Lurking in the Loft

Every now and again, real life impinges on 'hobby life' : this week's real life event is the need for a de-clutter and re-organise at home. That required a bit of a review of what lurks in the loft - which is where real life and hobby life cross each other's paths.  I pulled out some quite interesting stuff, which will be spared from the de-cluttering. Such as this: 

Cry Havoc  from Standard Games, c. 1982.  Skirmishes in the 13th Century. Lovely graphics (I think Peter Dennis was involved), three quite large hex-based terrain maps (which could be used for other games/rules, I'm sure) and pretty simple rules - though I seem to remember the bowmen (firing twice each turn) tended to just shoot up all the other characters?   On BoardgameGeek, user HiTracey comments  Time waster for really bright little boys who have lived in a time warp since 1981.  Hmm, I wouldn't claim to be especially bright..

Of a similar vintage, but slightly more obscure, we have Raiders and Traders from The Chaosium, 1979

 

Quite unusual in that it is set not in Classical Greece but the Bronze Age. I seem to remember this got a few plays back in the day, and I love the map - again, surely could be used for other purposes, would make a nice campaign map. The rules may not be quite so elegant, though! 

Which is all well and good, but I do need to de-clutter after all, and the biggest challenge may be this: 

magazines sah - thousands of 'em!

 

I bought Wargames Illustrated from issue 1 in 1987, and managed to keep buying every issue up to early 2004 - I think I have 196 of them! Mostly in binders, as you see. Now they've been in the loft for 10 years, which is not ideal as they are very heavy - I have a slight worry they may come crashing down through the ceiling one day! I need to decide what to do with them - are they actually worth keeping? Nowadays I don't tend to keep hobby magazines, I just keep cuttings of any particularly interesting articles, but in my mind these have been  a sort of totemic 'resource' which I have held on to.  However, they do take a lot of space, and they do weigh a lot - are they worth it? I am going to try to go through them, to see just how much of their contents are still of interest. I am reasonably confident that there will be quite a lot of good stuff - to my mind Duncan MacFarlane did a great job in publishing articles that reflected and encouraged original  thinking about the hobby. (only recently I was describing an AWI game using Loose Files and American Scramble by Andy Callan, which were published in  WI's first issue).  I do suspect that by the early 2000s, things had shifted towards the domination of articles giving 'a scenario for XYZ rules',  but we'll see. This could be my coffee-break reading needs sorted for many months ( or even years!) into the future.  Just for good measure, by the way, I also have nearly all of Duncan's issues of Miniature Wargames - which I think is another 50-odd magazines! 

You may have noticed that considering this is a post about de-cluttering, I haven't actually got rid of anything yet... a good point.  I do really need to reduce the number of books in the house - at some time in recent years  ( probably related to my discovery of the delights of charity shops ) the ratio of books bought to books actually read has increased way beyond where it should be. So, time for a clear-out. I wonder if anyone is interested in any of these : 

Western Desert trio

and 1914-1918

and some 'Horse and Musket'

Specifically they are : 

Campaign Series :  Operation Compass 1940  and Tobruk 1941 by Jon Latimer 

                                Jena 1806  by David G. Chandler 

Battle Orders Series: Desert Rats ( British 8th Army, North Africa 1941-43 )  by Tim Moreman

                                British Expeditionary Force 1914-15 by Bruce Gudmundsson  SOLD 

Elite Series :         World War I Trench Warfare (1) and (2) by Dr. Stephen Bull SOLD

Men at Arms Series:   Louis XIV's Army by Rene Chartrand

How about £5 each including postage  ( £4 for Louis XIV, it's slimmer ) - UK only, I'm afraid, if overseas you are probably better off buying from a proper business. It may be a bit cheaper overall if you want more than one.   Leave a comment on this post with your email address, I won't publish it but will get in touch.  

Or if you are going to be at Salute on April 22nd,  £1 less  for 'cash in hand' and the chance to put a face to the name? 

That's enough for now, coffee time, now where are those old issues of Wargames Illustrated? Keep well, everyone.