Shows, Shows, Shows

That's a bit of an exaggeration; it's actually shows, shows (*). First up was the 214th Otley Show. I know that regular readers will be expecting action photos of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War competition - which was as engrossing as ever - or at least of some sheep, but you'll have to make do with this instead:

One of my regular boardgaming group is the Otley Lemon Curd King for a year. We are an eclectically talented bunch.

And then on Sunday it was off to Partizan. Regular readers will not be expecting anything much in the way of a photographic record, and indeed there is none. Fortunately other, more diligent, bloggists have already started to post image-rich accounts of the day for your viewing pleasure. Suffice it to say that there were lots of games (too many? I've certainly seen photos of at least one game that I simply don't remember.) and they all looked very nice. In a slightly annoying development a couple of them had added scenic endpieces to the tables, which no doubt made it look prettier if one was sat at the table playing, but rather got in the way of the enjoyment of the paying punters. I hope this doesn't become the fashion.

I didn't buy much. I picked up a copy of the Northampton Battlefield Society's wargamers guide to Edgecote and had a short chat with co-author Graham 'Trebian' Evans. Anyone familiar with his blog won't be surprised that he managed to turn the conversation to Towton, very much a bee in his bonnet. I bought a laser line thing at the Warbases stand. I had one which I bought very cheaply when Woolworth's went bust, but it went the same way as its vendor some time ago. I managed to have a word with Early War Miniatures and establish how to order stuff given the current state of their website. I felt a bit bad about raising the subject of their IT problems because it clearly touched a raw nerve and elicited a very pained look. Will I now progress the Mexican Revolution project? Maybe.

I also caught up with my old schoolfriend and wargaming opponent Don. He had news of another old friend (and bandmate, about which the less said the better) who, judging by the pictures Don had, has signed some sort of pact with devil because he looks exactly the same as he did when we were young men. Bastard.

* Note the semicolon, which will not disappear here while I'm in charge.

What? Some Cowboys!

 As previously mentioned, we have been intending to play with some of Peter's collections which never saw action while he was alive. My progress with 'Cruel Seas' has been, to no one's surprise, non-existent. Fortunately, there were a small number of painted cowboys plus a set of the Two Fat Lardies' 'What a Cowboy!' rules. With James' Crusades era buildings standing in for adobe dwellings of the South Western US we were good to go. As I had played these rules before (once, and a couple of years ago) I was given the role of umpire/page turner. 

I must put some effort into taking more and better photographs, recent offerings really haven't been good enough. Given the figures which we had available the game saw a High Noon style face-off between a small group of Pinkerton detectives and a suspiciously equal in size, armament and skill level group of Mexican bandidos, both sides having neglected to bring their horses with them. It went down rather well, and familiarity with the rules having increased (we didn't find shooting all that intuitive, but got there in the end), we shall try a slightly larger game next week. Still no horses I suspect, somewhat ironic given that the figures were Peter's. The result of the game was inconclusive, with one bandit dead and two of the agents quite seriously wounded. There was a noticeable reluctance on the part of the players to pull back and recover their strength rather than constantly rush forward with all guns blazing.

I tasked James with the disappearing Triples entry on his blog (see the comments on the previous post) and he acknowledged that he had deleted it after a few months, feeling it was perhaps a bit strong. Despite it all being over ten years ago he clearly hasn't forgiven and forgotten though. His explanation for those present last night who weren't previously aware of the story was both forceful and embittered. 

“Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.” - Rider Haggard

Cerignola after all these years

 Our last visit to the Italian Wars for a while saw us revisit Cerignola. The first time we played it was over ten years ago, presumably shortly after James had painted sufficient of his (then) latest project to make it work. I have a vague memory that James and Peter put it on as their game for Triples in 2013, but I could be making that up. 

I've no doubt that version looked very different to the above, and it goes without saying that the rules have changed substantially. My main memory of the previous games is that the French really struggled to get over the ditch, but this time - presumably at least in part because I was commanding the defenders - they didn't have much problem.

The photo above shows the French gendarmes having just routed one tercio and prior to flanking a second as well as destroying a big chunk of the Spanish heavy cavalry. Whatever else one thinks of the current state of the rules, they ensure a tight game that, usefully, always seem to finish in one night.

Kern You Believe It?

An unlooked for effect of my visit to Fiasco is that I have got the paints out again. One reason I didn't buy anything much was a nagging awareness that my last big(*) purchase hadn't progressed very far. But I'm pleased to report that the first unit of kern has now rolled off what I amuse myself by referring to as the production line.

Figures are a mixture of Red Box and Tumbling Dice

* Size of purchase is all relative obviously; this wasn't a particularly big purchase by anyone else's standards.

We need a man with longer trousers

 I have been to Fiasco for the first time since before lockdown. James had a deal going down and needed some muscle to back him up. Sadly for him he couldn't find anyone, so as a fairly feeble alternative I offered to meet him there while he rendezvoused with The Man . A large wad was passed surreptitiously across, 20Kg of high quality gear was handed over in return and we slipped away quietly. Or perhaps we should have, instead of taking a stroll round, because I'm sorry to say that the show wasn't very good. Obviously we weren't putting on a game, it's not really an option at the moment, and everyone else had clearly decided as a mark of respect that our pre-pandemic mantle of best looking table should be left uncontested.

An exception was the above Venice-based Pulp game, although even there my first reaction was "How impractical is that terrain?". 

Shopping was very limited. When I saw that the Last Valley hadn't sold out already I bought some trees even though I'm not sure I really need any, and that was it. Still, it got me out of the house.

Partizan 2023

 Enough of things I've done before, here's something new: I've been to Partizan for the first time ever. I have to say, it was just as good as I was told it would be and I enjoyed it a lot. It's a nice venue, which didn't get too hot, plenty of traders and far more games than one gets at, for example, Vaprnartak. No doubt comprehensive, photo-replete reviews will appear elsewhere so I will cover the fact that I didn't take many pictures or write down the details behind anything by just concentrating on a couple of the highlights for me.

Inevitably perhaps, the first would be the refight of Möckern using C&C being displayed by the Old Guard from Bexley. The coincidence of us having played this exact same thing last week is perhaps lessened by the point I made in the last post that there aren't very many published scenarios for Epic C&C. They were using 28mm figures on, I think, 6" hexes and so had room for much more terrain and larger unit sizes than I use. I've seen elsewhere on someone's blog about the show that he found the players to be somewhat uninterested in speaking to punters. I have to say that I didn't find that to be the case and they passed on one or two tweaks to the scenario which they use to even it up a bit. I may well incorporate those into at least one of the two further reruns of this that I am planning for this week. (For those wondering why I would do that it's because I want to host two games and I don't really have the time to set up anything else. In an exciting development we shall be back in the Legendary Wargames Room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach for the following week.)

My only purchase of the day - although there may just possibly be a rather large follow up on-line order - was also C&C related. I bought some activation markers from Warbases. As readers may know from photos in previous posts I use a small marker behind each unit which shows type and strength. It has been our practice for many years now to rotate this by ninety degrees to indicate that a unit is activated for this turn. However, this has proven to be an increasingly complex concept for one player - an age related issue maybe? - so I thought I'd try a different tack to see if it was simpler. I believe the markers I bought are actually intended for Chain of Command, although I got involved in a demo game of the same and didn't see any such markers.

I say 'involved in' rather than 'played in' because it had finished before I had managed to remember anything much from my one previous play of the game. We - a British paratroop force - won from a losing position by rolling a double activation, which I believe is exactly what happened in my first game; another spooky coincidence. You may just be able to see towards the far end of the table a burning German AFV (possibly a Stug III) which, in my only real contribution, I had caused to be knocked out by the anti-tank gun at the bottom of the photo (possibly a 6 pdr) by rolling a shed load of 5s and 6s. The distinguished looking chap on the left is Don Avis, my first ever wargaming opponent, now acting as proof-reader, event-organiser and all round consigliere to Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies fame. I hadn't expected to see Don there and we hadn't been chatting for more than a minute or so before the subject of our failed career as rock musicians was raised; it was ever thus. Don also dragged me into a game of What a Cowboy, which I thought was great fun, enhanced perhaps by the fact that the boys from Boreham Wood cleaned up the town and took down the bad guys.

So, all in all, a good day out.

Vapnartak 2023

 I was at Vapnartak at the weekend, for the first time since 2020. I arrived at about 10:45 and to my surprise had to queue for fifteen minutes to get in. There was some debate while we waited as to just how crowded it would be inside; in the end it was about the same as usual, so I'm not sure what the problem was. There are a few photos of the show elsewhere on the internet (try these for example), but none here I'm afraid. There were a number of games worth looking at and plenty of traders, and it was good to get back to visiting shows. The only other one that I have been to since lockdown was that attached to the Lard Workshop (*) and that was both smaller and unbearably hot.

Purchases were limited: some sabot bases to make movement easier in Test of Resolve plus the above book; oh, and a coffee, but sadly no cake because they didn't have any. I bumped into Peter and when comparing purchases I explained that I bought the book, as I always do with publications about the US invasion of Grenada, so that I could point out what they had got wrong. However, on this occasion a chat with the nice man on the Helion stand about the author and the commissioning process makes me think it will be less bad than usual. I bet they still don't mention Plessey though.

Peter also drew my attention to the fact that we had got far more rules wrong in Test of Resolve than I had admitted to here. So, that fact coupled with the new sabot bases, means that we shall definitely return to them in due course. Real life has intervened to make it hard to predict when that might be, but my fingers are firmly crossed that things aren't as bad as they may seem.

* Or possibly it was the other way around.

Agincourt Diorama

I've mentioned the Royal Armouries talks a few times, including yesterday in fact now I come to think about it. They continue to be (mostly) excellent; my own favourite over recent months was the one on firearms forensic science. Anyway, this is not part of their normal lecture series, but next Thursday, the 25th March, at 17:00 GMT the Royal Armouries will be hosting an online discussion about the building of their splendid Agincourt diorama. The discussion will feature, amongst others, the Perry twins, whose figures those are. Booking details are here.

Because, under normal circumstances obviously, I visit the Royal Armouries several times a year I have perhaps become a tad blasé about the model, but it is very good. I do sometimes find myself standing there wishing it would move. It's a bit like one of those demonstration games at a show that manufacturers set up, but never actually play.

Tinywargames

I don't often mention it here, to the extent perhaps that newer readers may not even be aware of it, but I am actually rather interested in toy soldiers, wargames, modelling and so on. Several weeks on one's own unable to go out or see anyone should have been the ideal opportunity to engage in the hobby, but I have been somewhat busy doing other things. One of the paradoxes of life is that in order to be properly lazy you really have to work at it.

Anyway, all that may be about to change, because I have received a package in the post. At the beginning of March I visited the Overlord show in Abingdon. Among the traders that I don't see at northern shows was Tinywargames, who make mats. Following a useful chat at the time and an exchange of emails afterwards I ordered one. Immediately after that the country went into working from home mode and so I wasn't entirely surprised when it didn't turn up. However, I definitely let it slide for too long before chasing it up, which I only did last week. They sprang into action and the replacement, or possibly the package that had never been sent in the first place, arrived promptly. Either way, and especially in the circumstances, I'm more than satisfied with both the customer service and with the product.

I have been wanting some railway track to use with Square Bashing. I thought of buying a cheap toy train set - and one can get some ridiculously cheap ones - but the track in the ones I have seen is OO/HO gauge, which while it matches my 20mm figures doesn't suit the subscale terrain that I use with them. I then looked at N gauge track, but, contrastingly, that is ridiculously expensive, even second hand. The track on the mat that I have bought is a suitable size for what I want and came in a 1.7 metre strip on thin rubber, which lays very flat on top of the Hexon. When I have cut it up I shall have over 5 metres made up of various lengths. The only downside is that they will all be straight. However, as it's a grid based game I can't see that being a problem.

So, I am now enthused to see what it looks like in action by setting up a scenario. I think I know from where I can steal one, so more details to follow in due course.

Overlord and overwatch

The second night of the Soor game was postponed for the most topical of reasons, but I do have some wargaming to report. As a first stop on my trip to London I went to the Overlord show in Abingdon. Now, you have probably spotted that Abingdon is neither in London, nor anywhere near the route from Leeds to London. Still, what's a bit of a diversion between friends? It was very quiet when we arrived, but that probably wasn't surprising as it was mid-afternoon. I would say it was about the same size as Fiasco: fewer traders perhaps, but more games - and better lighting, although I still didn't take any photos. Shopping on the day was restricted to a plastic kit of a WWI ambulance, although I have subsequently ordered a strip of railway track matting from Tinywargames based on a conversation I had at their stand there.

The next day I spent playing a couple of games with Don, previously outed here as my very first wargames opponent from a lifetime ago. I'm sorry to have to report that he hasn't aged as well as your bloggist, although he still had sufficient of his marbles left to take me through both 'Chain of Command' and a preview of the not yet released 'Infamy, Infamy'. These days Don runs with Rich Clarke's posse and is an expert on Too Fat Lardies rules, which doesn't in any way explain why I won both games, despite never having played either before.

The CoC game in particular was a complete travesty. Having unsurprisingly come off worse in the patrol phase I compounded the error by putting a rifle section (I was playing early war French and defending) in a house that could be, and was, battered by fire from many attackers at once. About the only thing I did right was not to bring all my forces on too soon. Having been seriously outflanked I was considering throwing in the towel when I consecutively threw four sets of double sixes out of five dice and so got four turns in a row and was able to reduce the opposition morale to zero before Don could respond. It didn't bear much resemblance to the games we played as teenagers, except that Don was the Germans and seemed to have substantially better troops and greater firepower; that definitely rang a bell.

Second up was the work-in-progress that is 'Infamy, Infamy', with the development of which Don has been quite involved. I confess to having become a bit confused between the detailed mechanics of CoC and I,I by that point, but I enjoyed it a lot. It seems not dissimilar in some ways to 'Through the Mud and the Blood', although the concept of fervour is a well-thought through differentiation between Romans and barbarians. I shall definitely be buying a copy when it is eventually finished and published. I'm not sure how I won this one; mostly by avoiding fighting the legionaries I think.

So a nice time was had by all. It was actually Don's birthday, but thankfully there was less vomiting than I recall from our birthday celebrations as young men. Many thanks to him and Julie for the hospitality.

Turpe

We turned to the Crusades for a game of To the Strongest! in the week, and most enjoyable it was too. Perhaps inevitably the Crusader wagon train didn't make it across the the table; there was at one point a tempting gap, but I couldn't successfully activate the oxen to head for it before more Saracens arrived. I'm pretty sure we weren't playing the rules entirely correctly, but I suspect you took that as a given by now.

To the Strongest! is also set up in the annexe at the moment. In a burst of laser cutting frenzy I have produced enough (actually somewhat more than enough) warband bases for my new expanded unit sizes. I am a dozen or so warriors short, but that's only one or two per base so we can play without while I paint some more up. What I can't work around is the missing couple of dozen Roman auxiliaries, but they are all on the conveyor belt so just a couple of days and we should be good to go. The massed chariots are looking good even if I say so myself.

The first century AD is the period covered by the imminent release from the Two Fat Lardies, to be called 'Infamy, Infamy'. These were being demonstrated at Vapnartak by one of the play testers. I didn't have time to play a game, but was able to ask a lot of questions and also take a look at the draft, loose-bound version of the rules. They looked OK and I shall be buying a copy when they are eventually published. As Peter and I agreed on the way home, they look like they will address the niche that my going-nowhere Pony Wars mash-up was always intended to, and the included scenarios will hopefully give me a chance to get out on to the table all the non-combatant type figures and buildings that I've accumulated over the years. For example, the demo game included this:

I'm afraid that I shan't be making one, but it reminded me of happy, and very much missed, times past.

Pot88pouri

I'm off to the seaside, which is a completely normal thing to do in late October in the UK, so just a quick post before I go. Fiasco has got its usual half-hearted response from bloggers, but personally I think they are  missing the point. The consensus seems to be that it's not worth travelling a long distance for, and indeed it isn't; it's not that sort of show. But for those closer at hand it's a chance to see (and sometimes play) some games, chat to some people and buy some toys. All that, plus an excellent (and free) military museum in the same place. On the downside the lighting is crap and the parking is expensive; you can't have everything. Somewhere with better lighting and free parking is Recon, which actually takes place somewhat closer to the Casa Epictetus than Fiasco does. We don't put on anything there there because, amongst other things, it is mainly participation games, and that requires levels of imagination and interpersonal skills way beyond anything that we possess. The next one is December 7th.

James and Peter arrive at Fiasco

A trip to a wargames show involves certain rituals, one of which is that James will inevitably regale us with a story of some misadventure which befell him in the past, usually when he had been on the sauce. This time's tale seemed to be cat related - the details were a little vague - and involved him falling from an upper storey window, sliding down a sloping roof and thence to the ground. Thankfully he landed on his head and so no harm was done.

Let's finish with some Be Bop Deluxe. They were, of course, from Wakefield, so what better than 'Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape':

So, Vapnartak then

A trip to Vapnartak in the days when I was married meant that my wife would drop me off at the racecourse and drive into York with the kids and the au pair of the moment. After an hour or so looking around I would walk in to the city centre and meet them for lunch. For those who don't know York, it's a good couple of miles and, given the time of year it was always perishing. You basically walk along the river towpath and the wind comes whistling along. I was reminded of all that this morning because it was once again several degrees below zero as we arrived at the Knavesmire.

The reason an hour is sufficient to look round the show is that despite the excellent, well lit location, there isn't ever that much to see. I took a camera this year and couldn't be bothered to get it out of my bag because most games looked exactly like they did last year, notwithstanding the fact that the displays claim they are different scenarios. And if one has an idea what one wants regarding purchases then they can be completed swiftly, always assuming that three fat blokes haven't chosen the front of that particular traders' stand to have a chat. However, it's always a pleasure to bump into people one knows and there were a few things of interest.

There was a Cruel Seas participation game and I spent some time listening to the explanation of the mechanics. Peter is keen on this, indeed so keen that he mumbled something about having a game before he had painted the boats; that would be radical. Apparently Warlord Games didn't have much by the way of stock on hand, which is perhaps surprising. Then there was a Lion Rampant game featuring Romans vs Celts of some sort (including chariots). What interested me was the fact that the figures were grouped on stands rather than being individually based, showing that it can be done. I enjoyed our couple of goes at Lion Rampant, and perhaps when I have finished with the Great War we'll have another play. I also looked at a demo of a forthcoming game from Peter Pig about pirate era ship to ship battles. It was on a hexed mat, but I couldn't work out whether it needed to be. I suppose I could have asked, but that's not very British is it.

I picked up a small Kallistra order: slopes and some forest base hexes to replace the green felt that I have been using on a fairly long lasting temporary basis. In addition I bought a British WWI howitzer, really just to give a bit of variety to the field guns on the table. While I was at the Early War Miniatures stall I also bought a German anti-tank rifle team. There don't appear to be any rules for them in Square Bashing, and they weren't very effective anyway, so I thought that was pretty good value for money. For the first time at a wargames show for many years I didn't buy any trees from the tree man. I have to reluctantly admit to probably having enough already.

Do trousers matter? - slight return

                    "The four stages of acceptance:

                         1. This is worthless nonsense.

                         2. This an interesting, but perverse, point of view.

                         3. This is true, but quite unimportant.

                         4. I always said so."

                                      - J.B.S. Haldane

Yesterday's post went off - perhaps appropriately given its subject - a bit half-cock. I had meant to also note that I had bought a copy of the January edition of Miniature Wargames. You may recall that I eschewed purchasing the December issue because it had a picture of an elf on the cover. They still dedicate far too many pages to hobbitses for my liking, but issue 429 also contains a report on Fiasco, which is illustrated with three nice photos of the Ravenna game that we (i.e. James) put on. The reason that I was going to mention it becomes apparent if you study the main picture (on page 14 should you have a copy to hand). The principal figure shown, seated in the white shirt, is Bob, my fellow commander and let's face it pretty much the sole reason for our dismal failure in the refight; if you look carefully you can see him using his left hand to surreptitiously drop a D8 into his bag. But if you scan across to the left hand side of the page you can just make out above the marsh which runs to the table edge the very abductor muscle that has been causing all the problems at the Casa Epictetus. Or at least you could if I hadn't been wearing trousers at the time. Now, you might think that the concept of not having one's strides on at a wargames show is a bit, how can we put this?, odd. But I have actually written a blog post putting forward the suggestion before - here, albeit that it did not catch on either at the time or in the five years since. Perhaps revisiting the proposal is overdue; allow me, if you will, to do so now and to further develop my thinking.

"Do you wear trousers, Fozzie?"
"Why would I? I'd still have bear legs."

There are many different approaches as to what constitutes a sport and what doesn't. Various authorities would automatically eliminate anything that involves music; or petrol; or animals; or subjective evaluation of artistic impression, technical difficulty or some other nebulous term; and so on. I myself have always favoured the view that a sport is anything for which one is required to change one's shoes. Were a similar logic to be applied to hobbies we would find that they naturally fall into two categories: those which are carried out in trousers; and those where participants go without. The latter, and I am thinking primarily of course of the Finnish pastime of kalsarikännit, seem to be rather hip and happening at the moment. If wargaming wishes to hitch itself to this bandwagon then it is clear that a bare legs policy is imperative. This insight is my Christmas gift to the hobby and, once again, you are all welcome. But we need to be quick, other hobbies are beating us to it:

In the meantime I shall be off pursuing one of my other great interests, reading poetry. But first I need to get ready:

                                           "Shall I part my hair behind?
                                             Do I dare to eat a peach?"

The Arctic Summer of Edwin Drood

"In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime." - Andre Gide

It has come to my attention that I somehow contrived to publish the previous post without its concluding paragraph. Obviously I could go back and edit it, but, let's face it, anyone who is interested has already read it and anyway it would involve me in extra work. So, either supply your own witty and insightful conclusion or delight in my flouting of blogging conventions as you see fit.

I am actually quite keen to write about wargaming, it's just that there hasn't been any. I have however been to Recon, probably the nearest show to me. I ran into Bob, my fellow Holy League commander in the Ravenna game at Fiasco. This time he was playing in the Lance & Longbow's Battle of Lewes game and I experienced a certain amount of schadenfreude to find that he was doing as badly on his own as he did alongside me. He also revealed what happened to the missing dice, so that at least is one less thing for me to worry about. I mentioned a couple of years ago not being able to take a picture of Euan in his re-enactment gear, but was better prepared this year. Here he is with a couple of camp followers; I think his luck is in:

I have now been paid for my recent piece of work and so the show was a good opportunity for me to start spending, an opportunity that I passed up on. I have decided, pro tem at least, to finish off some existing projects before I start a new one. I realise that it's  not wargaming as generally understood. With that in mind I have been painting some more heavy weapons for the Great War. I don't know if I mentioned the way that 'Square Bashing' marks casualties before, but it's a bit odd, being done by the half base. "Why not just have twice as many bases, each of them half the size?" I hear you ask, and that seems a very fair question. I have approached the basing of infantry in the manner of the farmer with seventeen cows and three sons (one of whom he doesn't seem to like very much), but that still left machine guns and mortars. There are plenty in the pile - one of the advantages/disadvantages of plastic - so I've finished off a few. I've even scratch built a second 6" Newton mortar for the British. And the sum total of my spending at the show was a copy of the Osprey on the Whippet medium tank which was going cheap for some reason.

I have also broken with my recent habit and bought a wargaming magazine; indeed I bought two. I was tempted to go for the full set, but this month's Miniature Wargames has an elf on the cover and there are limits, dash it all. I bought Wargames Illustrated because it has an article on Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, previously featured on this blog, and Wargames Soldiers and Strategy has a scenario for Maloyaroslavets, previously, er, featured on this blog. WI also has an article on Medieval Sieges, and it is possible that buying some laser-cut MDF castle walls is the way that the money ends up getting spent. I have quite a large collection of siege weapons, which have very rarely seen any action.

Tepid

There hasn't been very much gaming recently, and certainly no wargaming since Ravenna at Fiasco, the result of which escapes me for a moment. Someone has been concerned enough about this state of affairs to ask me when I intend to spend this money supposedly burning a hole in my pocket, and on what. The answers, as you had probably already guessed, are not yet and don't know. Firstly, I haven't actually been paid yet and I stick closely to the accountants' maxim: Cash is Queen. Secondly, well, too much choice. Spending at Fiasco was some Hexon slopes from Kallistra and some trees from the tree man; basically the same as at every other show ever. The boat has been pushed out very slightly since though. I have settled on To the Strongest! as my rules of choice for both Early Roman Empire and for the various 15th century dabblings that I do. Figures for the former are individually based and I acquired movement trays quite a while ago. The latter are all on 40mm square bases and the size of the table, and consequently the squares, mandates three stand units. I have therefore bought some 120mm x 40mm sabot bases to make movement easier, plus a few 160mm wide for units with attached commanders. Painting (green) and varnishing (gloss) is under way.

Boardgaming has more or less stopped completely as I have found both the groups which I used to attend becoming cliquey and off-putting; it seems it is no longer enough to like playing games, one must like playing the games that are, by some mysterious collective decision, determined as being currently fashionable. A cynic - that would be me then - might suggest that having paid a lot of money for a game on Kickstarter is the main criterion for whether a game is so deemed. Which brings me on to about the only game that I have actually played recently. I was invited by a regular five strong gaming group to make up the sixth player in Quartermaster General: Cold War, which one of them at least had funded. I have raved on here often enough about the World War Two game, plus this new game covers a conflict through most of which I lived myself, so I was definitely up for it. The format will be familiar to those who have played/seen the other games in the series (although naturally there are sufficient minor rule differences to catch everyone out) and the first thing to say is that, as with the games for the two World Wars, the card decks do a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the political, military and indeed wider cultural events that we all remember or have read about according to age. In fact I would go so far as to say that it makes a brilliant three player game. Sadly, as mentioned before, we played with six players, which didn't work at all. The mechanism for dividing competing blocs into teams of two players each positively detracts from the gaming experience, not least by making the bloody thing last for ever. So, highly recommended for playing with three players, despite me never having done so.

The once a month Sunday afternoon group to which I used to go is changing venue this weekend and I was wondering whether to give it another try. The likelihood of me doing that increased significantly when I discovered that the new location has a pinball machine. I spent almost as much of my time as an undergraduate playing pinball as I did table football; in other words, a lot. I used to own a pinball machine: a proper, old-fashioned, heavy thing, stuffed full of electro-mechanical relays, with plenty of satisfying heft when you gave the flippers some welly. I bought it from a man I met in the pub. In my experience no story that starts with those words is ever likely to end well; this one certainly didn't.

Post-completion Fiasco

Don't fear, I am intending in due course to bore you all with more details of my trip to Spain plus of course all my other cultural activities (there's been a lot of political theatre this month; bet you can't wait), but once again I find I have other, and frankly more interesting, demands on my time. Therefore this just a quick follow up on Fiasco. For those who haven't seen it already James has posted a report here with lots of pictures, plus a rather a laboured joke about a lost D8. Let me add another photo, which I pinched from here, showing James saying "I spent hours writing those scenario notes and you tell me you haven't bloody read them!" to a suitably shamefaced Holy League commander who wishes to remain anonymous.

You don't have to be bald to play Piquet, but it helps

And finally, there is still no sign of any photos of the game in the Daily Telegraph. This is one of the pictures they have found space for instead; as so often with that newspaper it's hard to fault their editorial judgement.

Complete Fiasco

Since my return the demands on my time and energy have been such as to preclude much posting here, but I did manage to tear myself away in order to attend Fiasco yesterday. James put on a refight of Ravenna (scenario details here) which was well received. It is possible that had I read those notes before the game - I was, as I may have mentioned, rather busy - the outcome of the game might have been different, although somehow I doubt it. I acted as sort of adviser/occasional dice roller for someone who had read the rules, but hadn't really followed them and wanted a run through to help him out. I think it did help, despite the handicap of having me misinforming him about strategy, tactics and indeed the rules themselves. In my defence we have recently been playing standard Piquet in various Horse & Musket periods and the last time we played the Italian Wars we used Black Powder. However one looks at it though, things started badly and went downhill from there. In fact my only success of the day was probably finding the Tetley Car Park despite my notoriously bad sense of direction. My unfortunate pupil wasn't the only one to obtain a copy of the rules so they are gradually spreading out to Italian Wars aficionados; just in passing may I mention that one of the guys deep in conversation with James about the period must challenge the chap who used to do Western Desert games on Hessian matting at Derby Worlds as being the tallest wargamer I have ever seen.

The show was free this year and was, in the morning at least, buzzing. The consensus was that there were a large number of walk up visitors attracted in from those attending the Royal Armouries Museum itself, and if that's true I think we can assume that they would have been less likely to come in if they had to pay £5 or whatever. You never know, some of them might even have picked up a taste for wargaming. One person who was certainly intrigued was the photographer for the national press who was actually there to take pictures of the Spitfire currently in the plaza outside the armouries (which long term readers may remember as hosting many different kinds of re-enactor when I lived in an apartment overlooking it during the early days of my nomadic wanderings), but who was persuaded to visit Fiasco by a wargaming employee of the museum. She - the photographer - looked confused about a lot of things frankly, and had clearly never come across the idea of playing games with toy soldiers before, but was rightly blown away by James' display and took many close up shots with an enormous lens on an expensive looking camera. If they ever appear anywhere they will be worth seeking out; I shall keep you informed. The wargaming armouries employee also seemed to have some ideas for future gaming projects actually among the exhibits; again I shall let you know as soon as I do.

Gong, but not forgotten

Mentioning the inhabitants of Planet Gong yesterday made me realise that I had unaccountably never posted any of their music on the blog. I only saw them once - in Freshers Week; god only knows who thought that was a good idea - and was too drunk to remember anything much about it. According to the Guardian they were not just silly, but 'could groove like mothers', so here they are. For the record the opening to this video is eerily similar to the way in which we commence an evening's gaming in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach.

Don't you think the lead singer looks as if he's throwing dice? I'm going to suggest that we get hats like that for conventions. It would be one up on those chaps who wear mess uniforms while refighting the Zulu war, and instead of drinking red wine like them we could drop acid. Just a thought.

I'm off to track down a copy of 'Live in Sherwood Forest'.

Crisis! What Crisis?

It seems that we shall not be attending Crisis in Antwerp this November after all; which is a great shame.

In terms of other crises, I'm afraid I am as bemused a bystander to the current meltdown in the UK government as everyone else. My political expertise, such as it is, relates to the internal workings of the Labour Party and the Tories, whom I hold in utter contempt anyway, are a bit of a closed book to me. I can however offer a behind the scenes look at how cabinet meetings are conducted at the moment:

“The oldest, shortest words - "yes" and "no" - are those which require the most thought.”

  - Pythagoras