It all started with a shortage of latex.....and went downhill from there.

 Last Saturday saw the first meeting of the T.W.A.T.S   for 2016 and I was in the chair. After a lot of umming and awing I decided on the AWI as the period for this game. Now my collection for this period is not exactly extensive but will suffice for a small to medium sized game- in 25mm of course or 28mm if you are under 40 or have 3 millimetre angst- Its all the same Dudes.
 Any how the weather was  pretty 'orrible so I decided on a re-fight of the Battle of Princeton,
 This was a smallish action in the AWII - large enough for my smallish collection to handle- with a few spare units left over..
 There were 3 battalions of British regulars against 2 brigades of Americans-  over half of the Americans being Militia of one sort or another- a good number of them rifle armed- which meant they could shoot - but being without bayonets at a disadvantage in a fight so the British plan was obvious- take the bayonet to 'em-
They do not like it up them ! (No neither would I).
 Present were your gentle Author Andrew the Tekkie , Floating Jeff(some of the time) Mechanical Shaun and new boy Brummie Paul  so a respectable turnout. Rules used were British Grenadier- the only local amendment being to lengthen rifle ranges a tad  so that they were one third longer than musket range which to me seemed a better proportion.
 So let .. er battle ... commence.
Right away it was obvious that the British had forsworn the direct approach- in other words the British fannied about. They did not even try to win the race for the farmhouse hill but allowed 1 American Brigade to take this position unfought whilst the second American Brigade made for Princeton. The 2 British Battalions covering that town skipped out of the way "in order to manoeuvre" and abandoned the Ravine, though to be fair  the second American Brigade was some distance off.

The British never really got going- perhaps the reason is obvious. 

 Mean while around the Farmhouse hill the Yankees were having fun picking off the British more or less at leisure only slightly daunted by the British Light infantry. The Large British battalion  bimbled about at the bottom of the hill and eventually decided to pick on the Militia battalion that was the American reserve. However to do this they took an enfilading volley from the much smaller American Continental unit on the farm house hill . This together with a volley from the Militia meant that- although they saw the militia off they were in no state to continue without some reforming as they had taken both casualties and disorder points.

The Brits could have reached the hill but didn't try.

Bimleing and more bimbleing 

 On the other side of Farmhouse hill... more bimbling- again the British taking enfilading fire this time from the Rifle armed troops on the hill - nothing serious really but the Brits simply did not get on with job .  Had they gone at the Yankees there would not have been enough survivors to take the news home but no... more Bimbling.

the inevitable result.

 the second American Brigade meantime sent its rifle armed companies into princeton to burn the supplies while the rest held the fencline for the inevitable British assault which never happened.. After Jeff left  to some personal stuff Andrew more or less packed it in.
As always Lunch provided by our hostess Jean was splendid and included Cake !
 Teachers report- Must Do Better.
 Next game- probably Moderns- more Andre the Tekkies thing...

Another Year another nadir?

Where does wargaming stop... and merely Gaming begin?

Iwas reading the latest issue of WSS the other day- not a bad issue but not one of the standout issues either- Main Topic - the Western desert- nice!
 Other bits not bad but the "game reviews"
 Oh dearie me- almost all the "games"( note the use of the term instead of rules)  were for limited fantasy or sci - Fi games.  The new Not 40k at all in any form A,N, Other sci-fi skirmish game  Antares got a sycophantic review- no surprise there but I worry about any adult who starts an article "I love 40k"  makes you wonder if he's past puberty yet?.
 However that was not the worst even if I include more bloody Zombies- which I wouldn't if I had a choice. No this months nadir was wait for it Tail Feathers-and aerial game with sparrow Raven Mice and rats. Give me strength! Now this game had a "suitable for 9 years upward" tag so its a kiddies game . Nothing wrong with that but should it be reviewed in a Wargames mag- rather than a general games mag such as Tabletop Gaming- which is surely where this game belongs. Or are the WSS going along with the current trend for infantilisation ?

Mafia magazine?

Unusually I received a copy of Wargames Illustrated in the post the other day. Now I don't advertise in this and hadn't seen a copy for over a year. Now its no longer the FOW hose magazine  but its still in thrall to a certain extent to the Warlord- Perry axis and the rest of the Nottingham Mafia. Now this does not automatically make it a bad magazine- you just have to be aware that it has an axe to grind. Indeed as far as articles went it wasn't bad at all once you filtered out the subliminal advertising so ignoring the review of Warlords big AWI  plastikrap boxed set- glowing as you'd expect and the article on tank modelling- using a Warlord model naturally  then there was actually quite a bit of reading though personally I still find the shazam - kapow design style of the mag a bit  too "in yer face pal !" for my taste . The pages sometimes just too busy and the concentration on the one true size(28mm of course)  But on the whole I've seen a lot worse and again overall the mag was a bit better than the last time I looked....

Flawed- perhaps but interesting.

By Gum it's been a week for magazines. This morning MW dropped on the mat so  to complete the trilogy here we go.
  Don't be put off by the front cover which is pretty nauseating orcs and thingies equally  don't be put off by the 7 pages of club directory- I find that according to this document there is only 1 club in County Durham whereas I know of at least 2 others not including the T.W,A,T,S.a and had never heard of the one that IS listed- C'est la Guerre!
The main article is a discussion about Airfix- specifically their new WW2 skirmish game which actually looks as if it has some nice ideas in it. It is card driven and comes out in May- and should be a good introduction to WW2 if that is your thing. The tone of the discussion was a bit childish in parts - all about the games you played as a kid- and trying to re-create them for your kids - why ? Kids do their own thing man. What is this obsession with children.....
However moving swiftly on Dan Mersy  gave us the benefit of his thought on Dragon Rampant- his low level fantasy version of Lion Rmapant- now funnily enough if I was going to do Fantasy this is the way I'd go  free-form not tied to any  silly "universe" and with jokes in. Indeed I'm almost tempted to re-start my Dwarfs- in 7 man units of course....
An article on the Alamo siege  I'll not pass comment upon - mostly because I'd have to check up my Alamo references of which I've more than a few- Back in the day Peter Panzeri fought the Alamo assualt at 1 to 1 using our Alamo range in 28mm- at the Derby Worlds and we do ranges for the Texas War of independence in 10mm 15mm 28mm and 40mm.
There are also a couple of Dark Ages scenarios for the hard of thinking- not bad of themselves  but a bit light on actual info- but being the Dark ages there may not be any ....


So Dudes you pays your money and takes your pick. I just wish more of the offerings were not aimed at 10 year olds is all.

16 tons and whaddya get- another year Older ...

I suppose nobody remembers Tennessee Earnie Ford these days .........
 Unfortunately I did.. now I can't get the bloody tune out of my head ....

So 2015 is gone - done and dusted over, finito benito !
 What next?
 2016  of course
 So what's appearing ?
 Speaking from an OGUK perspective first  I'll be adding 2 new aircraft to the range in the next few days- an F-86 Sabre  Flown by lots of different air-forces from the 50s to the early 70s with combat service in Korea and Pakistan. Also I'll have the Mig 15  which also saw extensive service in Korea and yes a Mig-17 is on the cards for later in the year.
 In terms of  figure models I have a few more 40mm Wars of the Roses to add to the range- these have been a while coming  but should appear by the end of this month. There are 4 more armoured Men-at -Arms and 2 more Longbowmen. These will be available in packs of 2 for a fiver a pack. So no more expensive than the more outrageous 28mm these days and cheaper than a good few.
 I'll also be re-releasing the currently unavailable ex-Jacdaw 40mm Thirty Year War  miniatures. These will be added to the Romanoff listing for the same period. This will mean that the whole range - Foot, Cuirassiers  Horse and gun and crew  will be available again.

 ...and from across the Pond??
I know Blue Moon have bundles of new 15mm planned- pictures of the Dacians have appeared on the Old Glory News Desk Imperial Romans and possibly Sarmations are about the place as well. Can't be more specific than that currently as Blue Moon tend to time new releases to coincide with the 3 big US shows Cold Wars, Historicon and Fall- in - which appear in that order through the year. There are some new Napoleonics due- Hopefully I'll get them with my next shipment- due before York show  Swedish Hussars , Bavarian Chevau- leger and the first of the Duchy of Warsaw range- check out the Old Glory Newsdesk for more info .

...As for Myself

Well no NEW  projects but continuations of those I'm already doing as the fancy takes me. More "Shinyloo" obviously, lots more ECW- the target is to get representative units for all the main combatant armies as well as having larger forces  in general. So maybe I'll reach 300 finished  royalist cav this year plus all the rest and possibly actually get the scots onto the table

Some of my 60 or so finished Covenanter- just need to get the flags on them..

Some more Moderns in 15mm definitely. Yet currently I'm painting some Stadden AWI for our next game. We'll be using "British Grenadier" so I suppose I should read them
 Gawd I hate reading rules .......

I may also get a few more NW Frontier items finished.

No the main thrust will be ECW - but as ever there will be diversions into other areas.
 Blog posts- well the idea will be to continue to think about what we do and why  rather than becoming simply drones for the GDD's
 the Resistance will live on!