My WotR Collection

 That title makes it sound as if I am going to post photos of them all, but I'm not. I'm actually responding to a couple of questions that I've had: are the figures Perry plastics, and are the new Irish kern that I have ordered, er, Perry plastics. In both cases it's a no. My figures are 20mm, and most of them are actually Hundred Years War figures deployed anachronistically with no shame whatsoever.

This was the first period that I painted when, in my forties, I was looking for a hobby which I could pick up and put down in the periods between professional assignments. I chose 1/72 soft plastic because one key criterion was not spending much money. (As an aside, that worked out well didn't it.) I had always been interested in the Wars of the Roses, there weren't any figures available, so I bought those for the HYW instead. I had no thought of gaming and no one else would ever see them so it didn't matter. As time went by more specific 15th century figures became available labelled variously as WotR, Burgundians, Swiss, Hussites etc, but I didn't replace anything. Instead I simply mixed them in, as I did a few metal figures from Tumbling Dice's range. The latter were often for things that it wasn't at the time easy to find in plastic: hand-gunners, pikemen etc. 

For the kern I have ordered a mixture of the Redbox Irish Troops and Tumbling Dice figures, just for variety really. The Redbox set also contains some Galloglass, which clearly I don't need, but will no doubt find a use for in due course. When everything arrives I shall tell you what I think.

Next week's game isn't going to be a refight of a specific combat, rather we shall have a go at the sample scenario in the rulebook which the authors use to introduce various troop types that we haven't employed in our games so far. These include mounted household troops, the rules for whose use I still haven't quite got my head around. 

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

Carnevale

 It's Carnevale, a festival that I've always felt that we British celebrated in a particularly boring fashion; your bloggist has never been a fan of pancakes. Judging by the look of this no-expense-spared video things aren't any better in the Netherlands:

PotCXVIIIpouri

 There's been no wargaming for a while, but we shall hopefully be be back in action in the annexe this week. The blog has also been a bit quiet, although I can report that the mystery viewer has stopped looking at the post which I mentioned before and started looking at this one instead; several times a day as with the first example. I flatter myself that the new target of his/her/its attentions is somewhat less boring that the other one, but even so...

In my absence I have been painting the cultural quarter of the town red; it's the time of the year for both opera and Fairport Convention. I also saw Hayley Mills performing on stage, an actor who was a star before I was born, and I am certainly not young. Add to that a very interesting lecture on Weights and Measures and you can understand my not finding the time to post anything here.

None of the above involved any of the following people, but I do like me some John Lee Hooker:

International Bomber Command Centre

 A couple of posts ago this blog featured a very brief extract from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. I am fond of a thematic link so let's have a photo of the man himself standing larger than life outside Lincoln Cathedral.

The cathedral itself is, I am pleased to report, still looking very impressive after a thousand years or so. The view below is from the western wall of the castle, back across the bailey and over the east wall.

The imp is still there, although just as diminutive and unimpressive as always. I'm sorry to say that Magna Carta wasn't around, having gone for what the guide described as 'a rest in the dark'. We've all felt the need for that I'm sure.

One local attraction that has opened since I was last in the city is the somewhat strangely named 'International Bomber Command Centre'. Lincolnshire of course contained many bomber bases during WWII, but this isn't actually one of them. It's a new building on farmland just outside Lincoln, with an impressive view of the city. It's fairly close to RAF Waddington, current home of the Red Arrows, and they were much in evidence while we were there. The website describes it as 'a facility' and 'an experience', both of which make sense. It's not a museum as such, having very few historical artefacts, but instead it does two things rather well. Firstly, it uses technology rather effectively to cover both the activities of Bomber Command and the stories of those across Europe who suffered due to bombing. Secondly, it has a memorial to the more than 55,000 members of RAF Bomber Command who died during the war, with all their names inscribed thereon. I thought it was all very well done, and perhaps more pertinently so did my companion for the visit, who wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but ended up glad that she came. Indeed she seemed to be rather enjoying herself controlling a Lancaster on its bombing run over Peenemünde.

If I have one observation it's that whilst it didn't shy away from highlighting the moral debate about strategic bombing, I didn't spot anything related to whether in the end it turned out to be an effective use of the Allies' resources. Perhaps the memorial is intended to make us reflect on that for ourselves.

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.

The quiet sense of something lost

 As in the winters left behind,

 Again our ancient games had place

-Tennyson, In Memoriam