Onwards ever Onwards.

 My wargaming was not over when my son grabbed a victory from my Barbarian assault a week or so ago, I managed one day of rest when mate Robert appeared for the first of our two evening games. Robert had not played War and Conquest but is a seasoned wargamer and was happy to try the rules out, he chose the Seleucids as he has 'prior' with them, I decided to lead the new army putting aside my guilt of not commanding Legio XII.

The game was only over a few hours and was a typical ancient clash, infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings, Robert kept his elephant way out on his right hoping it would disorder my cavalry, he needn't have bothered as my horse archers were routed by the enemy cavalry. I did manage to hit the behemoth later, it went out of control and as luck would have it it went straight for one of my victorious vexillations, the lads took this in their stride and Nellie hit the deck. As the phalanx reached my line several melees broke out but the Romans were left masters of the field.

A very mad elephant.

Phalanx v legion.

On the cusp of victory.

Thrax.

Seleucis.

Thrax's men had fought well against the pikes and I am sure Robert would be a serious opponent with a few more games under his belt, not that he did anything wrong in this small clash but we all know it takes time to get to grips with how a ruleset plays. I was just happy to play and get my armies on the table.

The next evening we settled on a return to old times and played a small Johnny Reb game, back in Scotland we had a small group which played a lot of ACW in my loft space, melting in the summer and freezing in the winter. Robert as always took the Good Guys while I led the Rebs. We didn't get very far as we chatted, reminisced and enjoyed throwing dice, Robert went on the defensive along a line of fences while I attacked, I had decided to put my strongest brigade into an attack on the Union left but we called a halt as time ran out and things were just getting interesting.

I have been doing quite a bit of painting recently, I got the artillery crew for my 88mm Bunkerflak but found only two would fit on the vehicle, the rest will be additional gun crew for games of Chain of Command which needs five men as opposed to Bolt Action which requires three. I had also painted up my last (for now) Roman unit over two days to get them on the table, or at least giving my son a choice of fielding them. I also managed to scratch an itch and complete some shieldwall markers for Thrax. This left me with nothing left to do for now so I turned to the Fallschirmjager given me by Robert, I had a look at a video on YouTube on using Contrast paints for Late War German troops in camo smocks. Stuart at the club had used this method on his recent Volksgrenadiers and I was impressed, I took the plunge and bought some extra paints and primer. I also needed some more grass tufts, some extra figures, a box filler from Charlie Foxtrot and magnets, I could have gone further and got Fallschirmjager support units but have decided to use my Heer units for these, no need to double everything up as I have done with other stuff. Will I be able to live with this, who knows.

Markers.

Artillery crew.

 Talking about old times, I had a Bolt Action game with Jimi last night, I have been concentrating on Chain of Command recently as you can tell and just could not be bothered to pick up the huge tome that is Bolt Action version 3. Yes there are some nice changes on the side of commonsense but yes, there is still some real stupid stuff in there. No matter I asked ChatGPT for a scenario and it came up with a Soviet attack on the village of Chernovka held by the Germans as they await reinforcements, the AI provided everything including the orders of battle, easy peasy. The AI obviously had a thing for the Jerries as the defenders included a StuG III and a PAK 40 against a T-34/76 and a BA-64 armoured car.

Chernovka about to fall.

Jimi has winter troops.

PAK 40 late to the show.

For the Motherland!

I decided to simply run all my troops at the village and hope for the best before the Germans were reinforced, luckily for me Jimi held off his StuG and the PAK 40, in the latter case because he was unsure what it was and got it mixed up with something else. Jimi is not a WWII rivet counter like the rest of us. I was set upon by a sniper and a panzerschrek team and as I closed the range I managed to take out both of these although I still kept my T-34 away from the StuG. The Jerries countered with a small pioneer squad along with a flamethrower but they could not get the thing to light up and duly suffered for their rashness. To make matters worse the reinforcements only came on in bits and pieces. The Russian steam roller continued and more German units bit the dust, including the PAK 40 crew. With one turn remaining we called it a day, the Soviets had retaken Chernovka. Not a bad little game, Jimi being saddled with his usual luck just when he didn't need it.

We took the car in for a service last week to Mercedes Preston and I saw just what I wanted, unfortunately it cost £92,000 and the Memsahib did not like it, if there had been a small Batman logo on the door or bonnet I would have took my chances and lived a live of lonely penury. On the way out her loveliness asked me to pop into BMW, two hours later I signed on the dotted line. So a service turned into a new car. I really need to keep away from showrooms.

Mine.

Not mine.

On the health front, yep, still waiting.