Oh I do Like to be beside the seaside... and other thoughts.

So Gentle reade here we are a scant 48 hours before we leave for War Torn is (possibly not) sunny Scarborough wondering what sort of weekend it will turn out to be. Last year's show was small but still a laugh. This year promises to be much bigger with some large Demo games ansd several competitons. Scarborough is a pleasant Victorian seaside town- especially if you avoid the Kiss me quck hats and the candy floss. Hopefully this year I'll have chosen a better hotel. The Grand- last year is a fine building - though the food could be better- or atb least edible- but the worst thing about the grand was the average age of the rest of the clientele-about 157- the absolute nadir - amongst several low points was the noise of 200 septagenarians coach travellers masticating gummily at their porrige for breakfast. Gentle reader I fairly fled the scene- tripping over sundry Zimmer frames as modbility scooters as I fled. There but for the Grace of God !! However this year we are at a different hotel so all should be well. Rest assured that I shall in the fullness tell all!! The other night I was looking out some info I needed in old copies of Miniature Wargames- these early issues from the 1980s. Now if there ever was a "Golden Age" for me this was probably it. The hobby has grown past its infancy - there are a good selection of figure ranges and the writers are intelligent and don't treat theri readers as if they are 12 . Articles have information in them- though there are still turkeys!1 and eye candy is not the raison D'etre of the publication. There is an assumption that you dear reader can actually read and write yourself. Compare with todays magazines WI is all shazam Kapow eye candy for the hard of thinking. Battlegames still thinks its 1972- well the 1st 13 issues do which are the only ones I have - it may have changed since- Miniature Wargames is the only fully rounded magazine we have but it has of course changed as the hobby has changed. My question here is the chicken and egg one. Did Wargmaers become thicker so the mags responded to demand or did the magazines dumb down. Answers on the back of a ten pound note to ...

Getting my choppers out!

I have to say I'm a bit please with myself. Not in any major way but there I was taking some pics for various articles- as you do - well as I do and amonst several not bad sort of pics was this little cracker. What it depicts is a flight of 4 AlouetteIII helicopters in Rhodesian service flying over the bush sometime around 1975. To be precise there are 3 "G-cars" and one "K-car". The G-catrs have the twin .30 cal and the K-car a 20mm cannon. These are 1/100th scale- that 15mm for chaps who don't do scale- models from our "Lil'flyin choppers" range of post WW2 aircraft. Made by Paul Cotton- who also painted 'em they serve to move about my as yet unpainted Fireforce.

Stuff that gives you the right hump!!

When it comes to wargaming I'm a fiarly fastidious chap and as I walk about at shows or view the blogs/ read the magazine I still find that there are things that give me the right Hump. Mostly these are sins of ommission - worse when I commit 'em myself than when I see them on other tables or collections No1 Shyte basing!. This term covers a multitude of sins. Most obvious are those blokes who don't paint the bloody edges. Surely if you terrain your bases or even simply paint them one colour you paint the edges too- why leave them staring white- if you use mounting board- or plastic black if you use those nasty plastic bases? Surely you paint the edges to blend in - ish- with the table surface andor the rest of the base? Why have the edges sticking out like a politician at a Truth convention- (I was going to say like a Vicar in a knocking shop but you have to be so PC these days). It just looks odd and unfinished- ewven when the bases have been deliberately edged black. An off shoot of this is "Gloop dribble" - that of course is when your terrainig material dribbles over the edge of the base. Run around the edge of the stand with a blade too scrape the excess off or you'll get knobbly bits- even "whinnits" or possibly "klingons" - and yes its the base I'm talking about- Personal hygene I leave to each of you !! No2 Mixed basing - we've all seen this. Armies on the table where the basing for one side isn't the same- some units stick out like a sore thumb- choose you own similie this time. A few units like this on any given game can spoil the whole visual effect. No3 Paper Flags Now paper flags are fine thing I use them a fair bit but the number of times I've seen them both at shows and in the pages of magazines looking like supermarket price tags is amazing . Flags do not look like this . Animate the things even just a little bit but most of all PAINT THE BLOODY EDGES MAN!! The white edges on a colured flag reallly do get noticed. I've missed it enough times myself only to mutter and curse later on. So after tha little rantette- what gives you- Gentle reader- the right Hump ??