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.

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.

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':

Smallish game at a smallish show

So, to Fiasco. It seemed fairly well attended, especially during the morning and we fielded the usual large number of questions. Most of them were about either James' scratchbuilt buildings or the cloth. One or two people asked what rules we were using, but mention of Piquet didn't elicit any subsequent interest; trendsetters we aren't. We were putting on a fairly small game as James is being a bit dilatory on the Peninsular painting front. Anyway, it looked fine - not too crowded - and were able to play to a conclusion quite easily.

It was triumph for Wellington, but so it should have been. The scenario gave him a far better deck, command dice etc and my plan wasn't much more sophisticated than let's use our ability to move more often than the French to advance on a broad front and sweep all before us. The layout wasn't hugely different that that which we have played over over the last three weeks and the action ended up taking place on the same hill at one end of the table with, once again, a good proportion of each side's units not getting into action. It was a comfortable win and would have been even easier if I'd been paying attention; the French didn't perform too badly in the circumstances.

As for the rules:

• It's hard to judge the skirmish rules because nobody really did anything with them; although, let's be honest, that probably means they're not working.
• I liked the new rule that the first UI loss makes no difference to combat.
• I still don't like the town fighting rules, but have no better suggestions.
• The technique James has started using to encourage attacking (basically morale points for objectives, but with a twist) is excellent in principle, but the practical details don't seem to have been thought through.

Purchases were limited to what I had ordered in advance:

• Slopes from Kallistra; even small hills and ridges seem to require shed loads of the things.
• Gaullish chariots from Newline Designs; no explanation necessary.
• Bases from Warbases; the laser cutter I have access to will only be economic for bespoke items.

I didn't take any photos, but there are a couple of our game here, both of which are somewhat spoiled by the sight of yours truly leaning heavily on the table as if I have lost the ability to stand up straight. Mr Ashton is right about the lighting.

Skirmishers etc etc

James and I finished the game which had been delayed last week by the sudden appearance of the mad cat and the mad cat woman. I checked their location early on the day and they were apparently just outside Haworth (*), so it seemed that my kitchen was unthreatened. Just to be on the safe side I turned all the lights out mid-afternoon and sat quietly in the dark until it was time to go out.

Anyway, the game continued to be most enjoyable and ended in a fairly comprehensive victory for the British despite them having lost the entire brigade in their centre. At one point they held all four town sections of Momio Cochinello, but by the end not only had all four battalions fled the table, but they had lost their commander killed in action and his replacement killed before he got anywhere near the action. No battle honours for them. Other than long range and ineffective artillery fire there was no fighting at all on the British right, so totes kudos goes to the left flank. I, possibly for the first time in my entire wargaming career, held my cavalry in reserve until the auspicious moment, moved them to the appropriate place, charged them at the correct target at precisely the right time and won the day. I can promise that it won't happen again.

But what of the rules, you ask? They are still a work in progress of course. One problem seems to be that poor units are really, really poor and run away very easily. Part of the issue is that many of the rules are ported from the Seven Years War and in that units get a benefit from being in a linear formation. Napoleonic units didn't fight in that way or therefore get those benefits. Probably the simplest thing is to give them better morale to start with; after all one assumes that's why they were able to move on from fighting in long lines. As for the skirmish rules, I'm frankly not sure we were playing what was written down anyway. And there is still something not right about the town fighting rules.

In other wargaming news:

• I have been doing some painting. You will recall that I have bought some Roman Auxiliary reinforcements and so you will not be surprised that what is on the painting table is a unit of Napoleonic Prussian infantry.  
• I have acquired some Hexon rough ground on eBay. Second hand Hexon is usually too expensive to be worth buying once you take postage into account, but this was a reasonable price and I wanted some more for use with Square Bashing.
• I have gained access to a laser cutter, been fully accredited to use it, and am going to attempt to make, initially at least, some town walls to my specific design. It will be ten days or so before I am able to have my first stab - I am going on a cultural excursion to a secret and exotic location next week - but I shall report back.
• It's the Fiasco show at the Royal Armouries in Leeds this Sunday. We shall be putting on a game with James' Peninsular figures and our 'make it up as you go along' rules. If you're there please stop by and speak to Peter or James about what's going on and maybe exchange a polite, but silent, nod with me.

* "I can say with sincerity that I like cats... A cat is an animal which has more human feelings than almost any other." - Emily Brontë

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.

The nine of clubs

"The challenge for Nine of Clubs♣ people is to let go with grace and gratitude... and not fall to the lower vibration of apathy or self-pity."

Last weekend saw Fiasco, the local wargames show here in Leeds, and the passout token for those putting on games was a playing card; the one they gave me was the nine of clubs: so challenge accepted. The show itself was good in the morning and dead in the afternoon. Our demo of Zorndorf went very much with the flow; I don't think we played a turn after lunch. Astonishingly I have seen some reviewers complain that the organisers gave space to a charity cake stall. Fortunately Epictetus is in such peak physical shape these days that he was able to indulge himself with a bun or two and I can report that they were rather good; I hope that they are back next year. Other purchases included yet more trees from the tree man plus what is possibly the worst set of rules that I have ever read.

I bought a second hand set of Mailed Fist Wargames group's WWI rules and the best thing I can find to say about them is that it was only £3 wasted, or three cakes worth if you will. I won't take up too much of your time with them, but perhaps the oddest bit is the lack of any rules at all for machine guns because "they [were] a little thin on the ground". The author does however include specific stats for the 420cm L/12, Type M-Gerät 14, better known as the 'Big Bertha', of which only twelve were ever made and whose minimum range is somewhat longer than my table. I am more and more minded to stop buying WWI rules and instead to write my own; I'm envisaging a glorious mash-up of every family of rules that I've ever played plus the added complexity which inevitably creeps in every time that I try to devise something for wargaming use. The one thing that is certain is that the scale of these wonderful - though as yet unwritten - rules will be 12-15 figures per company, which should allow me to play a game of a brigade a side. I have it in mind to name them after one of C.R.W. Nevinson's Great War paintings, perhaps 'A Dawn', which is just about to be sold for a shed load of money.

A game at that level requires a higher proportion of officers and support weapons than I had previously assumed. I have therefore scoured continental Europe for the out of production HaT German Heavy Weapons set and progress on painting has been brisk. October figures were:

Granatenwerfer	4
MG08/15	4
MG08	1
Flamethrower team	1
Minenwerfer	1
German bombers	4
German riflemen	10
British riflemen	7
British officers	12
Lewis guns	3

Implausible navette

Not much happening at the Casa Epictetus, which is mainly my own fault, coupled of course with all the rain and cold going on outside that has caused me to dig out the scarf that the big bouncy woman kindly knitted for me. Still, one expects things to improve. As a man with an accent that was apparently supposed to resemble mine once said:

"Winds in the east, mist coming in. 

Like somethin' is brewin' and bout to begin."

James has now posted a review of his game at Fiasco! (and is it me or is one of the reader comments somewhat unrelated to reality?). I note that he doesn't mention how one sided the game was. The useful things that I picked up at the show were obviously the extra Hexon terrain plus the revelation that my washing machine has a 14 minute cycle; who knew? What I forgot to buy were some bases to mount heavy weapons - despite actually going to the Warbases stand to take a look - but the mail order that followed swiftly when I got home has now arrived .This has in turn led to some painting, and indeed modelling. I have made some barbed wire, with which I am rather pleased and which will no doubt feature in photographs soon. I have also painted up a Vickers HMG with which I am rather less pleased. There are two things wrong with it, above and beyond my painting abilities. The first I will leave to see if anyone spots; I think I must have spaced out on the glue fumes whilst putting it together. The second is far harder to notice, but for some reason annoys me a lot more. The chap firing has only got one arm. He definitely had two when I started out, but he's only got one now.

I have read through the Pike & Shotte rules several times, although I'm not sure how much I am going to retain. They really are poorly laid out. Fortunately I only had to read about half the book  because the rest is padding - army lists and general uninformative waffle about various historical periods. Given how many large photographs there are I would guess that you could get all the rules on less than a dozen sides of A4 if one really tried.

Frederick still not great

I have been to Fiasco!, the local Leeds show, and rather enjoyed it. One has to say that it hasn't been that brilliant for a couple of years, but I thought that things had definitely perked up. Whilst James' game was definitely the best, there were a  number worth looking at. Legendary Wargames had a nice looking ACW set up and there were a range of other smaller ones. I had a go at a neat little participation game that the Wakefield and District Society were running covering the Agincourt campaign. It worked well for me and not just because as Henry V I triumphantly defeated the French at the gates of Calais.

The refight of Chotusitz was somewhat less successful. The domino gods were not kind to the Prussians and nor was the morale card deal. With a bit more morale perhaps the superiority of Frederick's infantry may have come into play. Perhaps. What I would say is that more than in any other Piquet demo game with which I have helped, many people were displaying an interest in the rules and not just the set up.

I picked up my latest order from Kallistra and am now ready to have a crack at Through the Mud and the Blood. Further details - and hopefully some photos - will follow.

Handing on the baton

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end." - Seneca

Time for a quick wargaming round-up. Firstly, and rather unexpectedly, someone has asked me for the rules of my Romans in Britain rip off of Pony Wars. I have to admit that I never updated them after our last game although copious notes were made at the time. This was partly due to the arrival of the Hexon terrain which made me think that all the movement rules etc needed switching to hex based, partly because having played Lion Rampant I thought I might steal the melee rules from those, and partly because I am bone idle. Anyway I have sent them off as they stand and I hope they are useful. We enjoyed the couple of games that we had despite them being typical of any rules that I write by being rather over complex. Notwithstanding having bought some more slopes at Derby I would need quite a few more before having another go.

Speaking of Hexon terrain, I have ordered some more, but bits of trench rather than hills. I have cleared the annexe and set up the Through the Mud and the Blood scenario I'm planning to run in due course in order to see what elements I was short of. I had thought about making some, but the energy levels haven't returned after my illness so I bought them instead. I had to revolve the alignment of the terrain by 90 degrees from the standard C&C layout in order to get it to work. My order including the missing rifle grenadier has arrived and painting is underway. (As an aside, this morning the big bouncy woman managed in essentially the same breath to ask to see what I was painting, assert that I wouldn't show it to her in case she called it crap, and then deny - erroneously - that she ever said such a thing about the chariots in the first place; still, it was good to see her again) The other order, the one with the casualty figures for the shock markers, is delayed due to a broken arm.

The latest order - the Hexon one; please keep up - is to be picked up at Fiasco on Sunday where I am helping James run a Seven Years War game. It won't be Lobositz because we are using my car and it isn't that big. It also isn't that reliable so I hope we make it. Assuming we do then please feel free to come and say hello to James and, if you must, me.

Why am I back?

Well, the blog had its first reader, the esteemed Conrad Kinch no less, and so I thought 'Why not?'.

I have taken up residence pro tem in Clarence Dock and can see the entrance to the Royal Armouries from where I sit typing this. I haven't set foot inside there since I've been here except to have the odd double espresso in their coffee bar. I have however been into their conference centre, which when I moved in was known as Savile's and now isn't, as part of the abrupt disappearance of the apparently flawed disc-jockey. This is because that's where the Fiasco wargames show is held. My visit there was disappointingly short because I had badly hurt my back a couple of days before, sneezing violently. Sadly this is a true story.

Anyway, I didn't get to see much at the show except to chew the fat with James Roach and Peter Jackson around their ancient galley warfare game. I did get a chance to admire Brian's marvellous scratchbuilt Bismark made from, among other things, cornflake packets. I then spent the afternoon laying on my floor to ease my back pain.

The other notable event held there recently (I discount the European Conference on Bio-Solids which appeared to be about exactly what you imagine when you first see the word Bio-Solids) was a comic book convention at which it seems to have been compulsory to attend in costume. Being old and not down with the kids I didn't recognise most of the characters, but there was a splendid Batman, Joker and Penguin. My early favourite was a very good David Tennant era Doctor Who complete with a Dalek and an Amy Pond stylee assistant. However, they were overshadowed by the arrival of Wonder Woman, who was, how can I put this, a very healthy girl. I was obliged to inspect the details of her costume rather closely. [Note to self - this type of behaviour is how you got into trouble in the first place.]