2024 And All That

 A mixed beginning for me to the year, in November '23 an 'anomaly' was found on my liver while looking at my gallbladder. It was May this year before I finally received an operation to remove a lump on my liver (oh, and also my gallbladder which I did not know about until six months after the op). This and the fact that the builders started to work on the room which used to be the Post Office/shop meant that apart from the odd night I could make the club, my wargaming was minimal for over six months. I also understandably did not want to start anything new.

The op went well and the builders did a superb job, although it did take us several months of calling it downstairs/the shop/the PO/ War Room and a few other things before we settled on The Bunker as the easiest on the tongue. 

With all that time to think about things I came to the decision that there would be no more grand projects and the future would simply be additions to what I already had, if at all. I have some seven forces for WWII, five Dark Ages/Ancient armies, two SYW armies, a very large collection of ACW 15mm and a few skirmish games, trying to get them all on the table at some point is well nigh impossible. For instance I have 122 vehicles for WWII and many have not fired a shot. So my aim for 2025 is to play as many games as I can with as many of the troops as I can.

By July I was back in the saddle and I returned to the club for my weekly fix, the club has expanded with several new members and the range of games played has also expanded, Hail Caesar is the front runner at the moment and I have seen more Dark Age and Ancient armies over the past few months than I have in the last few years. I seemed to lean more towards WWII this year, this was helped by Matt Crump and I starting our second Chain of Command campaign, once again on the Eastern Front, I was lucky that friend Robert Thomson made an effort on his travels to pop in to play another campaign which is ongoing, this time in NW Europe. I also continue to enjoy my trips to Grange to take part in Rob Martin's giant Napoleonic games. Since The Bunker opened I have also managed to host quite a few games here and am grateful to those who have turned up to spend a few hours jousting across the table. I must mention that my own away games at Matt's in Penrith are always a pleasure.

Since eschewing new armies I have managed to add various bits and pieces despite this, I found myself at a loss just before Christmas so opted for some new buildings, I never lose the urge to improve my terrain. I do have to say I missed having something on the tray to do and have decided not to break my own promise above and forego the price of a divorce lawyer and just add units to the Italian Wars next year.

Wanting to get my ACW troops back in action I decided to run a campaign based in the Shenandoah Valley, this is not Jackson's Valley Campaign, just something to keep us all going through the winter months which hopefully will provide some battles with consequences. Just as the curtain comes down on 2024 we have two battles upcoming to kick off 2025.

Despite having to call a halt to my mapping for several months I have still managed to draw for 37 books this year, I do not have the patience to count the maps but 300 would be a decent estimate.

Going forward as I say above, I hope to continue to play more games.