48 Crash

"Watch Out!

You know the 48 Crash come like a lightning flash (48 Crash, 48 Crash)" 

- Chinn & Chapman

Apologies, but the picture of Ms Quatro is mere clickbait. I am going to post about how I seem to have mislaid my wargaming mojo during 2022. Apart from actually playing the games it has been steadily diminishing; for example I have done no painting of any sort for many months now. Perhaps the last element of the hobby to go for me was my penchant for buying any new rules published for those periods which I game, or, as in the case of the Mexican Revolution, which I don't game. But even that seems to have shrivelled and died. Caliver Books were recently offering a deal on Billhooks Deluxe, expanding the 'Never Mind the Billhooks' WotR rules to cover amongst other things the Hussites. And yet, I didn't buy them. 

Whilst en route to Manchester to see 'Die Fledermaus' (*), the December issue of Wargames Illustrated caught my eye in the Smith's at Leeds station, as it contains a couple of sizable articles on the newly published rules. Would my enthusiasm be given a sufficient kickstart to get online and order a copy? Well, not so far it hasn't. I haven't been able to get over the image presented by the following quote: "Archer blocks in line can be deadly. Loosing an arrowstorm of 48 dice makes for a mighty racket as D6s bounce around the table..."

How many? Not for me I think.

* Which was excellent, featuring amongst other characters in the chorus the Spice Girls and Boris Johnson, plus an entirely unexpected appearance by Kathryn Rudge singing the 'Habanera' from 'Carmen'.

Hussite Warfare

 It's back to the fifteenth century for a review of Hussite Warfare by Alexander Querengässer, which first came out in German in 2015 and was followed by an English version a couple of years ago.

I say that it is in English, but it's not English as we know it, Jim. Still, lets start with the good bits. The pictures are excellent, especially the newly commissioned illustrations - by Sascha Lunyakov - and the reproductions from contemporary manuscripts. But the text has been translated and proof read by someone with no grasp of idiomatic English whatsoever, rendering large chunks of it unreadable. My guess is that it was done by a bored teenager on work experience armed only with Google Translate or similar. 

The subtitle of the book is 'Armies, Equipment, Tactics and Campaigns' and it is the last of those elements which really suffers. The narrative arc of a campaign description would seem to require a greater fluency than is on offer here. The other sections aren't so badly affected and contain some good stuff, of which I'll pick out just two bits here:

Firstly, the goose controversy. It used to be accepted that the Hussites used the goose as a symbol on their standards because that word in Czech is similar to the name of Jan Huss. It then became accepted that it was the Hussite's opponents who used the goose symbol as a way of abusing the heretics because the word in Czech etc etc. This book has a number of contemporary illustrations showing Hussite flags including geese, which is interesting. It is, of course, difficult to tell whether the manuscripts from which they were taken were written by supporters or opponents of the Hussites and therefore to draw any firm conclusions either way. I modelled my Hussites when the first view held sway and, following my strict principle of no rework or rebasing, they will continue to proudly display the goose.

Secondly, the Hussites' use of artillery. The book makes it clear that notwithstanding their position as early adopters of gunpowder weapons that they, and indeed their enemies, continued to use more old fashioned siege weapons such as catapults, rams etc alongside them. I have quite a lot of those, plus of course a new castle to try out, so what am I waiting for? Many years ago, long before the blog or the annexe, I put on a game loosely based on the battle of Kutna Hora. I need to re-read the scenario notes.

So, the book is probably only for those with a particular interest and not for the casual reader. As I said before, the illustrations are very good, and sit nicely alongside those in the relevant Osprey as a guide to modelling the period.

Hussites

Back to poor photos of bad stuff. I shall start by saying that when I made these there was a widely held view that the Hussites carried flags with geese on them because Jan Huss' name sounds a bit like goose in the Czech language. Subsequently I think the consensus has changed to the whole goose thing being a term of abuse used by their Catholic opponents because Jan Huss' name sounded a bit like the Czech word for...well you get the picture. In common with my general line of least effort approach to these things I shall not be replacing the flags. On with the photos:

That's Zizka next to the True Cross

I'm not a believer in warwagons rushing round the battlefield like tanks, but I have some on the move just in case. They have never been on the table and neither have the following:

Gaming in 2018

I started this blog as someone who didn't wargame, but would like to. As 2018 draws to an end I find myself in much the same position, real life events having conspired to prevent any gaming for the last six weeks or so. Working on the assumption that things will perk up a bit in the New Year I have taken the opportunity to remind myself of what happened this year. Despite the weather (unusually bad at the beginning and astonishingly hot in the middle) I played or umpired twenty one games, many of which ran over two or even three evenings. Details - and these may not be entirely accurate, but they're the best I could come up with - are:

Punic Wars                                               2
Crusades                                                  1
15th Century Central/Eastern Europe      2
Italian Wars                                               1
Seven Years War                                      8
Napoleonic                                                7


To the Strongest!                                      5
Black Powder                                           4
Piquet                                                     10
C&C Napoleonics                                    2


The split by period is interesting and anyone who reads James' blog will notice the correlation with what he has been painting and building. Notably there was no Romans vs Celts, Wars of the Roses or 20th Century. I'm not complaining - if the god of wargaming decided to limit me to one period I would always choose Horse & Musket - but that's a lot of unused toys. I have had a game set up in the annexe for a while now, just crying out for a solo run through to alleviate the lack of games elsewhere; which needless to say I haven't done, although I have tinkered with the layout. Here's what it currently looks like:

It also demonstrates that much of my painting this year has been producing extra WWI figures and terrain to provide the forces for a game of Square Bashing; still no tanks though. And for anyone remembering my promise to spend some of my recent windfall on wargaming, I haven't yet done so.

I wandered away from boardgaming during the year, and then towards the end edged back towards it a bit. Boardgamegeek tells me that I played 65 different games a total of 89 times, which feels about right. The one game from that lot which I would recommend to the blog's target audience of wargamers is Medieval, a game whose tagline of 'Wage war, unleash the plague, excommunicate the unworthy, and drive back the Mongol hordes' is right up our street I think. My own experience of Quartermaster General: The Cold War with six players wasn't very good, but others whose judgement I trust confirm my impression that with three players it would be excellent.

Sharpie's Triumph

I forgot that I had taken some photos of the Malesov game, so here's one at random:

Spot the drunken hero

James' suggestion - and I know that you have been waiting for it - is to allocate the Victory Medals unevenly, with the warwagons getting the bulk. In order to win therefore the Imperialists will be forced to attack the wagenburg directly; historically accurate and tactically foolish. The sensible thing for me to do would be to try the idea out immediately, but naturally I won't; Varna is a different sort of battle.

One of the practical problems we encountered was the tokens sticking together in the bag as they were being drawn. This is no reflection on Warbases, but is rather due to a dodgy bottle of varnish that I had, which I applied after painting the backs to differentiate the various sets. I have therefore decided to try a different solution, namely Scrabble type plastic tiles:

As you can see the set includes a couple of symbols. I have some plans to use those for some scenario specific rules. The sixes and nines are distinguishable, but not easily without standing them side by side. Here's one bag's worth after judicious application of Sharpie pen.

Hope was but a timid friend

Not that you would know from either James' blog or mine, but there has actually been some wargaming in the Lower Wharfe Valley. Two games in fact, very different in most ways, but what they shared was an eventual winner who had basically given up about two thirds of the way through and only carried on because there was plenty of time left.

The first was the blow the bridge scenario that we had played in the legendary wargames room two or three times a couple of years ago, and a very good game it gives. I was the Russians seeking to prevent said bridge being blown and, not remembering any details from the previous games, chose to bring the infantry on at the road entrance nearest to the bridge with the cavalry arriving later from one end of the table. When this was revealed there was much shaking of heads and sucking of teeth from Peter and James, with the strong consensus being that I'd got it all wrong. As it happens the gods of Piquet thought differently, because in the morale draw at the beginning I drew a Brilliant Leader card plus a Stratagem, which turned out to be basically another Brilliant Leader card for one command. The net effect was that that one infantry command stormed across the table and would actually have seized the bridge had I focussed on the important stuff rather than moving as many units as possible. If you ever play Piquet then that, dear reader, is the golden rule. The converse of having good cards in my deck was that I didn't have much morale. I failed major morale twice, ran out and actually started giving it to the Prussians. That basically means the game is over, but it was only about ten o'clock and my cavalry had just arrived so we carried on. The was nothing to do except act aggressively and damn the consequences; sure enough, from that point on it was a completely one sided affair and the Prussians fairly quickly succumbed.

The second game, in the less than legendary annexe, was the previously advertised Malesov. On this occasion the Imperialists gained an early advantage by immediately getting all their cavalry over the bridge - meant to be a bottleneck - and flanking the Hussites on both sides. With the warwagons' shooting achieving absolutely nothing, the Catholic crossbowmen advanced, fired and as luck would have it, killed Zizka himself; he not just being C-in-C, but also commander of the wagenburg. It didn't look good, but Peter - for it was he on this occasion - carried on because, well, the night was still young. And then, suddenly the wheels came off the Imperialists' caravan. They lost a couple of melees (although James did implausibly draw four tens in a row at one point), did very badly in the ensuing rout tests and, just like that, it was all over. The Hussites had won without moving anything off the table.

That last point does make me wonder about the quality of the scenario. James came up with a good sounding approach to force the crusaders to attack the warwagons front on, which of course is what they did at the time, but which no tabletop commander with any sense is going to voluntarily repeat. Details will be given in a future post along with those of one or two other changes to equipment that I am going to make to improve gameplay of TtS!. We are back to James' next week, but I think the next game in the annexe will be Varna, 1444. There are still warwagons, but it also gives me a chance to break out the Ottomans. And yes, I do have a Janissary marching band.

Malesov Redux

These are some notes regarding the scenario which has been set up in the annexe for the last month. As I think I mentioned before, one problem with playing the period is that Zizka always won, so this is less an attempt to refight the battle and more using what little is known about events to form the basis of an interesting game.

Malesov 1424

Zizka is trying to reach the castle of Malesov, which is in friendly hands, but is being pursued by Imperialist forces. He draws up his wagenburg on top of a hill and ambushes his pursuers by rolling his supply carts filled with rocks down the slope against the middle battle.

Scenario details:

·         Before the game starts the Hussites get two attempts to hit on 6+ against each unit in the ambushed battle; normal saves and rout tests apply.

·         The Imperialists move first.

·         The Hussites objective is to reach the castle, by exiting their forces off their side of the table through the road square or those either side of it (NB any units leaving the table via these squares cannot return; any units leaving the table via other squares can return as per normal rules (see p42)), while at the same time inflicting some losses on the Imperialists. In addition to gaining Victory Medals for enemy units destroyed they also gain one VM per unit leaving the table as per their objectives. Victory conditions are:

o   Hussites              20

o   Imperialists         15

·         The true cross (*) can move for free with any unit or commander in its square or it can be activated to move on its own by Zizka as per normal infantry rules except that it has no facing. It can co-exist with any number of friendly units and can interpenetrate freely. It acts otherwise as per the rules for standards (ES V6 p5) .

·         If Zizka dies or the true cross is captured then rout tests must be taken as if a unit had been lost.

War wagons:

·         Deep unit

·         Move sideways in either direction – all other moves are double difficult

·         Cannot charge or initiate melee

·         Shooting and ZOC are to the front

·         Have no flanks or rear for melee

·         Regardless of what the models show, they can fire as either handguns or field artillery (NB see ES V6 p2 rule re multiple targets) until they move and subsequently only as handguns

·         Saving throws:

o   +1 vs mounted

o   +1 vs shooting

o   -1 shot at from side or rear

Cavalry:

·         All cavalry are lance armed (see p57)

·         Later knights may rearm (see ES V6 p4 – this will be interpreted as requiring a simple activation) once per unit

Mounted Crossbow:

·         These are mounted infantry, but the rule on p57 does not apply; instead:

·         Move as cavalry, but cannot charge or fire

·         Must attempt to evade if charged

·         Must dismount to fire (requires a difficult activation as per rule on p56) and cannot remount

·         Dismounted crossbowmen have pavises

Terrain:

·         River is impassable, but is no impediment to shooting

·         Normal bridge rules (p29) are designed for both rivers and bridge occupying whole squares, not marking the boundaries between squares and so do not apply; instead

o   The square either side of the bridge is normal terrain

o   Only one unit can cross the bridge on each activation i.e. no whole square or group moves; march moves are allowed

o   crossing the bridge is a difficult move

·         Defending against anyone coming across the bridge +1 to saving throw in melee

(*) I claim no great expertise in theology, but it seems pretty unlikely to me that the Hussites would have venerated relics such as the 'true cross'. However, I wanted to give them a standard to reflect their resilience and, to be honest, the true cross is all I've actually got (for those paying attention, it's  another resin model from Valdemar). While I'm on the subject of historical accuracy, I made the standards with geese on them many years ago under the impression that the Hussites used them because it was a play on words - in Czech - on Jan Huss' name. I now think it far more likely that goose was a term of abuse used by the Catholics to taunt their opponents based on the same pun. But I'm certainly not replacing all those flags, especially when this is the first time in about ten years that they have seen the light of day anyway.

Lightweight filler

'Lightweight filler' is of course an accurate description of most of what is written here, but today I mean it in a literal sense. For modelling and painting have returned to the Casa Epictetus after a long absence. The initial impetus came from me needing to use my hot glue gun to repair something, and having put the protective cover on the table it seemed a waste not to press on.

It had occurred to me when I was setting up the Malesov game - still not played - that I could do with some 'lance' markers (see p57 of Version 1.1a of To the Strongest! plus p4 of Ever Stronger V6 for full details of why) and obviously it wouldn't take long to bash some out. And it wouldn't have, had not my plastic primer and tub of filler both dried out and become unusable during the handicraft hiatus, requiring a trip out in the pouring rain to get some more. While staring at the shelves I was seduced by the tubs of exciting new lightweight filler and decided to give it a try. One cannot fault the description - it must be easily an order of magnitude less dense than the regular stuff - but I found it very difficult to work with. To get it to 'flow' (clearly not the right word, but anyone who has based figures will know what I'm getting at) I had to keep a very wet tool at all times.

However, the extra water meant was that it took an absolute age to dry, whereas one can usually crack on with painting the regular stuff quite quickly. On reflection I'm not sure what particular benefit less weight is to me. Indeed stands of plastic figures are actually made more robust by a bit of heft down below.

While I'm on the subject of tools I have acquired a rather nifty engineer's chest to hold mine and, rather more importantly, to occupy one of the fireplaces in my living room; that's right, I have more than one fireplace in my living room.

It seems to me to need something to stand on one side of it to break up the symmetry. One of my lady friends suggested a lava lamp, apparently in all seriousness. Well, you know they say about lava lamps: "fun to look at, but not very bright".

A Brief Post About Games

I claimed in a reply to a comment on a recent post that I had scratchbuilt all my warwagons. It didn't ring true when I typed it and a quick check in the annexe showed that indeed the one on the right in the photograph is a long out of production resin kit from Polish manufacturer Valdemar. It's a small point, but nevertheless I have been suffering the agenbite of inwit and wished to set the record straight.

The weather is still too nice to bother playing through the currently set up scenario, but I have chewed over it a bit more while sitting in the garden catching some rays. The problem with the period - as it is with many that are favoured by wargamers; I'm not at all sure why that should be - is that one side appears to have won all the battles despite eventually losing the war. To make a game of it, one has to handicap them a bit whilst still getting the balance right. War wagons are of course essentially defensive so there is also the need to to make things about more than simply waves of attacks by one side on the other, with the only issue to be resolved being whether it turns out to be Rorke's Drift or the Alamo.

Apart from the warwagons my Hussite and Imperial armies are generic 15th century forces who more often see service in the Wars of the Roses and occasionally take on the Ottomans. I have previously posted about my habit of buying any new release of figures that looks suitable (and by the way the figures mentioned in that post are still untouched in their box, exactly as you would expect) and have done it again. The Burgundian Crossbowmen haven't yet been featured on Plastic Soldier Review so let me get in first and say that they are, er, mixed. In fairness the figure (there are four identical sprues of eight figures) winding a stirrup crossbow is pretty good as are the pavises provided. The three crossbowmen firing are less promising. They actually look like someone launching one of those balsa models of a Spitfire powered by an elastic band (*) that I used to pester my dad to buy me on seaside holidays in the sixties. 

Had that been what the sculptor was aiming for I would have said job well done; as it is... The other four figures are firing gunpowder weapons. It's not what it says on the box, but fair enough. For the record I don't really need any more crossbowmen, handgunners or indeed pavises, so the mix supplied is neither here nor there. On the other hand the fact that the weapons being carried wouldn't look out of place in a 20th century conflict is somewhat more annoying. They certainly bear little resemblance to anything one of Charles the Bold's men would have used.

In other news James tells me that 'Jump or Burn' will shortly feature in the legendary wargames room once again. This is a cracking multiplayer WWI air combat game written by James himself and published by Piquet Inc. He long ago sold his original collection of planes, but some recent technical developments in the method of mounting models for the table - the details of which were somewhat obscured by the amount of prosecco he had drunk before he explained them to me - has caused him to paint some more. The rule book is notoriously badly edited, but is well worth persevering with.

Boardgaming has been rare over the last couple of months because I have variously been unable to see or unable to think. The best game I played and have previously recommended, was Medieval. A more straightforward Eurogame but also worth looking out for is Castell, which has the unlikely theme of building Catalan human towers.

(*) £25 or thereabouts on ebay; very tempting.

Malesov

For the benefit of overseas readers, the weather in the UK is absolutely glorious and has been so for weeks; a fact which I suspect accounts, along with the occasional domestic accident, for a lack of posting on more than a few blogs, and indeed for the lack of any wargaming to post about in the first place. Nevertheless, the aforementioned smack on the head, seems to have knocked my wargaming mojo back into action and I have been - strictly in the cooler evening hours - spending some time in the annexe. The original driver for this was the threat/promise from the Unquiet Don to repeat his visit of last year, which in turn spurred me to finally buy my own hard copy of To the Strongest!. While flicking through them the rules for warwagons caught my eye and having played about with the implications of them I thought they had enough promise to set up a game. And it's the overexposed square in this photo of the result which explains why I mention the weather:

Details of individual battles in the Hussite wars are somewhat hard to come by, but there is at least some agreement on the Battle of Malesov in early June 1424. I have based my deployment on the invaluable booklet on the 1419-1435 period by L.K. Mills. I can't remember where I got it, but if it wasn't from the Lance & Longbow Society stall at a show then I would be very surprised. I shall have a little solo play both to refresh my grasp of the rules as a whole and to see how the scenario works out, after which I shall post again as to why things are the way they are.

Wot - no wargaming?

So, four posts in to the commentario revixit and no mention of it's raison d'être. ["You can pack that in right away." expostulates the Rhetorical Pedant "You know that no one likes a smartarse."] So here's the wargaming.

In the legendary etc. etc. we have been firmly fixed in the Central Europe of the mid-Eighteenth Century, which is fine by me. As much as I enjoy all the other periods and rules that we play, Horse & Musket using Classic Piquet floats my boat the most. Not that James' period specific set (somewhat ironically entitled "Easy, Peasy, Lemon Squeezy") remain terribly close to the original. One further rule changes has seen melee being possible from within 3" instead of only when in contact and incidentally has confused the hell out of James himself despite it all being his idea. It does seem inevitable that we shall see at least one further alteration in the immediate future. There is an obscure rule allowing some cavalry and grenadiers to issue a morale challenge under certain circumstances simply by virtue of being hench. This rule has been faithfully reproduced in each successive version of the rules despite never actually being used. However, back in the days when I could still read, it caught my eye. Several - mostly fruitless - uses later and one can see James itching to completely rewrite it.

The main scenario played has been Kolin, which could just be the least balanced ever written. Peter and I took the Austrians against James and Mark's Prussians and, as I said to my colleague afterwards, I've ever rolled so many terrible dice and yet won so easily; it was all over in a couple of hours. We gave them a chance to even things up and, with Mark notably upping his game second time round, they made more of a fist of it. Peter, despite changing his die roll of choice from 1 to 2, couldn't hit anything with musket or artillery fire and lost every cavalry melee. And yet, and yet, the Prussians ran out of morale chips and we won by a country mile once again.

The annexe at the Casa Epictetus has been cleared of all the stuff moved there après le déluge ["Stop it, right now"] and I have purchased my own hard copy of To The Strongest!. I intend to stay in Bohemia, but jump back three centuries or so.

Project required

I am in need of a painting project. I am in some ways reluctant to acknowledge this because since pitching my tent in Otley a couple of years ago I still haven't managed to get all my existing stuff onto the table. The Hussites in particular need an outing. However, having a certain amount of free time, and with the weather being truly appalling I could do with something to get my teeth into.

The last big project I was working on was of course the War of the Spanish Succession, but much of those completed units disappeared in all the disruption and I have no appetite to pick it up again. This is not to say that I haven't done any painting over the last two years, but it's been mainly aimed at filling out OOBs for games that I wanted to play:

• I added some light cavalry to my Wars of the Roses forces and painted up all the longbowmen in the plastic mountain. I could no doubt do with some more of the latter.
• In Napoleonics I added Imperial Guard to the French plus some Russian dragoons. An Austrian force would make sense, but options are strictly limited in 20mm plastic. I also have a pontoon kit that I was intending to use for the WSS; it would be a shame to see it go to waste.
• I added more Roman auxiliaries, including cavalry, artillery and archers; indeed it is to some extent the completion of these archers that prompts me to ask what next. On the other side I added cavalry and a chariot. In the absence of any better ideas I suspect chariots will top the list.
• I painted quite a lot of Roman civilians etc to expand the Romans in Britain version of Pony Wars. There's not much point in doing more - although I have a lot unpainted - until that gets played again, which in turn depends upon the acquisition of some more Hexon terrain.
• I have most recently had a focus on markers. I upgraded all my numbers, added more letters, made some generic disruption/OOC markers and am just completing some ammunition chits to replace the beads we've been using for To the Strongest!. I got the idea for the ammo counters from the Tin Soldiering On blog, the author which tells me that he got it from one of Donald Featherstone's books. That, needless to say, is good enough for me. However, I'm all markered out. 

 I suspect that the next games in the wargames annexe at Casa Epictetus will be to try out the new expansion to C&C Napoleonics, which, as far as I'm aware, hasn't arrived in the UK yet. I certainly don't need any more figures to play that, so a painting project doesn't have any time or other constraints; although cheapness would be preferable, not because I'm poor, but because I am mean. While I am thinking about it here's some Grateful Dead. I can't remember if I've already posted this, but if I have then so what.

Said, people worry I can't keep you satisfied

Jonathan Freitag commented on my last posting about Piquet. I thought I'd reply in the form of a full blog entry because a) more people will see it, b) it allows me to answer at greater length and c) it saves me having to think of anything else to post about. Win-win-win.

The first point to make is that everything he says is right, except perhaps when he implies that there is too much non-wargaming content on the blog. He obviously doesn't realise that if I lost the non-wargamers then I'd have fewer readers. ["Well," interjects the RP "in fact it is just possible that he might be able to work that one out for himself."] In particular your bloggist lives in constant fear of losing his lone female reader; indeed the thought of it sometimes keeps me awake at night.

Anyway, back to Piquet. As noted above, there's a lot in what Jonathan says. So much so that the current Piquet head honcho, Brent Oman (1) has developed a different, but clearly related, set of rules which addressed a lot of the shortcomings. The original version of these, suitable for horse and musket periods, was called "Field of Battle" and we always refer to this family of games as FoB (pronounced fob; saying F O B always makes me want to add "Scott" or "Virgil" on to the end). The major differences include equal initiative and variable movement distances, plus a series of tweaks to manoeuver, combat and morale. My advice to anyone wanting to try Piquet would be to start with these. Personally, I think that I prefer them to classic Piquet and interestingly the rules that James and Peter have written for the Punic Wars, the Crusades and the Italian Wars are all based on FoB (2), as will be my rules for Hussites should I ever actually do more than talk about it.

"Get on with it, man!"

So what of classic Piquet? Well James' set of big battle Seven Years War rules (provisionally entitled "If You Don't Want My Lemons Then Don't Shake My Tree") that we've been playing a lot recently are clearly based on the original master rules and have stripped out many - but not all - of the Ilkley Lads house rules that had accrued over the years. However they have at the same time added in one or two appropriate elements of FoB such as the ability to rally back stands. As previously mentioned on this blog we use dominoes rather than dice to determine initiative which ameliorates the danger of big disparities. However, it doesn't eliminate it. Peter, and to a lesser extent I, have played many, many games of Piquet. We understand and accept its vagaries and are prepared to put up with them because we think that overall the game is well worth it. But on Wednesday even we were completely cheesed off. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "Nothing is as obnoxious as other peoples' luck".

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that while I love playing Piquet, my firm recommendation to those who wish to try (or retry) them would be the newer games within the family (3) and/or be prepared to put in some effort fine tuning them to your understanding of the conflict you are gaming, rather than use the original set as written.

A chap quite definitely without a beard

(1) Brent liked the rules so much that he bought the company. The original author, Bob Jones, has gone on to write Zouave and Die Fighting, both of which I own, but have never played..

(2) I can't for the life of me remember whether their rules for Ancient Galleys or the Western Desert are based on FoB or classic Piquet. In the first instance it's because I haven't played them for so long - hint, hint. In the case of WW2 there really is no excuse as we did the Sidi Rezegh scenario about two dozen times in a row a couple of years ago. I can only assume that the whole episode was so traumatic that I have buried it deep in my subconcious.

(3) Classic Piquet requires the core rules plus a specific period supplement. The FoB type rules are self-contained. I've never played any of the other FoB rulesets such as the ancient version "Pulse of Battle" simply because James and Peter wrote their own version before it came out. For completeness, there are two other games published by Piquet. The first is "Command Piquet", which I liked, but which, it seems to me, requires too much thought to be given to setting up the terrain before one starts. The second is "Jump or Burn", a terrific set of WW1 dogfight rules written by James and which bears no relation whatsoever to any other game labelled as Piquet. We haven't played this for ages as James received an offer he couldn't refuse for all his aircraft and the ingenious stands to which they could be attached.

All this talk of WW1 aircraft and of lemons can only lead in one direction surely:

Pot44pouri

I have definitely moaned here before about Virgin East Coast, who are so much worse than the previous state-owned incumbents that one can only assume they are doing it as some sort of gratuitous nose-thumbing. As the service was late the other week I duly claimed my compensation and awaited a letter of excuse as to why I wasn't going to get any; you will recall that on the last occasion they refused it on the basis that there was nothing worth doing in Leeds even if one got there on time. This time the letter agrees that I am entitled to a 50% refund, acknowledges that I have a legal right to receive this in cash, but then states that they are going to pay me in travel vouchers anyway because it suits them better. Further proof of the contempt with which these people regard their customers (see posts passim on BT, EE, First Direct etc).

Your bloggist at the painting table

Anyway, on a different subject, the summer of love is over and a young man's thoughts turn to wargaming once again. We finally finished the mega seven years war battle last night (don't ask) and I found myself slightly embarrassed that I seem to have made no progress towards being able to get my Hussites on to the table. I therefore leaped out of bed this morning determined to crack on. Obviously that initially involved a number of cups of tea, answering emails and a potter round Otley to buy something for lunch. However, I can report that I have subsequently made massive strides.

The intention has always been to base a Hussite game on the set of rules written by James and Peter for the Crusades. Those were in turn based on Brent Oman's Field of Battle, which were derived from Bob Jones' Piquet. The Crusades rules are called Ager Sanguinis (Field of Blood) and I am proud to announce that after careful thought the new Hussite Wars rules will be called Cup of Blood.

Now, a lot of people might have paused there to take stock, before ploughing on further, but I am proud to say that I have also made twenty 'vexed' markers. I haven't actually decided whether 'vexed' status is staying or going in the new rules, but my new watchwords are 'action, action and action'. Action!

We will, we will....

Well, it's a been a disappointing week all round; indeed on first reflection the most exciting thing I could think of was that I had bought a wok for £1.50. However, further thought reminded me that there was the sweet soul music of the Solicitors (the capital letter being rather important in this case) plus some boardgaming at la Toison.

First up was 7 Wonders which I played for the first time with the full complement of seven people. It is a cleverly designed game in the sense that it doesn't really take much longer however many players one adds. That's all I have to say about it and I couldn't see why everyone says that the Tower of Babel expansion improves things so much. Mush!Mush! was as much fun as usual; we played for the first time with the buildings and they seemed to work well. Then I finished with a couple of card games: Family Business and Hanabi, in the latter of which we once again failed to organise the firework display.

Otley in the snow

The game chez moi was once again cancelled due to bad weather which gave me the usual chance to work out that I was short of the necessary figures. I don't actually have any Wars of the Roses cavalry and needing some for the scenario laid out for a run through of 'For, Lords, Tomorrow is a Busy Day' I have substituted some Imperial forces (as in Sigismund's crusade against the Hussites). However, their light cavalry are of the Cuman horse archer variety and don't work at all. I have therefore invested in three sets of RedBox Scurrers. I'm not so keen on the axe wielding figures as light cavalry, but the others will do nicely.

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new"

Tennyson wasn't necessarily suggesting to his readers that change was good although King Arthur's own opinion on the matter is somewhat ambiguous; you will recall him reflecting that "all my mind is clouded with a doubt". I however am up for it. So, having dealt with the base of my own personal Maslow's hierarchy (source of income, somewhere to live, sufficiency of doxies) it is time to turn my thoughts to achieving self-actualisation through wargaming.

The transporting of my collection into the new wargaming annexe has forced me to have a think about what on earth I'm going to do with all this stuff, with a subsidiary helping of 'what was I thinking?'. So the time has come to impersonate a proper wargaming blog and write a posting about my plans for the future.

New stuff: the only new painting is going to be War of the Spanish Succession, the period that having been tricked into I am nevertheless going to bloody well finish regardless. Rules will be Piquet, Maurice, Beneath the Lily Banners and/or Die Fighting. I own them all so they'll all get an outing at some point.

Steady as she goes: My Wars of the Roses morphing into Hussite Wars collection will basically stay as is, but the half-hearted attempt to also morph into the Fall of Constantinople will not be pursued. Rules will be Piquet Band of Brothers suitably amended to incorporate the latest thinking from Ilkley, wargaming epicentre of lower Wharfedale.

Different tack: I actually have a fairly large 1813 Napoleonic collection albeit without any Austrians. In fact until I re-looked at it I'd forgotten how much I'd painted; or how badly, but that's a different issue. However, the units are pretty small and don't lend themselves to a lot of rulesets. So, partly based on recent experiences with the ongoing Punic Wars campaign and partly on game reports on Conrad Kinch's excellent blog, I'm thinking of giving Napoleonic Command and Colours a go. In fact I'm seriously thinking of investing in some hex terrain to do it as written.

Resuscitated project: I have lots of Celts and not many Romans, all individually based and destined for a game based on either Patrols in the Sudan or Pony Wars or both. I'd like to give this a proper go; needs some close combat rules to graft on though.

Complete fantasy: Mexican revolution - one day.

Visually lacking

If there was one thing readers have been complaining about - which as it happens there isn't - it would be the focus on writing rather than pictures. Obviously there is my own portrait at the top; me looking suitably philosophical and stoical as befits one of the major figures of Stoic philosophy. But, that apparently is not enough.

Well, my answer to that is simple "Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly." as I first said many centuries ago. But, as the customer is always right, I show above, apropos of nothing in particular, a Hussite Wagenburg.