'Not a Child in the House Washed..' A January Miscellany

Late January already? And not a child in the house washed, as an old friend from Roscommon would say.. Where did January go?  ( I suspect I may have said 'where did December go? in a post last month, too - let's not make a habit of this! ).  There's been quite a lot of  real life, and not a lot of hobby activity since Xmas - 'time and space, dear boy'.  But there's always something to think about and get on with, or think about getting on with,  and no harm in discussing some of that here. 

This raises an interesting question - does this blog simply report hobby progress, or does it drive hobby activity?  Which is a subject I spent some time thinking about, having taken part in a really interesting discussion on Jon Freitag's  Palouse Wargaming Journal  about blogging and commenting, which in turn had been triggered by a thought-provoking post on Norm Smith's Commanders blog ( 'Thinking aloud and a reduction in output', 14th Jan ). I thoroughly recommend all hobby bloggers or potential hobby bloggers to have a look at those posts - I suspect many readers of this blog will have already done so!   I think this current blog post is a case in point; I admit I am blatantly using the 'need' to put something on the blog as a spur to get on with some actual hobby activity, as well as simply showing the wargaming world that I'm still here..  

There has been a (very) little progress. I have finally picked up my paintbrushes again, and made a start on the next batch of 6mm 'Risorgimento'  figures for Italy, 1859 : working on the Austrian Line Infantry of their 2nd Division (2 brigades) and the remainder of  2nd Brigade of 1st Division.  That's a  total of 10 battalions, 240 figures - turns out I can splosh pale blue paint onto trousers, and white onto jackets,  at a rate of about 90 mins each colour for all 240! Next session, black paint  for the shakos. Here's a 'work in progress' picture 

 I think this gives a good idea of the simplicity of the Commission Figurines MDF figures, which suits me very well - there are simply no buttons to try to paint, let alone count, so these chaps will get a very simple jacket/trousers/shako/backpack/musket/flesh paint job, which will do just fine on the gaming table. Bases and flags tend to play a large part at this scale, too. 

At a larger scale, there are of course my vintage 25mm Minifugs  Seven Years War / AWI collection, acquired in the summer, which I've been trying to simply sort out and put in decent boxes. That's going fairly well, we are up to six A4 box files in some sort of logical order : 

 Here are some examples: 

9 units of French 7YW infantry

 

United States, Native Americans and a few British for AWI

 

Russian contingent

 

and Prussians..

 I've also acquired some A4 Magentic Paper and Ferro Sheets, which should allow me to store them more securely in the boxes.  Thinking around this, I suppose I am eventually going to have to go for a wholesale re-basing exercise on these. I had hoped to keep the vintage bases, but some of them are rather heavily and unsubly textured, some are on non-magnetic aluminium bases, and several different base sizes are in evidence. I think that coming up with a simple, standard-sized, plain old-school basing system, and applying it to all the models, should go a long way to improving the overall look of the collection. But of course, that's going to be a large job! 

Aside from 'physical' stuff like painting and sorting figures, there is the 'mental' stuff  - which recently has been  largely confined to reading.  I am a bit of a magazines obsessive ( just as print magazines are probably withering on the vine, of course! ), there's always a pile to be worked through. I must put in a plug for a couple of recent ones: 

 

For anyone interested in 19th Century European military history, you really should be getting The Foreign Correspondent from The Continental Wars Society. Four issues per year, just 20 pages but it's all good stuff, and a subscription is £10 per year  ( only £6 for PDF version ) - a bargain! This current issue includes articles on : 

•     Lieutenant Colenol Litzelhofen and the Battle of Solferino
•     The Cyclist Service in the French Army, c. 1900
•     The Bavarian 'Feldl' machine gun, 1870 
•     The Battle of Le Bourget, 1870 (which will be the society's game at 'Salute' in April) 
•     Polish Scythe Men, 1830
•     The Army of Liechtenstein in the 19th Century 
•     The Russian capture of Khiva, 1873 
•     Illustrations of Belgian uniforms, 1830/31 

Mostly short pieces, but all interesting stuff! 

I do rather like the 'think-piece' columns in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine -  in the recent  issue no. 138,  Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies fame discussed Wargames Shows and how they might move forward, and  Ilan Mitchell-Smith ( is this really the actor from 1983 movie Wierd Science? ) discussed Arthurian wargaming in 'Taking Arthur Literally' - his idea being not to try to game 5th-Century Romano-British conflicts, but to game the later medieval literary versions - 'we can wargame not who Arthur was, but who the late-medieval audience of Arthur imagined him to be'.  I'm not about to start buying models of 13th-Century knights, but it's an interesting thought. 

There's also  another  good article using literature to inspire gaming - 'Going Solo Over Chalkis' by Mark Backhouse takes episodes from Roald Dahl's wartime memoir Going Solo, about his experience flying Hurricanes in Greece, 1941, and makes them into game scenarios. Of course there are many memoirs by fighter pilots, and thus there must be many possible game scenarios waiting to be created.. 

Easily the best 'opinion piece' I've seen recently was in WSS Issue 137 ( 'Rearguard Actions and Fighting Retreats' theme ),  this was by Keith Flint and entitled 'Let's Escape'.  Keith starts with the oft-quoted idea that  a hobby such as wargaming is an 'escape' from your real life, and expands into the nature of hobbies and their benefits, and some possible drawbacks. He covers a lot of ground in two pages - one line that stuck in my mind being 'What's so terrible about your life that you need to escape from it?'.   This very much  ties into the discussion that Norm and Jon started, too - so thanks to Keith, too, for a really stimulating piece. This picture probably won't let you read the article - maybe go and buy the magazine!  

 

And then by pure coincidence, just as I was thinking about his article, yesterday in an Oxfam Bookshop I found Keith Flint's book 'Airborne Armour' -  so buying it seemed a no-brainer!  Not quite my specialist area, but I'm sure it will be interesting - perhaps a fictional airborne armoured landing in Italy may follow someday? 

 And finally, another 'ooh shiny' piece of shopping - sometimes just buying something will scratch the hobby itch, when there's not time for more activity - I was in central Londond, dropped in at 'Orc's Nest' shop,  and came away with this: 

 

Well, one day my Ancient Macedonians, Persians and Indians are bound to expand beyond DBA and Dominion of the Spear, surely?  A semi-impulse purchase ( and I already have Neil Thomas' ancients book, and and Three Ages of Rome, oops ) , but AdlG seem well-liked, and will at the very least be an interesting read - a large chunk of the book is devoted to mulitfarious army lists, which may  well be useful. 

That about sums up what little I've been up to in January - a bit more effort clearly required in February! (must keep Freiburg 1644 in mind..)   I am in the mood to devote some time to my hobby, and there's the Cavalier show next month to look forward too, and hopefully take inspiration from. I think I'd better press on with painting those  Risorgimento armies, for a start, and try to show some progress next time. Until then, keep well (and warm and dry), everyone. 

Fnurban #28 Anarchy in Tottenham, 1909

Although my home is in Suffolk,  I am fortunate to get to spend some time in The Great Wen - specifically in the North-Eastern part of London. So I was  able to join a local guided walk yesterday,  on the 115th anniversary of the event known as 'The Tottenham Outrage'.  On 23rd January 1909, a pair of Jewish Latvian  radicals (labelled as 'Anarchists' by the media at the time) named Paul Hefeld and Jacob Lepidus staged an armed robbery in Tottenham, stealing the weekly wages (about £80) of Schnurmann's India Rubber factory (where Hefeld had been briefly employed), just off the Tottenham High Road.  It so happened that the factory was also right opposite the Tottenham Police Station - hence the alarm was very quickly raised, and the robbers pursued.  A chase ensued, which lasted at least a couple of hours and covered about 6 miles, and which caused the deaths of four people, including both of the robbers, a Police Constable and a child, and the wounding or injury of at least 20 other people including seven policemen. 

Our walk followed (most of) the route of the chase, through part of Tottenham, onto the nearby marshes, and on towards Highams Park and Hale End, pausing at various points to mark the significant events along the way. First, the site of the actual robbery, at the gates of Schnurmann's factory, where the company car with chauffeur and a young wages clerk were set upon by the robbers. 

Site of the robbery...now a car park

 

... and the Police Station (centre left), right opposite!

It seems the robbers made off with the heavy bag of money, and were also carrying quite a lot of ammunition - it is reported that over the course of the chase they fired over 400 shots at their pursuers!  The factory owner and his staff apparently gave chase in their car, but at some point a bullet hit its radiator, immobilising it.  Police from the station of course joined the chase, but only after having to smash open their weapons cabinet, because no-one could find the key!  That was just the first incident in a series which seem to give the whole affair a semi-comical Keystone Cops aspect - I found myself picturing events like the chase sequence from one of their silent movie capers, complete with gunsmoke as weapons are wildly discharged.  But of course, the gunfire was all too real, and had tragic consequences.  

The first of those consequences happened by St Mary's church in Mitchley Road, N17: 

The first fatality - a 10-year-old child

Ten-year-old Ralph Joscelyne was a baker's delivery boy, caught in the crossfire and killed. The killers kept running towards Tottenham Marshes,  but  PC William Tyler took a shortcut and confronted them at the site of a refuse incinerator - he was also shot, and subsequently died.  The refuse facility site is currently being re-developed, but its original perimeter wall still bounds the road - for now, at least.

Site of PC Tyler's fatal wounding 

 

and memorial plaque on Tottenham Police Station

 

The killers reached the edge of the built-up area ( really the edge of London at the time ) and crossed the railway tracks via the rather wonderfully-named Carbuncle Passage (which follows the Carbuncle Stream, which even today is well-named, I feel) 

possibly the best street name in London..

 Having crossed the railway, the scene changed to the open spaces of Tottenham Marshes - still undeveloped today, 

onto the Marshes..

 

At one point on the marshes, the pursuit ran across the Chalk Footbridge - at this point, one PC Nicod got close enough to take aim with his Police issue Webley revolver, which misfired. The robbers returned fire (they carried more advanced weapons, Hefeld a .32 Browning automatic pistol,  Lepidus a 6.5mm Bergmann) and wounded Nicod  in the calf and thigh. 

Chalk Footbridge - where PC Nicod was wounded

We followed the course of the chase along the River Lea Navigation and around the perimeter of the Banbury Reservoir, but skipped (access not being easy, plus we needed a lunchbreak - the cafe of Sainsbury's Low Hall branch proved convenient)  possibly the most comedic part of the chase.  In 1909 Helfeld and Lepidus commandeered a No. 9 Tram on the Chingford Road,  forcing the conductor to drive it - pursued by a policemen in a commandeered pony and trap, until the unfortunate pony was shot down, and another tram full of police oficers! The fugitives then transferred to a horse-drawn milk cart, which they turned over, then hijacked a grocer's cart, but could not release the brakes!  Finally they abandoned that and continued on foot, along the River Ching,  but ended up cornered in a dead end by a railway bridge.  Lepidus climbed a fence to escape but Helfeld could not, and shot himself as the Police closed in - he died weeks later in hospital.

River Ching railway bridge - end of the line  for one fugitive

 

Jacob Lepidus  continued running, and holed up in a cottage next to the Royal Oak pub, where he was soon surrounded. After some further slapstick moments ( he may have tried to hide in the chimney(!),  and a policeman climbing a ladder had to rapidly descend when fired on ), finally the officers broke into the house and Lepidus died in an exchange of fire - it later transpired that he had taken his own life as the police broke into the room -  and so ended the chase.  The cottage is long gone, but the pub remains ( it had been rebuilt only in 1906 but is now probably the oldest building nearby ) and has a signboard with a decent potted history of the event. 

Royal Oak pub - the cottage was next door

  

 

The pub's information board

It was a drear January day, of course, and raining at the start, the weather forecast had not been good  (in between 'named' storms), but it dried and brightened up later, so the walking was OK, admittedly not through the most picturesque parts of NE London! But it was really very interesting to follow the route of the chase and try to picture  how events had unfolded in 1909.  

Various discussion points came up - especially the motivation of the attackers.  It seemed to us present that the money was perhaps not really the crux of the matter - why stage a robbery next to a police station, robbing people who would recognise you?  And carrying hundreds of rounds of ammunition, which must have been very heavy, on top of the money bag?   It seems quite possible that the aim was not to fund their political activities but perhaps to simply provoke a confrontation and draw attention to their cause - that of Jewish communities suffering Pogroms in their homelands under the  Czarist Russian regime.  They clearly were prepared to use extreme violence and did not value their own lives - does this reflect the sort of nihilistic/suicidal attitude that we have seen more recently in various actions by Al Queda/ISIS and other groups?   It seems the money bag was never recovered - did it end up in the cottage chimney, or in the river or marsh? One rumour was apparently that the grocer whose cart had been hijacked soon afterwards moved to rural Essex and opened his own shop  - had he applied the rule of 'finders keepers'?

Another point was the 'public participation' aspect  - it seems that many members of the public were willing to 'have a go' as the chase continued. From the very start, passers-by tried to intervene ( And several were shot, for their pains), one story says that a housewife threw potatoes at the fugitives! Also an 'eye-opener' was the number of members of the public who were able to produce a selection of weapons to join in the gunfights - it seems a fair number of residents had shotguns handy, and perhaps some local ex-army veterans ( with the Boer War only a few years in  the past ) may have had 'souvenir' weapons to hand. As the chase progressed onto the Marshes, a couple of gents who had been out hunting ducks were persuaded by the police to assist, and at least one of the robbers was wounded by shotgun pellets.  We worry about the level of gun and knife crimes in certain areas of London today ( hmm...including  Tottenham, perhaps? ) - but perhaps it wasn't so very different 115 years ago? It became a sort of running joke as our excellent walk leader stopped at various points to describe the events of the chase, and almost inevitably added to the list of 'joe public' appearing with various weaponry at every point! 

There is a good account of the event on Wikipedia :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Outrage   - well worth reading if this has interested you. But my memory was also  'nudged' by the story - I have been dimly aware of the events described for many years, and I realised that this was because I had read about it in a wargames magazine article! A little light internet searching established that this was 'Anarchy in the UK'  by Mike Bell, which had appeared in Duncan MacFarlane's Wargames World (annual  supplement to Wargames Illustrated )    number 1,  as far back as 1988!  It's even possible to download a pdf version of the magazine - free from the nice people at Wargames Illustrated using this link  https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wargames-World-1.pdf

Perhaps even more interesting, Mike Bell's piece is actually a game, allowing us to wargame the events of January 1909, including a printable game board and pieces.  It's a gridded 'chase' game, appropriately enough, and as various squares are landed on or passed, events can be triggered and pursuers activated - reading through the details for each significant square in effect gives you the narrative of the real-life chase. It was  rather clever, I thought!  Does anyone out there remember this piece, and if so, has anyone actually played the game?    It reads pretty well, I suspect it could make an interesting game - now if you had suitable Edwardian period figures and vehicles in 28mm/40mm/54mm (anyone got a model tram?!) and say, a 6ft by 5ft table, the board could be modelled in 6-inch squares...  Could be almost 'local interest' if the SELWG show remains at its venue in Edmonton... Just a thought!!

All in all, a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable day, even if a tad cold and damp,  and thanks are due to the Leyton and Leytonstone Historical Society for organising the walk, and on the anniversary too! 

I hope this has been interesting, I really enjoyed the day and was inspired to post it  here having read several excellent 'local walk'  reports on Mr. Nundanket's  Horse and Musket Gaming blog - thanks for the idea, Chris!  

I hope to do some actual gaming, painting etc soon, honest folks! Hopefully more of that in the next post, until then keep well, everyone.

   

Fnurban #26 : Keeping Up the Tradition

Yesterday was the last day of a (rather damp)  holiday in Shropshire. On the way home we stopped in to have a look around Leominster, Herefordshire, which turned out to have quite a concentration of antiques and bric-a-brac shops. You never know what you might find - and I struck fairly lucky, I think. One of the shops included a bookstall, with a decent 'military' section, and amongst the contents I found four issues of 'Tradition' magazine.  I've never seen this publication 'in real life', and they were not expensive, so I bought them. They are as follows: 

Issue No. 10

Number 47

Number 63

and number 72

They are ( slightly frustratingly ) not dated, but from a little research it seems that publication began in 1964, and 6 issues per year were produced.  Number 10 has an article by veteran wargamer Philip O. Stearns, reporting on the ( clearly recent ) Waterloo Convention, London 1965, so that seems to tie in OK.  Number 47 has an article on an auction of Lead Toy Soldiers,  which refers to Britain's recent General Election Contest  being on the same day, 18th June, which must be 1970 ( Indeed the article ends by saying the next such auction will be on 10th December 1970, so that nails it down ).  Assuming they kept to six per year, I assume that number 63 appeared  in about  Spring 1973,  and number 72 in late 1974.  

 

example layout - from issue 10

The focus is very much on uniforms - what I tend to call 'button-counting', which I admit I am not deeply interested in, but it's still a pleasure to leaf through these vintage magazines and savour the atmosphere of times long gone. The editor is the splendidly-titled Lt-Col J.B.R. Nicholson, and the general manager John Tunstill  (who also published 'Miniature Warfare', I think, around the same time). Contributors include Brigadier Peter Young ( with a snippets column called 'Random Shots' ), Colonel H.C.B. Rogers (on Mercenary Soldiers )  and Philip Haythornthwaite ( The London and Westminster Light Horse Volunteers 1779-1829 ).  There are lovely full-page colour plates in the centre pages,  a few rather discreet advertisements mostly for stockists of Norman Newton or Stadden fgures, and a nice colour ad on each  back cover for the same figures, including a lovely set of 54mm Stadden medieval knights.

 

All available, of course, from Tradition Ltd at their fabled 188 Piccadilly address. I think I have a dim memory of passing their shop in the 80s/90s, though they may have moved around the corner to Shepherd Market by then, and I was more interested in finding my way to the Curzon Mayfair cinema for the latest Eric Rohmer, so sadly, I did not venture inside.

The earliest issue also has a nice bonus - a sample colour print, advertising a volume of 20 such plates depicting 'Infantry Units of the British Army 1660-1790' by one P.H. Smitherman, available by mail order for the princely sum of 75 shillings ( I make that £3.75 - remember this is in 1965 ). Here he is : 

If this is a sample of the plates listed in the description of the book, then I think he is a Grenadier Officer of 1st Guards, 1688 - the clue being  the 'JR' royal monogram, as this is the only one in the list dating from James II's reign.  It's really pleasing that this loose slip of  heavy-grade  paper  has remained  all these years between the pages of the magazine - I get quite  annoyed at advertising  'inserts' in magazines these days, but this is a cut above. I wonder how the book sold? ( it looks like you can buy second-hand copies on Amazon for £25, and this image is on the front cover )

Note the prices of the magazines  -  Number 10 cost 10 shillings and sixpence ( for younger and non-UK readers, that is  52.5p  or about £0.52 ), but by number 47 the price had risen to a serious 17 and six ( 87.5p ), and following decimalization , the two later editions were offered for 90p.  I am impressed by how 'reassuringly expensive' these were - I looked around the web for 'prices adjusted for inflation' and found  a multiple of about 15.5  from 1973 to now.   So that 90p issue of Tradition 50 years ago  would be the equivalent of about £14 now ( current wargame magazines are priced at around £6 per issue) - quite pricey!. Fairly obviously this was well outside my childhood pocket-money price range, even though  I may have been  aware of  its existence thanks to mentions in books by the likes of Featherstone, Grant and Wise.  My early issues of Miniature Wargames, from about ten years later  (hence after the really  big inflation surges of the late 1970s)  cost only 75p. 

All in all, a nice piece of serendipity,  I am very glad to have come across these and will enjoy browsing through them. I should point out that Tradition of London Limited seems to be still going in online shop form, and will even sell you copies of the magazine - for consderably more than I paid! 

Now back from holiday, time to get on with painting and gaming - next time, a rumination on the role (and the roll) of the dice. And a bunch of shows coming up soon! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

Partizan - yes, I was there too..

..and you know what they said? Well, some of it was true...  Especially the part about it being a really good show -  with loads of great games and a good turnout of traders, in a decent venue with good facilities. All in all, a really good day out. 

I had never been to any 'Partizan' show before, and it was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go along, but I had the day free and decided the journey should be OK. It turned out to be just over 2 hours by car, so not too bad.  I didn't rush it, arriving at about noon ( I think the show opened at 10:00) to find a pretty busy hall. The attendance had clearly exceeded expectations, and they had run out of programs! As a result I just progressed around the hall taking in games and traders as they came up, rather than marking out specific targets to see - I don't think that mattered, though I think I did manage to miss one or two displays ( I seem to have blanked out the 'Lard Zone' area, not sure why, a shame as their setups always look great ).  

Overall impressions very good, as I said above, Not as big as Salute but that's no bad thing, and a much more pleasant, light and airy venue - with free parking right outside. A higher ratio of 'historical' games compared to Fantasy/Sci-fi etc than at Salute - and I thought that may have been reflected in the demographic of the punters, I'd say an older crowd than at the Excel last month. I had the feeling Fantasy etc were better represented in participation games than demo games - make of that, what you will.  I took a few pictures of some of the games I liked  : 

Westbury Wargamers :  Paraetacene  316BC

 

The Iron Brigade : Hopton Heath 1643

( that standard says 'Come Out You Cuckold'! )

 

Boondock Sayntes : Laswari, India 1803

the camels are coming..

Immaculate uniform - and a tray of chips!

Y

The Bayonets: fictional ACW 'December 1862' 

Eagles & Lions: Sherwood Rangers at Gheel, Sept 1944

This game  was clearly inspired by James Holland's book 'Brothers In Arms' (which is in my 'reading backlog' pile) which  has loads of detailed maps of actions the Sherwood Rangers tankers  took part in, including this one at Gheel. A great  source for a wargame scenario.

Sherwood Rangers tanks

The Bunker : raid on Entebbe

I loved the fact that the Hercules aircraft in the Entebbe game were not just there to look impressive, they were clearly units in the game, being moved around the taxi-way as I watched, and I think one of them was getting shot at by a T-34 tank!  Quite an ambitious setup, to say the least..

Also on a grand scale, the ever-reliable Simon Miller's  'To The Strongest'  Ipsus , which he says is 'quite feasibly the largest ancients game ever fought at a show'.  Can't fault his ambition, either: 

 

Look at those Pike phalanxes!

Forest Outlaws - Vellinghausen 1761 're-imagined'

 

Lovely 15mm 7YW figures

 

1st Corps: McPherson Ridge, Gettysburg

Glasgow Tradeston club: Lutter am Barenburg 1626

Nice to see the earlier 'Danish' phase of the Thirty Years War being gamed : and I liked the carpet tile scenery with cut-out river, simple but effective. 

Chesterfield Old Boys: 28mm AWI ( Springfield 1780? )

Barnsley Association: Death in the Snow, Finland 1939

Lincoln Miniature Warfare: With a Rebel Yell

 

The big spectacular games are great, of course, but I am also interested to see games which make me think 'I could do that at home', which was the appeal of the Lincoln group's game, on a simple hex terrain ( 12 by 9 hexes or so? ) which would fit many home tables. They were using the rules of the old 'Battle Cry' boardgame, which I think is related to 'Command and Colours' - again, keeping it simple. 

There were loads more games of course, it's just that I didn't get pictures of all of them, or failed to get good pictures! For some reason I completely bypassed the 'Lard Zone' which had several games using Too Fat Lardies rules, and of course they always have lovely terrain - I'm afraid you'll have to look at other blogs for those! One I can thoroughly recommend is Ray Rousell's Don't Throw a One  - he has more and better pictures than I do!  I had a good chat with Ray at the show, he had come up from 'down South' with the Posties Rejects crew - I think he said he was up at 4:30am to get to the show when it opened!  Very nice to chat with you, Ray!  I also got to meet Graham Evans aka Trebian, author of the excellent Wargaming for Grown-Ups blog, had a good talk with him and his Northamptonshire Battlefields Society crew - now I can put faces to some of the names in their game reports! Great to meet you guys, too.  Needless to say it seems almost everyone who is anyone in UK wargaming was there, I'm only sad that I didn't make the acquaintance of Norm Smith  or  Epictetus, or catch up again with Rob of The Eastern Garrison - all of whom were around and have put up their own reports of the show.  Maybe next time..

Of course there were also plenty of traders, tempting us all to spend our money; having not planned ahead very much, I hadn't made a big list, but I seem to have picked up a few things anyway: 

- WW2 vehicles and figures for my 20mm  'D-Day Dodgers' - a couple of Steyr Heavy Cars and a Lloyd carrier from the Rapid Fire guys,   PIAT and Panzershrek crews from Brittannia Miniatures  

- a pack of Hexon flocked single hexes from Kallistra, to slightly expand my potential gaming table

-  'A Mighty Fortress'  starter pack for WW2 Air Combat  from Tumbling Dice, with rules and some nice 1/600 B17, P51 and Me 262 models.  Me and air warfare games go back a long way ( thanks  to Mike Spick ), it should be fun to have a go at this one. 

Finally a rather lovely nostalgic bargain - a gentleman running a demo game under the name of 'The Hornsea Contempibles'  ( he admitted the 'Contemptibles' were just him!)  had a pile of old wargaming magazines for sale, very cheap, and I remembered I have been looking for Issue 35 of Miniature Wargames ( from 1986 ) for ages - lo and behold, there it was! So now, I have a complete run of issues 1 to 48, all the editions produced by Duncan MacFarlane before he jumped ship and set up Wargames Illustrated the following year. This is strangely pleasing to me...

The Holy Grail..

 

What's more, some other rather veteran mags were in the pile, and I couldnt resist:

..and some lovely bonus nostalgia

 

Blimey, Battle - before it was even for wargamers... Really interesting stuff - one of these has the very first 'Observation Post' column by Terry Wise - I think the teenage me caught up with it a few issues later. And Stuart Asquith's  Practical Wargamer is surely still worth reading? I only bought a few back in the day, I feel another collection coming on! 

So there we are; I stayed till pretty much the end at 4pm  ( as I left, I witnessed a dubious-looking crew making a final raid, on the ice cream stall :

cheers guys! )  

Thankfully it was a fairly easy drive home again, after an excellent day,  with loads of great games and fine people, 'tired but happy' pretty much summed up my evening - and with lots of new ideas and inspirations. There's another one in October, I gather, and I hope to be there. Meanwhile, thanks to all involved in the organisationof a great day, and  keep well, everyone.