had the good fortune to be involved in the War and Conquest world of a great bunch of people. We all know that wargaming never stops and plans for the future concern possibly two more W&C armies, a Muskets and Tomahawks force and I still feel a pull from WWII due in the main to the lovely figures and vehicles available, also when the PO does close I have a huge area to turn into my wargame room/study. Thanks for listening.

Quite Frankly My Dear

After almost a year I enticed someone to play a game of War & Conquest at the club, Simon kindly took up the challenge. I had everything organised like a military operation and took along a couple of pieces of my own terrain, I was toying with the idea of putting my play mat in but the ones at the club would do, I had enough to carry.

We arrived bang on time as I wanted to set up and explain a bit about the troops and rules to Simon only to find the locks on the doors had been changed and no one had been informed or given a new set of keys, I shook my fist at the gods, why me! Simon then offered to set up a table at his house, so off we went. Simon's wife very kindly put up with us arriving on her doorstep and upsetting her evening by taking over the dining room table.

So we set up, I had a Saxon Heptarchy army and Simon a Romano-British with 2,000 points each, both armies mirrored each other in numbers of units but there were subtle differences in weaponry and armour. I had gone for half elite and half rubbish hoping the elites would win the battle for me before the rubbish collapsed, Simon had a more even army and seemed to put great faith in some Welsh mob he had enticed into his army.

Initial positions and movements.

 I wanted to break the British line and threaten their left flank, so off went the cavalry, they took a couple of casualties but weathered the storm and eventually caught and destroyed their tormentors and swung around ready to roll up the centre. I also threw the Franks in expecting a lot from them and close behind went my elite Gedriht, I held the Geoguth back as I did not fancy their chances against his Comitatus, so they went into shieldwall and advanced only slightly. The Franks hit well, threw their angons and got nine hits, which sadly only turned into 2 kills, not for the first time have I depended on this lot and been let down, they were easily beaten, caught and destroyed by the Milites. Over on my left the Welsh went hell for leather for my skirmishers which I was fairly pleased with while his cavalry rashly charged the Ceorls, for a moment I thought they might just win, but weight of numbers was not in their favour and they fled, closely followed by the victorious Ceorls.

Simon had tried to put his line into shieldwall but his Peydts refused to do so and so I took advantage and hurled my Gedriht at them, now that is how to fight, it was over in short shrift and the Pedyts disappeared. Because we had lost about an hour faffing about looking for keys earlier we called a halt, Simon almost got his objective, the centre of the table, but my Geoguth were too close and would have to be shifted, I had two units close to his table edge and if I had managed to simply walk off I would have achieved my objective. I like a fight however and could see that the decision would be in the centre and I had three units against two, the British skirmishers were of no account, but as I said time was against us but I believe I was in a winning position.

The final positions.

Simon had fought well in his first game, I think his only mistake was to go for my skirmishers with his warband instead of the Ceorls and meanwhile push his cavalry into my rear. I did fine and would have done finer if those damn Franks would actually fight.

The Franks head for the British line.

The British right mesmerised by the Saxon skirmishers.

My Ceorls ready to receive cavalry.

The Franks try and escape to no avail.

View From The Window

Well I am up fairly early this morning, nothing is stirring and it looks kind of light grey, I can't see Ingleborough through the gap but at least it is dry. I think the interest in Washington House has evaporated it is still up for sale and I have not seen the interested party around for a while. We are approaching that time of year of course when houses just do not shift, we had quite a few new people arrive during the summer, and I use the term loosely, they pop in to the PO just to be nosy then they might just as well fall off the edge of the world as we never see them again.

I read this week that some boffins in Sweden I believe have discovered that peas have something in them that fight cancer, but I wouldn't go running off to Aldi to stock up on peas if I were you, this is where I would normally say take it with a pinch of salt, but of course that is a no no. Remember when the scientists decided that red wine, butter, steaks, lard and a huge amount of other things which you enjoyed were all bad for you, then slowly all these things have been brought back into the fold but tagged with the usual get out clause 'in moderation' just in case you have a lawyer on tap. No sooner does someone tell you something than another person just as qualified tells you the opposite.

These absurdities are everywhere, if you want out of the EU we sell more to it then we buy, if you are for staying in you shout we could not survive without their imports, if you are an Eco warrior you can say we are all going to drown in rising seas, if not you can point out that the planet stopped warming up nineteen years ago at half past eleven on 14th March and both sides have data to 'prove' their argument. An environmental group in the Netherlands sued their own government over some emission thing or other, why would you do that to your own country, how can a minority fringe cult sue the government to the detriment of the majority and get away with it, madness.

I am going under the knife again tomorrow morning, I asked a doctor three years ago about a spot on my cheek and was told it was nothing, I asked again about three months ago to be told it is a skin cancer, no wonder I am a cynic. I had waited eleven weeks so far to get an appointment which I was told is normally sixteen weeks, I got a cancellation on Friday, I trotted off to the appointment with my usual large book to while away the hours before the doctor would actually see me. Well, blow me down with a feather, I was taken within five minutes and I had turned up early, the Doc agreed that it was a cancer, also that if I was ever going to get cancer that was the one to get and it was also growing in the right direction so the scar would be minimal when they cut it out, lucky me I said. I was escorted out and given an appointment for the surgery by the receptionist, wait a minute, this is for this Monday, a mere two days hence, something must be wrong, no all is in order said the overweight girl with shrapnel hanging from her ears. Despite being in shock I gave her a polite smile thanked her profusely and said I'll see her again on Monday.

On the subject of health I take pills for diabetes, which I personally am not convinced I have, but of course you never know (see above), so if I am not careful I might lose my sight or my legs, I probably won't but just in case that lawyer is around it is on the information leaflet. I have a blood disorder, this can attack my liver or heart, again I have had it for sixty odd years and as far as I know after all the tests both organs are functioning as they would when sixty years old. I got leg cramps a few nights back and as I have been given yet another type of pill I checked it, the only side effect it doesn't have is turning you into a dog at the full moon, the worst of the effects would kill me within three days, obviously one from the kill or cure school. Another, which I threw in the bin would have given me ankles like tree trunks and worst of all, the one we all fear, right there at the top "NO ALCOHOL". AAAaaaaagh! Naturally I googled this and was reassured by the same answer on a multitude of forums, it was healthspeak for 'in moderation'.

I may as well stick with health, what about the buy who bought the drug company and then raised the price of a drug sold for something like $5 to $750! The hue and cry has of course now died down and he has been forgotten by the majority of us who move on to the next knee jerk headline while he runs off to the bank and the poor people who need the drug agonise over where the money will come from.

The village is waking up now, a couple of lady joggers have run past, the traffic is building up and a half naked male jogger has just raced past, put a shirt on mate believe me you are no ..... eh...... muscley guy, so there.

Roman Generals

I have managed despite the upheaval to complete my leaders for the Romans along with the rally point which is needed for War & Conquest, although the latter can be anything most people go overboard a bit and enjoy themselves with little vignettes applicable to their chosen armies. The Medicus from Warlord Games is my first effort, I still need something better than tents for the Romano-British and Saxons, the next time I get to a show I shall keep my eyes open for inspiration.

Marcus Aurelius, Emperor.

Giaus Avidius Cassius, Consul

Medicus and as usual someone waiting attention.

Our man under the knife, the gag is a nice touch.

Tribunes or Centurions as required.

And there you go, next up some casualty markers, a couple of hours at the most then it will either be the Praetorians or an Auxiliary cavalry unit. I can easily field a 2000 point army at the moment but I would like a cheaper choice of cavalry than having to take the cataphracts, but we will see I still have a day or so to make my mind up.

Why Wargaming 6

I had taken the monumental decision to leave the North Sea behind after twenty years of providing fuel for the country, after nearly twelve defending it, to live out the rest of my days serving the community...screeeeech. This is that bit in the movies where the dream sequence abruptly comes to an end.

Having arrived in England and somewhat settled into the Post Office and shop it was time to look around for some wargaming, as well as a choice of clubs I was expecting myriad wargame shows on my doorstep, most things that happen in the UK normally happen south of the border, little did I realise that that 'border' went as far south as the outskirts of London. The only club within shooting distance was nearby Lancaster and that was held on a Tuesday night in an old house on the edge of a nice park but next to what you and I would term 'bandit country', the kind of estate that you enter with your car and exit with nothing but a steering wheel. Anyway I went along for a few weeks before, guess what, the council shut it down, the club was then moved to Lancaster Grammar School as one of the founders was a teacher there and used his influence. I only managed a couple of nights as the strain of earning a crust running my own business and getting up at 0500 hrs in the morning to get newspapers ready was not conducive to happy wargaming. I was also used to having up to eight hours gaming at a leisurely pace complete with wine/beer/sandwiches and then a trip to the pub, not get there at seven, start at eight, finish for ten, I therefore left to concentrate on building my financial empire.

After a few years I felt confident enough to advertise for locals who might be interested in wargames, I put up some beautiful posters in the shop and waited, and waited, and waited. I eventually managed to get two people to try wargaming, it just didn't suit them and quickly I was on my own again. At this time I found Wings of War a WWI aerial combat game and something completely new to me, a card driven game which was immense fun and for which you could buy little airplanes, I bought 50+ (and re-painted every one of them) when the most you could handle in a game was about four, I was falling into a dangerous habit.

 I did manage to get my hands on a load of Wars of the Roses figures cheaply and decided to build up an army for the period, my son got interested and said he would do the Lancastrians, I of course am a Richard III fan and took the Yorkists. Real life intervened and Stewart had to give up, but he had painted about six contingents which I added to my troops to give a very large army or two smaller ones. The only gaming I was getting at this time depended on a visit from Billy in Scotland or my son coming over from Darlington once in a blue moon.

I went on all sorts of forums and wargaming sites to see if I could entice someone to come and play and generally had no success at all, there must have been wargamers in the surrounding area and I began to wonder if I should be less needy in my posts and maybe I should not put a picture in them. I eventually found Glynn from Southport who was asking for a game of Wars of the Roses and I offered to put on a trial game for him, he duly made the almost two hour journey and thankfully he was not a wierdo, enjoyed the game and after that we tried to meet at least once a month.

On one occasion he brought along some Dark Age troops and they looked so good I thought I need some of them. Wargaming had come a long way since I started and painting styles along with the figures and games available had dragged the hobby into the 20th C and we were spoiled for choice. I wanted to get up to date, and right at that moment along came Dux Britanniarum a Dark Age skirmish game, I jumped in with two feet, I was beginning to do this with frighting regularity. I changed my painting style, I tarted up my bases bought terrain and got a new table. I was still almost managing a game a month as Glynn had rebased some of his Saga Saxons for Dux B, then in a passing conversation I mentioned the new Old West skirmish game Dead Man's Hand. I was off again, figures, terrain, mats and a full Wild West town with around twenty buildings when in actual fact you only need about six, I called it Carefree, Arizona, where the only thing that flies is bullets! Come on, that's pretty good. I think Glynn and I only ever had one game.

Sometime later while at my sons we went to a show in Middlesborough, he decided to buy X-Wing and again I saw the cute little starships and despite being the worst pilot in the galaxy bought a shed full of stuff for the game, I have at last managed to go cold turkey with this game, although I still feel the need for a fix every time a new 'wave' appears.

So, almost no opponents and I start four new periods, I had sold all my medieval armies but still hankered after my first love of big games so I decided to expand my Dux B forces into armies, I looked at several new rules and settled on War & Conquest and began to once again buy hundreds of new troops as I needed two armies. My games were now down to one every three months or so if I was lucky.

Things were now getting desperate, I bought Zombicide as you could play the game solo and was surprised at how good it was and duly impressed with the quality of the playing pieces. I decided to try once more to get someone local interested, with Glynn I arranged that we would put on a display of the battle of Bosworth as Richard III was flavour of the month due to the finding of his body in a car park. I put up posters saying we were re-fighting the battle in the Post Office on Saturday the whatever at 1400 hrs. I duly set up the terrain and put as many figures as I had out only to get a text that Glynn could not make it, in an emergency I phoned Stewart but he couldn't come through at short notice, I couldn't cancel as I was expecting crowds at the door. I opened up at two and no crowd, not even a passer by, I thought of playing the game solo but gave up on that so I settled down and waited, no one would want to be first I thought, two hours later I shut the door having seen not one living soul, my wife comforted me with her kind words "I told you no one would come and to close hours ago."

I teetered on the brink of putting the white flag up and finishing with the hobby which had been a huge part of my life as I slumped alone in my favourite chair in the dark, empty wine bottles rattling at my feet.

Balloon Busting

Clubbing last night after my lapse last week. There were three of us playing so I set up a balloon busting scenario, one defender and two attackers, the defender had three planes and a few machine guns on the ground while the attackers had two planes each. For the allies there was a Spad XIII and two Nieuport 17's while the Boche had two Pfalz DIII's and two Albatros DVa's, overall superior to the French  but the AA machine guns I hoped would even things up. I was the defender in the first game and off we went, it looked like a good start as I had my two N17's closing on a lone Albatros while the Spad went hairing through the two Pfalz's, it is very fast but needs almost the whole of Northern France to turn. As I threw my planes into Immelman's for get behind the Germans there was a catastrophic explosion and then no balloon, turn two game over.

Up goes the balloon.

 We swapped around and Simon took the French this time, I had the nice blue Jasta 15 Pfalz's, much good it did me. I concentrated on hitting the balloon, hoping it would catch fire, so to my peril I ignored the two Nieuport's which managed to get on my tail and commenced giving me jip. Meanwhile Andy was getting shot up by ground fire, and only managed one or two shots before breaking off, with one Albatross in flames. I kept to my plan but the dirigible refused to light up,  Andy had the incendiary bullets, one of my planes hit the deck while the other suffered from rudder jams and smoke coming from the engine, having had enough he limped off the table as did the remaining badly damaged Albatros. Dire stuff from the Luftstreitkrafte.

Vorwarts!

 

The flames edge towards the incendiary bullets.

Discretion is the better part of valour as I head for home.

We still had time for one more game, so it was a three way fight, winner take all. Simon and I had Fokker DVII's and Andy a Fokker DVIII. After much manouvering I got the bead on Andy and sent him spiralling to the floor but I had taken quite a bit of damage doing it, I was hindered in closing with Simon as my rudder jammed at a most inopportune time, my engine was also causing me problems. As we made a head on pass I took enough shots to send me earthwards.

And that was it, three games and some fun, elsewhere we had Saga with the large units, a Spear and Sword game but I am unsure of the armies, not a lot seems to happen in that game, some action on the flanks while the rest of the armies sit in a line staring at each other, but that is from the sidelines. There was also a large Frostgrave game under way and the boardgame this week was the English Civil War.

Winter is closing in as this was the first Tuesday that it was dark when I arrived at the club.

It's Not All Reminiscing

Well the stinking weather is back so now we have to look forward to next summer before we get some heat. I was hoping to show you my Roman generals but the house is in turmoil with builders and visitors so my painting station is now in the study parked on the side of the PC right next to the window and it is not the best place to relax and paint. Therefore I have only completed my Emperor who will be Marcus Aurelius and his second in command Giaus Avidius Cassius, I was thinking of having Cassius as the top man as he fought in the East and even made his own grab for the Imperial throne but I am a sucker for Emperor's. Both these guys have others on the base to show how important they are so I haven't just painted two figures in the last week or more, five actually.

Marcus.

I will be back at the club tomorrow night and want to take my Wings of War stuff as I don't play enough of it and it will give me something else to write about.

A previous large balloon busting game at home.

 I only have one map project at the moment and this is not required until early next year, however I have been in touch with the author and I am going to draw them now anyway, it is a book about tanks on the Somme battlefield, they author follows individual British tanks as the battle progresses.

View from the Window

It is grey and murky this morning unlike the last beautiful ten days or so, what a treat we have had, I even went walking twice, not an expedition you understand simply an hour or so up the road to the next village and back again, stopping to talk to other people with not a lot to do except enjoy a lovely day. It is late but still nothing much is stirring, the odd car and one mad jogger. There are large damp patches in front of the shop and my gate as I had chores to do this morning before settling down for the day, that one involved scrubbing the pavement and path as the work on the new wood burning stove and fireplace is now complete. Now as much as John and his wife (they live about four doors up) cleaned the place on completion there were still a few jobs for yours truly, there always is.

John has done a splendid job however I won't show you a picture just yet as we still have several other jobs to be completed before we can at last settle down, poor but warm in our new living room and kitchen.

I can't remember what I was looking at yesterday but I ended up reading an article on larders and cupboards and how wonderful they were and how you could store so much in them when I had a thought, all that stuff in a new kitchen is in its own pantries and larders, albeit they are smaller and hang on the wall or are under the worktop, so why are people getting so worked up about some shelves which hold jars? We have just over a week to go before committing ourselves to the new kitchen.

I have already mentioned my son is returning to the UK with his family, his wife and daughter are already here, my son has been married to his Tanzanian wife now for I think at least five years, I can just here the missus now, it's six years man, six! Whatever it is she is married to a British citizen and her daughter is British, but Joyce can only have a visitors visa for six months, she wants to get a job here so she needs a more permanent visa, well just apply I hear you say. No, that's fine if you come here under a lorry or throw your passport away on touching British soil, or claim you are on an ISIS/IS/ISA/Al Quada (delete where applicable) hit list, if you are legally married to a British person and are resident in the UK, you have to go back to Tanzania and apply through an outsourced department of bureaucratic robots and wait perhaps anywhere from four to eight weeks before you get one, if indeed you get one. My son cannot obviously put his life on hold while this is done, so it would seem some long range babysitting is looming for Granny and Papa.

It would seem that John Lennon, St. John of Liverpool, has been outed in a new book as not being  perhaps the nicest person you would want to invite over for dinner, now if people had listened to me all those years ago we could have been spared this. I never liked him and I am not keen on St. Paul either, although I have it on good authority that he does do an awfully good concert, anyone who got up to the stupid, ridiculous stunts he and the Japanese imp got up to deserved to be locked up not looked up to. Why does no one ever burst these peoples bubble and simply tell them they are thick, how can anyone drink cocktails with a man dressed as Little Bo Peep without telling him what a prat he looks and walking away rather sharpish. It is never a surprise to me when the media claim with faux astonishment that such and such a celeb is not what they seem, and it shouldn't be to them, the Gallaghers, Naomi Campbell, Elton John to name but a few, euch!

Protesting from a five star hotel.

Come on, really, this is acceptable behaviour?

Talking about s*^t people, my brother has just been made redundant from the rigs after working on them for forty years, eleven of the past years for the same firm, what made matters worse was that he was graded fourth of four radio operators on that particular rig by the manager, who, believe it or not is rumoured to be having relations with the radio operator who came number one. Number one is a woman who has a yachting radio licence which you too can get if you spend two days at a college doing the course, she should by law have at least a GMDSS General Operators Certificate, which both my brother and I have as do all competent operators men and women who are not sleeping with their bosses. Why am I bitter about this, because it almost happened to me when I was offshore, between him and I we have handled communications during fires, gas leaks, suicides, men overboard and controlled searches by numerous vessels and helicopters and in his case organised the abandonment of the entire platform, I may also add the Royal Navy were happy with our performances as well. I hope with all my heart something comes back to bite that bossman in the arse for not only destroying someone's life but kicking him while he was down as well.

I have a little list of all the things I want to bring up in the View, but as I look down it they will have to wait until next week, I think I have depressed you enough so I will leave you with a bit of a laugh, no wait.

Barak Obama, not a big fan, but then I am ignorant of US politics, I watched his speech after the Oregon shooting and I was impressed, it was one of the most dignified pieces by a politician I have ever heard, well done sir.

Why Wargaming 5

Once again I made a leap in the dark and set off to Airdrie to meet up with another bunch of guys on my lonesome, you might by now be thinking, doesn't this guy have any mates, what's wrong with him, well nothing apart from playing with wee sojers while 99.99% of the rest of the community, friends or family do not. Is it not a terrible burden being in the .01% who are perfect, we wargamers have a heavy cross to bear, oh and if the arithmetic doesn't work out, keep it to yourself it's early.

I learned at my first visit to the club that that was the last night of the club and they were 'celebrating' with a huge Vietnam game, what, you are closing! The local politicians in their wisdom decided the community didn't need community centres and were closing them down at an alarming rate, but the club could relocate if it wished, and of course they wished.

My second visit to the new venue was much happier, I happened along at Airdrie at just the right moment as at least four of the regulars were building 15mm ACW armies with the intent to use Johnny Reb, and they were all veteran wargamers, my spirits soared. I had been playing the game longer than them and they all jumped at the chance when I offered some extra gaming at my place. I am one of those wargamers who like to have everything as perfect and trouble free as possible, attention to detail I like to call it rather than the modern medical term ACDC or whatever. I duly set up a beautiful looking table with my imported Geo-Hex, run off orders of battle and organised the troops in the brigades required for the game, for me this was half the fun of the game and I could spend hours at it. The lads turned up, struggled up the rickety loft ladder, enjoyed themselves and thus began what was in essence a small ACW club which met once a month when I was at home, and occassionaly twice if I had garnered enough brownie points with the missus. There was an added impetus to this as the council had by now shut the second venue and that left nowhere at a reasonable price available for a club.

I was still pretty much sticking to my one game at a time and exclusively played Johnny Reb with only one distraction when I built up some naval forces for the same war, these we played with only a few times, despite it being a good game. The others had a more open mind than me, Billy and Robert had huge, beautiful Napoleonic armies along with WWII, SYW among others, Robert's ACW collection was larger than mine, but was almost all Union, he didn't like to play the 'baddies', Davy had his own centrifugal moulding press(?) in his garage and had troops for everything, he also ran a club in Motherwell out of an old school or college. See, I do have some mates.

I popped down to Motherwell a couple of times before I settled on the guys at Airdrie, one of my first games was WWI, I was leading a bunch of German Stormtroopers to take the British trenches, it was a multiplayer game and someone else was the German supremo. My first WWI game and true to my expectations my troops were getting sliced and diced before ever coming withing spitting distance of the British, I quietly thought what's the point as all along the line the Germans were getting laid out in neat rows. At the end of the game while I was complaining ever so politely that the 'game' had been pointless, Davy asked our Kaiser why he had not used his artillery contingent to blast the trenches or lay smoke, as I left the building I heard in the background "we had artillery?"

I went a bit crazy with the American Civil War, I had been to re-enactments, visited loads of battlefields large and small, had thousands of troops, I had music cassettes, flags, a large library including the history of every Union military unit of the war from its enlistment to disbandment. I also had the Official Records of both sides on CD and could pull up reports from any action at any point in the war no matter how trivial. While writing a small article on the battle of Belmont I became completely confused by the official reports as although I knew all these regiments and commanders had been there, according to the written word they were all at a different battle, I couldn't make head nor tale of what happened.
 

128 volumes in this, now that is a good use of technology.

I decided to try an experiment, I got six players together for a large battle, I chose Drewry's Bluff in 1864 and I asked them all to write a report at the end of it and send it to me. Sure enough, it was hard to relate what I had saw as the battle unfolded to what was written on the reports, and as you would expect each general and his men had performed brilliantly, it was the others!

It was me who ended this happy state of affairs this time as I decided I had had enough of life offshore, my two sons had gone and it wasn't much fun for either me or the missus on our own for three weeks out of six, I was also sick of wondering each time I turned up to work how long my job would last in these now techno savvy days. I had been extraordinarily lucky working for Chevron UK for sixteen years but as they had sold the field and I was now a contractor life was not as good, I gave it another four and made my decision to leave.

However I did need to keep up my extravagant lifestyle so that meant working for myself, I bought a Post Office and village shop and moved south to live amongst the 'auld enemy' in Lancashire. My wargaming was about to come to a shuddering halt.