The urge to do something ... a little different.

It has been a good while since my last post . This is simply because real life keeps getting in the way. I've had a very busy work period sorting out what I can do about the nosedive of the Pound and watching while all my costs go up between 10 and 20% simply due to the continual stupidity and prevarication of our cretinous excuse for a Government. This will not of course mean a 20% price rise- perish the thought! but as I noted earlier it will mean rises of between 5 and 10% on many items - but by no means all. As I have said before I hate putting my prices up . Even so it has been 5 years or more since some of these prices rose. Doesn't mean I like it though!
 So we will keep on going keeping price rises to a minimum.
 Also on a much much brighter note the next Blue Moon release in 15/18mm is the start of a massive ECW range. I should have the first packs of Foot with my next shipment which is due around the end of this month or perhaps- hopefully- a little sooner.

However on the nicer things ....

There is no doubt in my mind that wargaming has its boring bits. Different blokes of course find different bits boring. My own "Boring List" has changed more than once over the years. There is no doubt that my wargaming tastes have changed also. I have eschewed Fantasy since the early 90s Yet my  re-awakened interest in Modern Warfare has also - up to a point- re-wakened a desire to have a bash at a bit of "Hard SF" or more likely in our group "Silly Sci -Fi - because of the awful jokes. Hence the recent digging out of "69th M.I.L.F." Now all I have to do is find the box which has Denzil Washington Snipes and his Freedom Fighters of the Armed Revolutionary Socialist Executive not forgetting Fidel  Ernesto Gevara Smith with all his assorted thugs and Henchpersons. It may even be getting close to the time for a little seasonal silliness.
 One of the  minor reasons I started the "shinyloo" project was simply because it was very different from the other stuff I was doing at the time.
 Those wargamers who play the same game week in week out- be it DBA , Lion Rampant, Bolt Action or Star Wars  or whatever must simply have a much higher boredom threshold than I .
 Maybe they are of that type who perceives dice rolling as an intellectual exercise- or these days the idea seems to be to pull dice out of an embroidered little handbag, This apparently is a "game mechanism" .

 I now have a horrible image in my tortured mind of Lady Bracknell  observing tartly "A Games Mechanism!" As she catches Ernest fiddling with his bag !

(Apparently there are now Pokemon embroidered  douche- sorry dice- bags- can this
bloody hobby get any more childish and infantile- probably - Grow up for ***** sake ! ) There is even a bloke claiming that he will be carrying  "an ever increasing range of embroidered bags" !!!!(but probably not by Biba,  Fendi or Stella MacCartney I suspect!) I'd laugh  but I might burst into tears instead !


Mind you back in the day it was- almost WRG or nothing so not much changes really - except.... well except matters of taste. The fashion- started by DBA for tiny tables (or "boards" as they are now called) with tiny numbers of troops for tiny short duration limited scope games as if that is now the norm really gives me the right hump. The ferocious narrowing of the hobby  down to the trivial is not to my taste at all .
 Even the idea of playing every week now palls. There was a time I did so - even as recently as the noughties meeting were on a Thursday evening. However limited time meant that only small games could be staged usually on quite small tables and frankly it all got very samey and rather wearing.(Though the vibrating Guinness was rather drinkable).
 Not until we moved to our current location  in the pub and Saturday meetings did things perk up and differing varieties and styles of wargame were possible.. A larger table space and a few additional members as well as more time made for more variety. even though the actual number of meetings had dropped to around 1 a month or less. So though we were spending a lot LESS time overall playing the Quality of the games i s far far superior.
 This of course is entirely at variance with today's fashion for instant  gratification and speed  but with the  intellectual content of a dead rubber plant BUT repeating yourself more frequently ,on a smaller table - possibly in different hats !  Just like our woeful collection of political leaders then ....

So our watchwords are quality and variety- now we may not always reach those standards but that is what we aim for.
 So Donnington show last weekend had plenty of quality and a good few little bags.......
 There were some fine looking games-
 Teh "Like a Stonewall" groups Hastings was as usual a fine game. This bunch know their stuffand as usual put on a fine display.
Othe games that took my notice included the Siege of Athlone- as featured in WI a couple of issues back- again a good looker with some tasty modelling.
 However my personal favourite this year was Dave Brooks and his mates with their beutiful 30 years War game  I even bagged a couple of pictures.

Dave Brook's game at the recent Donnington show. Those flags are mostly hand painted. 

Another shot of Dave's game. Guns are Old Glory crew various makers. 

 Ilike the way Dave mixes makers in his armies. There were all sorts on the table. Old Glory. Foundry. Essex and some lovely figures by a Czech maker called Emil Horky  which I must get my hands on some examples of /
 On the table all mixed in a treat- non of this sizeist angst for Dave !!

So once again Donnington went some way to restoring my faith in the wider wargaming community that faith which is so often tried when scanning the pages of some of the magazines some of the time. I really really do not get this apparently constant urge to be childish which is now soobvious within some areas of our hobby.