Fnurnban #11 : Waterloo Remodelled - mind re-boggled

 

Having been tipped off by James Fisher on his excellent Chauvinistic Blog, last Friday I visited the National Army Museum in Chelsea, to see the temporary exhibit of James Cowan's work-in-progress 'Waterloo Remodelled'.  This is a model diorama of Waterloo in 1:72 scale, at a truly epic level - the version shown contains 30,000 figures, but is only about one-quarter of what is hoped to be the eventual completed size.The final version will be, they say, 'about the size of a tennis court'. Think about that for a moment..

 

 As described above, the display consisted of several sections of the battlefield ( a sort of 'edited highlights'? ) .  Rather like a large wargames display, the sections were on individual boards, though thankfully ( unlike a wargames table ) all the figures were permanently stuck in place. I did wonder at first how long it had taken to set up!  It is the brainchild of Major-General James Cowan, who was in attendance along with with his elderly father, who cheerfully manned a table with further work-in-progress  model buildings, accompanied by one of the disabled veteran volunteer figure-painters. The project is affiliated to 'Waterloo Uncovered' , an archaelogical project investigating the real Waterloo battle site, staffed largely by veterans of such theatres as Iraq and Afghanistan, with a view to the work's  therapeutic / rehabilitation effects. Similarly, the team of figure painters and modellers include veterans who appreciate the relaxing and de-stressing effect of such activities.

I had seen some information and pictures on blogs before visiting, of course, but I wasn't really ready for the full  effect - it was truly amazing, mind-boggling stuff!  The 'figure scale' is about 1.5:1, so each battalion is made up of perhaps 300 figures,  and thus when the whole thing is complete there should be about 120,000 figures in all.  

While I was there, there was an explanatory talk  given by James in the museum's lecture room,  but I'm afraid I  managed to miss that, so my information is a little sketchy - but I did have a nice talk  with his 80-something father, who is very 'game' and was happy to chat while also getting on with building another model farmhouse!  The big quesiton for me is 'where is it going to end up when finished?', and somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it seems that question has not been settled yet. How will it be displayed, and by who?  Remember that 'size of a tennis court' line... how do you allow people to view such a monster?  I think it would need a similar setup to that which the museum gave it, with a viewing balcony or gallery - it's going to need a substantal building to itself! Let's hope that question can be settled. 

   

In the meantime it was a privilege to see it, I am very glad I made it along there. In all the excitement my camera broke, but I got quite a few pictures before that happened, so I will just let them speak for themselves. 

 

 

 

A great shame it was only on display for 4 days, I do hope they can find other occasions to show it to the public - a genuinely amazing spectacle, with an appropriately Napoleonic scale of ambition!  For further information - and much better photos than mine -  look no further than James Cowan's own  Waterloo in 20mm  blog.   Now I think I need a little lie down..

SELWG ( or NELWG? )

I was at the SELWG show on Sunday. Normality returns? Not quite, but it's a start. 

 

Like many others, my last show attendance had been SELWG 2019 at Crystal Palace. The venue was changed this year, surprisingly to North London,  at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre.  This turned out to be pretty decent, I thought -  the main space is an indoor running track arena with a high arched glass roof,and lots of spectator seating, which came in handy.  The games and trade stands easily fitted inside the area of the track. The program listed about 30 games and 50 traders - though there may have been one or two no-shows (most notably it was announced that one of the two catering vans due to attend had been stolen the night before!).  I don't know what the official attendance numbers were, but maybe it felt a bit quieter than previous years, and I suppose that's not surprising.  I felt almost no concern about social distancing, the space felt so - well, spacious (I'll admit I walked into the main hall and immediately discarded my face covering ).  

Night manoeuvres, 1685 style

 

 There were some fun games, the most unusual being 'Moon Over Sedgemoor' by the Prince Rupert's Bluecoats group,  This simulated Monmouth's night-march to attack the Royal army, by the device of covering up the terrain that the rebels needed to cross.Thus they wouldn't know if they were about to run into a wall, or a dyke, or other obstacle until they hit it - and then perhaps made enough noise to alert the Royal sentries.   Note how the scenery is all painted in dark 'night-time' tones - nice touch.  A worthy 'Best in Show' winner, I think ( see 'Iron Mitten' blog for more ).

 

In old ( 1930s ) Siam

I also liked 'Shall We Dance? The Boworadet Rebellion, Siam 1933'  by Deal Wargames - and they win 'best explanatory leaflet' with a really nicely-produced 8-page illustrated booklet. They used 'Rapid Fire' rules, about which more later.  There were special rules for units being charged by elephants or buffalo!

 

2mm scale? hmmm...

A bit of a first for me was  a battle in  ( I think ) 2mm scale - Mark Backhouse's 'Bibracte 58BC' participation game  using his 'Strength and Honour' rules.  Judging by the vocal hubbub from the players, it was going down well -  but I'll admit that the armies looked a bit 'brown blob' for my taste. I really like the idea of playing large battles with small figures, but maybe my limit is going to be 6mm. 

 

GLC Gamers SCW: note 'decisive moment' of die roll

I failed to take many pictures, to be honest, but another quite nice-looking table  was this Spanish Civil War game put on by the GLC Games Club - who have lasted much longer than the GLC, it seems!  This one wasn't listed in the program ( there were a few changes, perhaps unsurprisingly ), and I'm not sure of the rules they were using - was it maybe  Osprey's  'A World Aflame'?  Other honourable mentions must go to The Society of Ancients'  'Battle of Trebbia 218BC' using Impetus;   Cheshunt Wargames Club 'Battle for Hoa Binh, Indochina 1951' in 6mm; and South London Warlords good old reliable 'Stingray' game - do they make the naval peaked caps larger for every outing? 

( Other bloggers have of course taken loads more pictures, in particular see Ray Roussel's 'Don't Throw a 1' and  'Big Lee's Miniature Adventures' which has a 10 minute video, no less. ) 

Obviously, after 2 years with no such events, one of the best aspects of the day was a bit of social contact, and the ability to chat to fellow gamers.  It was a pleasure to  meet my old buddy Dave (aka St Cyr on Wheels )  for the first time since February 2020 , and to  renew our customary  'Stadtler and Waldorf go to the SELWG show'  routine.  Apart from chatting to some of the game hosts, we had a nice chinwag with the chap from Mili-Art, who did a great job of painting  Dave's Napoleonic armies a couple of years ago.  Better still, we also met up with that most excellent blogger and generous commenter  Nundanket, and had a good yarn over coffee/tea. The other two live fairly close to each other, so there could perhaps be scope for gaming..  Nundanket  ( can I call you Chris? )  also made me a most generous gift of some metal Spencer-Smith figures , which will fit in nicely to my 'Portable 7YW' forces.

These were apparently the remnants of a failed  attempt by another friend to tempt him away from 6mm scale a few years ago! Anyway they are great, and will make at least one 'Portable Wargame' Infantry unit ( complete with Grenadier company ); the horsemen may become officers.  A very kind gesture, thank you very much!

Of course no show visit would be complete without a little shopping. Usually any purchases I make at shows are happy accidents/mad impulse buys,  but this time  I had managed to compile a short list, and even managed to score most of it, with only one spur-of-the-moment extra. 

First a couple of additions to the 'D-Day Dodgers' collection for Italy 1943-1945: 

 Next, rules: 

 

 

I've been meaning to pick up 'In Deo Veritas': I like the idea of doing 'Big Battles' in the Pike and Shot period, and it should be a good excuse to get my 15mm 30YW forces on the table. 'Rapid Fire Reloaded' is intriguing,  with only 16 pages of A5 - so it must be simple! Another possibility for the D-Day Dodgers, I hope. 

And there's always books:

Christopher Duffy's 'Instrument of War' has been on the wish-list for a  long time, and became a must-have once I got involved in 7YW gaming: I'm sure it will live up to expectations, and it's only fair to have as good a reference about the Austrian Army as Duffy's earlier work on the Prussians. Frederick gets all the glory, and the balance needs redressing.   Finally the impulse buy:

 

Charles Grant's last book, published after he passed away in 1979 - I'm hoping it will have the same mix of charm and erudition as 'Battle!',  'The War Game', 'The Ancient War Game' and 'Napoleonic Wargames'.  Does that complete the set? In the introduction he says 'I can conceive of no more lively pleasure than that of seeing unfold upon the wargame table a tactical situation which is a true reflection of a historical event', which seems eminently appropriate. 

So, now I have far too much reading, rule-learning  and modelling than I can possibly keep up with, but absolutely no buyer's remorse; and I enjoyed the day, felt entirely safe and was lucky to meet friends both old and new.  Next 'Salute', in a month's time?  We shall see - sadly Covid infeciton rates here are on the rise again. Meanwhile I'd better get reading/modelling/gaming... keep safe, and well, all ! 

Fnurban #10 : Wargames shows are like buses..

 ...you wait two years with none at all, and then loads come along all at once..

Having bought the current edition of 'Wargames Illustrated', I'm rather taken aback by the re-appearance of - advertisements for Wargames shows!  Like this old favourite : 

SELWG or NELWG?

SELWG 2019 was the last show I attended, and I always liked this event.  It seemed like a bit of a 'Goldilocks' show - not too big, not too small -  just right!  A good range of traders and games, and all very managable in an afternoon. Notice the new venue - gone perhaps will be the slightly surreal juxtapositions of gamers ( not necessarily the most athletic-looking crowd ) edging past the Crystal Palace swimming pool while synchro swimmers do their stuff in the water,  and the evocative whiff of chlorine ( did anyone do a WW1 game there, with that in mind? ).  Though I notice the new venue is also an Athletics Centre, so maybe plus ca change..  For me, the journey will be easier too, as they have moved to North-East London - should it be renamed NELWG?   Barring some catastrophic Covid surge/lockdown/fuel crisis situation, I am planning to go along, shopping list and camera in hand.   It will be great to be back! 

But that's not all  - from the same magazine issue, we have these: 

hang on - that's this weekend!

 and this...

not at all grim up North

And not to mention, for us Southerners the daddy of them all -  'Salute' returns on 13th  November.   On a more modest scale Ray from Don't Throw a One informs us that 'Broadside' is back in December, also with a new venue, at Gillingham.  It looks like a determined gamer with the ability to travel around England could do a show nearly every week for the next couple of months!  I admit I am not quite that desperate for my fix of games, tradestands and expensive coffees as to try to get to all of these - I'll start with SELWG and see how it goes,  have a think about 'Salute', and 'Broadside' would  be fun, and an easy journey ( and it's near my childhood home -  Rainham Wargames Club, are you there?  I was, about 1976 to 1981..)    These sports centre/exhibition hall  venues are quite large spaces, with hopefully good modern  ventilation systems, and the demographic of attendees is pretty surely double-jabbed ( some already in the 'booster' age groups, dare I say? ) - so I hope all will be well.  

So, what does the team think?  Are you keen to go along to one of these, or still a bit wary of crowds?  We all have to do what we are comfortable with, and I wouldn't criticise anyone for being careful. However to me, this seems a welcome development, a sign of societal recovery - my only concern being that perhaps there are too many shows in quick succession, will gamers suffer 'show fatigue' and attendances drop as a result?   Let's hope not - at least there is a decent geographical spread. It will feel  almost a duty to be generous in our support of the traders too, so - see you ( weighed down by long-delayed metal, resin and and paper purchases )  at SELWG, maybe? 

Keep well, everyone!

Kilsyth gamed; or William Baillie's Vindication

From the North, near the end : my right wing gone!

 Welcome back, all. Things have been quiet here hobby-wise, but there has been remote gaming. What now seems an age (but was in fact around two weeks) ago, I was lucky to be part of  M.S. Foy's remote gaming extravaganza,  re-fighting the battle of Kilsyth, 1645.  Readers of this blog have very likely seen his description, preceded  by the extensive and excellent research and preparations, on his brilliant Prometheus in Aspic blog.   It was great fun, and I can't resist giving my version of events. I took a couple of screenshots near the end, of which the above is one ( by this time my right wing seems to have mostly evaporated ).

When it came to choosing sides, I thought I'd better go with my ( possibly imagined ) ancestry; my paternal grandmother being a Campbell. As a child I was under the firm impression of being at least one-quarter Scottish, and was told that members of that side of the  family in the 1930s/40s would don the tartan and dance the sword-dance at parties ( I later traced the family tree, and found that my Campbell ancestors came from as far North as - Enfield. I did at least learn that one of them managed to be present at Tel-el-Kebir, with a detachement of Royal Engineeers ). I digress. 

Anyhoo.. when it transpired that the Government/Covenantor regime was headed by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyle,   I thought that was good enough reason to opt for the role of William Baillie, the Government commander.  That left the dashing Montrose to be impersonated by my good friend  and fellow Dave, the proprietor of St Cyr on Wheels blog - whose Scouse roots probably gave him good claim to command the formidable Irish Brigade, mainstay of Montrose's army.

 

Initial setup - courtesy of our host

The forces in their starting positions were as shown in Foy's map (above) provided by him as a playing aid;  Baillie's units are shown in blue.  Though the armies were equal in numbers of units ( 12 each ), I was very much aware of having only two cavalry units  ('TR' = Trotters) to Montrose's  three, and only one veteran foot  (FT)  regiment  (Home's) against three in the form of the Irish Brigade.  I had three 'Raw' foot units, the Fife Levies on the left, not much use at all - Montrose had four 'Raw' units but these were the Highlanders (HI), who had a compensatory ability to charge further than a normal foot unit,  albeit also not being equipped with muskets - so hand-to-hand combat only.  I did have the only gun - marked 'MG' , which designation may have given me a misplaced sense of its possible fire effect.  Overall I thought I had a slightly inferior force, and not being the most dynamic of commanders, my conclusion was to hold my position, take a defensive posture and see if I could shoot the Royalists down as they came to attack me. It turned out that this chimed with Baillie's preferred plan for the actual battle, since he knew reinforcements were on their way to him, hence saw  little point in risking attack before their arrival. In real life, he was overruled by his political masters (and by some of his units getting carried away) and forced to attack - with disastrous results. Could I do better, by staying true to Baillie's own idea?

Despite a built-in disadvantage  for the more plodding Baillie against dynamic Montrose when it came to  initiative die rolls, I did get lucky at the start and won the initiative on the first couple of turns - I used my commanded shot and infantry to occupy the hills,  ruins and mill in the centre-right, and hoped to hinder Montrose's advance with them. Meanwhile I gathered most of my infantry into a fairly formidable-looking defensive line around the hills at my left-centre. But it all unravelled very soon, especially as Montrose's men were aided by a massive lucky streak of die-rolling throughout the evening. When it came to shooting and combat, they won every time, and my units were blown away - starting with the Commanded Shot, who never actually got a volley off, being ridden down immeditely by a Royalist cavalry charge!  A cavalry fight ensued, which Dave/Montrose duly won, while he brought forward his Irish veterans,  and my cavalry and  a further  Infantry unit  bit the dust. My Veteran ( Home's ) regiment held up well, and might have knocked out one of Montrose's infantry units, if I hadn't decided to use their combat roll against the opposing  cavalry - the dice gave no hits, but would have been 4 hits against foot! That was fairly typical of the 'dice gods' attitude that evening.  Added to that over on my left, one hard-marching Royalist infantry regiment managed to dispatch my gun ( which got one shot off - and missed, of course ) and one of the Fife levy units.  All too soon, it was 7 Victory Points to 'them' and zero to 'us',  and the game was over. Oh well, even with the cursed Royalist dice, it was still great fun and a jolly evening! 

From the South: Fife Levies about to succumb

I should say something about Foy's  rules - his  'Ramekin' variation on 'Command and Colours', adpated for Pike and Shot warfare.  I liked their rather elegant  simplicity - for example in handling Pike and Shot units, no need to try to remember what proportion have pike or musket. Basically one combat dice per remaining 'block' in the regiment -  in close combat, if the unit has pikes, just add one more dice.  When firing, if pikes present, subtract one dice. Simples!  The 'Ramekin' part is the allocation of  command actions, replacing the the C&C card deck, the number of actions each turn  being decided by a modified die roll. I like that, as I always thought the C&C card deck was problematic - it has an uncanny knack of giving me loads of actions in the sector where I have no units or don't want to attack, which is very frustrating!  

If I have one 'note' on the system, I think I might look at the way that given a limited number of actions per turn, both sides can easily get fixated on only one part of the battlefield. Once fighting starts, one tends to want to focus more actions on it, knowing that the other guy will do the same, and I think that tends to mean that just one battlefield sector  sees all the action. In 'Pike and Shot' armies there was a definite command structure of 'wings' and 'centre' each with their own leaders capable of independent  action, and/or following orders from the C-in-C,  and I wonder if it might be good to ensure each of those sub-commands were ensured a share of the action points, to allow them all to use their initiative. They could perhaps voluntarily 'hand back' their actions to the commander if just standing on the defensive in their sector, and the overall commander should perhaps have some actions he could allocate where he chose, to generate the main thrust of his attack. I wonder if that could work?  In this game, I especially noted that there was a stand-off in the centre, with my infantry and Montrose's Highlanders just scowling at each other, because all the action points were being expended on the Government right flank. I should have used some actions to go and try to shoot up the Highlanders, perhaps, but once the brawl began on my right flank, all energies were taken up with that. Hmmm...   

 

My own paper and blu-tak based play aid - worked OK!

 Having said all that, the game worked fine, the rules were easily memorised and easy to use - which set us free to be Generals, not clerks or lawyers.   In fact our host did all the calculation of die rolls etc - so the remote gaming setup actually made me feel more like a 'commander' than a 'player', because  my job was to simply  tell units to advance, retreat etc  and whether to charge or fire  -  the results were determined and relayed to us by Foy.  Alas the result didn't go my way (and how!), but I am the least competitive wargamer I know, and I was too busy enjoying myself to worry too much about losing! 

So, many thanks to MS Foy  for hosting and providing a lovely setup, fantastic game and possibly too much information on the battle - some of which I have not quite read even now ! And to Dave 'St Cyr' for being such a worthy and good-humoured opponent - clearly such a charming chap, indeed, that the very dice joined his army...

There was some jollity over the colloquial description of my ( probably not ) ancestor Archibald as 'The Bastard Campbell'  - for information, here he is in all his glory, presumably contemplating the  massacre of some wretched hambuger-vendors. Thanks to Foy for providing the image.

No, I do not require fries with that..

 

Finally  by pure chance, in the run-up to the game I was skimming through the Battlefields Trust magazine's latest issue, and in the book reviews they feature a recent publication from Partizan Press - 'William Baillie's Vindication' by Stuart Reid, which discusses the papers presented by Baillie to a court of enquiry into the defeat at Kilsyth.  The review points out that 'accounts of the battle are typically from the Royalist side', so this is presumably a valuable counter-weight, and from the primary source, too. Worth a read,  I suspect, for all students of Montrose's campaign. 

'The dice were against us, alas..' 

 

I'll leave it there. A great time had by all, once again many thanks to MS Foy, and it has restored my blogging mojo too!  A bit too much of real life recently meant no time for this whimsy -  time to spend some time in hobby world again.  Keep well, everyone.

 

Charity begins - In the Library

The warm response to my last post helped make my decision, and so  I scooted back to the British Heart Foundation shop on Monday morning, made the appropriate donation to their funds, and  am now the proud owner of this rather nice book : 

This is volume II covering 1714 to 1760, so just the right period for me. Originally published 1941, this is a reprint from 1971, with the price printed on the inside dustjacket - all of £3.30 , 50 years ago - which I am told would be about £48 today, so quite a luxury item.  Lawson was an eminent artist as well as a military historian, and the pages are stuffed with his illustrations - no less than 220 of them in about 270 pages.  Page 1 gives a good flavour of what is to come : 

 

And here are  few more pages taken fairly randomly to give an idea of the contents. Chapters on Infantry of George I and II,  Marines,  Scots  in both British and foreign service, Cavalry ( including saddlery, colours and standards ) , Artillery and Engineers, Militia and Volumteers, Hanoverians, 'and many, many more'.. 

 

It really must have been a labour of love...  

There are only a couple of colour plates - both showing musicians,  rather fine too.

I love the syle of the whole thing, and there is a serious amount of information too. I had not really considered a British element to my 7YW forces, but of course one gets tempted when looking through this. I wonder if a mercenary Scots or Irish unit might be added? Or perhaps a Hanoverian contingent? 

It also has that essential element that my partner summed up so well :  'it smells of old book'..

Keep well, and safe, everyone. 

Bank Holiday Bodging, and Books, Books, Books

 

What to do with a dull, overcast Bank Holiday Monday, at the end of the dullest, most overcast   August? Well, given those conditions I felt very little guilt about staying indoors at my desk and working on some of the model kits in the 'plastic pile'.  After rather too many hours, I have at least completed the build of the above two : the Puma armoured car acquired the other  week, and the 'Wespe' self-propelled gun, bought about this time last year (oops!).  I'll admit it was quite a challenge. Most of the kits I have built previously were by Armorfast or Plastic Soldier Company, and very simple to assemble - for example  the suspension usually being moulded as one piece per side, just cement it to the hull in one operation. Not so these - for the Puma, each wheel assembly  had 3 parts to put together before cementing to the hull,  and of course there are no less than 8 wheels.  Doubtless all this is great fun for dedicated modellers for whom the painstaking build is the whole point, but of course I just want to get something more or less recognisable onto the gaming table, ASAP! Factor in a surprising number of very tiny parts ( e.g headlights and smoke grenade projectors ) and my pudgy fingers and middle-aged eyesight, and the time and frustration increased many-fold!   A lesson learned, and I may be looking harder at resin-cast or 3D-printed models in future. I have the  M7 Priest to build next - with 116 parts, to the Wespe's 54 and Puma 69, it may be a long haul!   But at least the above two are built, and can now be painted, ready for action. I like them both, and was surprised by how compact the Wespe turned out to be. Of course the chassis was that of a Panzer II, so I should have realised it would be relatively small.  The Puma rather dwarfs it!  

Another project that has been ongoing far too long also came to fruition - a second unit of Austrian Cuirassiers for the Seven Years War.  Work on these  started  while sat in the garden  on a sunny day - in February! It's been a funny old year. I think most of my limited hobby time was used (as it probably should be ) on gaming, so painting took second place, and the Prussian infantry primed at the same time as these remain resolutely uncoloured ( like a regiment on some sort of 'punishment parade' in their underclothes!), looking at me balefully from a shelf.  I am going to try, now, to have a regular 'hobby hour' ( or half-hour might be more realistic ) and get on with painting and modelling for at least some of that time.  A strange side-effect of the pandemic is that despite working from home and not having to commute, work and domestic 'stuff' seems to take more time than it did before - I can't explain that.    These chaps won't win any prizes, of course, and the dry brush and 3-layer highlight remain unknown in these parts, but given aforesaid fingers/eyesight combination and a lifetime of manual incompetence ( school metalwork classes still a traumatic memory ),  I'm quite pleased with them. One advantage of solo gaming is that no pesky opponent is going to pick up the figures and look at them too closely - they will always be seen at 'battlefield distance'.  

 

 

Somehow, more books can always be acquired - a week's 'staycation'  resulted in visits to Bury St. Edmunds and Woodbridge, both of which boast  Oxfam bookshops. Thus the above two for under a fiver altogether.  Gary Sheffield will be known to many readers, as he is not only a military historian by profession, but also a hobby wargamer - a semi-regular opponent of Bob Cordery, for example, and I've heard him guesting on both  Henry Hyde's 'Battlechat'  and Al Murray's 'We Have Ways' podcasts. I've started his book, and it promises to be worthwhile - he begins by outlining the rather simplistic 'Lions and Donkeys' view of 1914-1918 handed down to most of us, and no doubt aims to challenge those ideas.  'The Full Monty' has potential, too - I have only a rather superficial idea of him, and this promises to give the back story, since it covers his life up to 1942 - the making of the man, so to speak.

Finally, one that I didn't actually buy, but was interested to see , in a charity shop in Sudbury this very afternoon.  C.C.P. Lawson's 'Uniforms of the British Army' - volume 2 of 4.  Originally published in 1941, I think, and this looks to be a 1970s reprint.  It features many rather charming sketches by the author ( himself an artist, I gather ), and it does appeal, given its 'old school' connotations - I bet Peter Young would have had a copy in his library.  Someone at the charity has done their homework, though, and the asking price is £14 - which to be fair looks about what you'd pay on Abebooks. Does it need 'rescuing', and to be 'given a good home', do you reckon?  

 It must be time to get back to some gaming, soon,  perhaps that should be the subject of my next post. Meanwhile, keep well, and safe, everyone.

Al Murrays and Aquisitions..*

Well now, where were we?  Several weeks seem to have gone by, and nothing from The Ragged Soldier - sorry about that.  I'm afraid real life ( work, mainly ) got in the way. As a result, no gaming took place, but I did manage some reading,  and some acquisitions, that will feed into future campaigning. 

Al Murray's 'Watching War Films With My Dad' was a charity shop find ( for £1! ) which turned out to be a great fun read.  It's a sort of memoir - taking us from Al's WW2-obsessed 1970/80s childhood with Airfix kits and Action Man ( shades of Harry Pearson's 'Achtung Schweinhund' )  up to his attempts to present  military history to his own children.  He's a massive enthusiast for military history, he positively fizzes with it, with the result that he jumps  from topic to topic with dizzying speed. Obviously there are  a lot of jokes too,  but  (as listeners to his 'we have ways' podcast will know )  he is very well-read and knowledgable.  I was particularly interested in his views on Arnhem, which I confess I have little knowledge of myself  -  and of course the film 'A Bridge Too Far' gets a fair amount of discussion in the book. Did they really use Leopard tanks? Oh no!  He doesn't seem to have tried wargaming , though - should someone be inviting him to a show?       
 

Having enthused about a year ago over the joys of the local model shop, I'm afraid I didn't get back to Model Junction in Bury St. Edmunds until the other week. But I found them trading OK, and as friendly and helpful as ever.  They have a pretty wide selection of modelling paints ( at least 4 or 5 brands ), and a room full of plastic kits. I've been wanting to add some anti-aircraft capability to my 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian campaign forces, so the Airfix  Bofors AA gun will do nicely, and I couldn't quite resist the Sd Kfz 234 'Puma'  for the Germans. Worthy additions to the 'plastic pile',and it's about time for another go at a WW2 game and a trial of Bob Cordery's 'Portable Wargame'  rules for aerial attacks and AA guns. 

 

Another great book find was courtesy of an antique shop in Lavenham which includes a couple of shelves of history books curated by someone who clearly has a military bent ( so to speak, missis!) - and there was Geoffrey Parker's 'The Military Revolution'. I know I'm about 30 years behind on this one, though I do have his books on The Thirty Years War and The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road - the latter read a memory-wiping long, long time ago.   As a paid-up member of the Pike and Shot Society, I'm really looking forward to reading this and bringing my knowledge of theories of military history bang up-to-date - albeit the 1980s date..

One aspect of The Military Revolution being the Trace Italienne and new fortification techniques culminating in Vauban's  formidable legacy - so it was a very pleasant surprise to coincidentally  receive a splendid gift, from a modest and retiring fellow blogger, of a seriously impressive resin model of a Vauban fort!  It's actually 15mm scale, I am told, but I think it should pass muster in  my Seven Years War campaigning, on the principle of 'under-scale' buildings and scenery. I can see it as a small fortified outpost being fought over  in my central European backwater, or cunningly deployed along the edge of the table to suggest a section of the walls of some larger defended place. Whatever, I am very chuffed indeed with this lovely piece of generosity. No payment was required - I will compensate with a suitable charity donation, perhaps to MSF. 

    

Finally, an update on another generous gift, which I had received from RossMac of 'Battle Game of the Month' fame.  Here is MacFarlane's Scottish regiment of foot, with their associated troop of 'border horse'  Lancers , their  prized regimental cannon, supply wagons and self-propelling food supplies ( i.e. livestock ! ). I've given the foot and the horse new bases to fit my system, and given the horse back their missing lances, but left Ross' 1970s paintwork untouched, it's just fine as it is. The infantry have a preponderance of musketeers and very few pikes, so they may find themselves used as 'commanded musketeers', but there are some splendid axe- and sword-wielding highanders, and even a bagpiper! Also a couple of kilted  musketeers with socket bayonets, who look distinctly 18th century, but I couldn't separate them from their fellows after the long voyage,  so they stayed in the ranks. Their comrades may be bemused by 'Hamish and Dougal, with all  their new-fangled ideas'. 

The bases are just thin card, since the plan is to fit magnetic strip underneath, and use steel paper movement trays, which will add to the thickenss. Maybe I need to texture them a bit, to match Ross' bases for the wagons, gun and livestock. Though I am an adherent to minimally plain basing normally, a bit of texture would be true to their original spirit, I think.  Now they will be needing an excuse to get to grips with the Imperials, or the French, depending which side offers the best pay, of course.. 

That's enough for now, I'm glad to have got back onto the blogging bike, so to speak, and there's lots of gaming posibilities to be thinking  about in the near future.  Meanwhile keep well, and safe, everyone.

 

* title loosely inspired by that good old standby of adventure-story writers - 'Alarums and Excursions', of course !  I'll get my coat..