A busy month

Given that I received a small amount of encouragement last time to my 'Monthly Update' I thought I'd run up a second and see if there was any feedback for this month's effort. As I said in my previous Blog post, I played five games this month, winning two and loosing three ~ pretty much par for the course I would have thought for me. The two wins came in the two versions of a 'Victory Without Quarter' ECW game, featured in an earlier post as 'The Battle of Pyddle Down'. The defeats were the two versions of our Darkest Africa games using Black Powder with some house amendments, which featured in the previous post, and in a RF2 Normandy game in which my Germans failed to beat off an attack by the British Air Landing Brigade commanded by Phil.

Painting has been enjoyable again this month, perhaps due to the rather more eclectic selection of subjects than has been my pattern over the last couple of years. I painted several WWII 28mm German infantry from Foundry ~

They were joined by a few BEF {now Warlord} figures, as well as a few Foundry German cavalry for our 1940 Operation Sealion games ~

They were joined on the painting table in turn by a BEF Vickers VIb tank for the same games ~

Another small painting effort has been directed towards the ECW, with the addition for the Royalist cause of the Bishop of Bath & Wells ~

We'll use him, and his Puritan opposite number, as a second chance Morale marker once in a game.

I've also been making up 'Stand Loss' markers for the ECW games.

Other painting has included a second Siege gun and crew from Foundry for the HEIC forces in the Indian Mutiny games, together with a Battery Command Stand; a second US Regular Infantry unit from Dixon Miniatures for our ACW games; several Redoubt Native Americans for the FIW skirmish games; and, finally, some Pulp Miniatures armed merchant seamen.



I've managed two wargames related visits this month too: to Vapnartak in York ~ despite the snowfall ~ and to the latest Foundry Open Day last week. For our visit to York, Phil booked a cottage in North Dalton for the four of us. We had a four day break to enjoy the countryside, and the seaside at Whitby, though perhaps the mild hypothermia we suffered there somewhat took the edge off the day out! We had n't bargained for the 6" of snow that fell on Saturday evening, but after digging the car out we made it to York and on to the show without too much difficulty. The show itself, perhaps like a number of other long established events, has begun to feel comfortable rather than exciting, seeming to offer the same traders and gamers in the same places from one year to the next. Not withstanding, we enjoyed meeting up with folk from the wild north ~ 'Hi Kevin!' ~ and did manage to buy a few goodies. Principally I got some Perry Miniatures ECW infantry and a gun from Dave Thomas; some ACW limber horses from 1st Corps and the Bishop from Warlord.
At the Open Day we had a chance to see a Napoleon AWI game in action, as well as examine the layout tables for Saturday's games of Myth & Legend and Renaissance warfare. I bought a few things, as you'd expect of any gamer I think: a War Elephant for the Rajah of Rhanli in the Mutiny; some Camel Mounted Guns for the same force; and, a pack of SYW British Infantry.
Its also been a bit of a book month too: I got three ECW Battle guides in the Whitby Bookshop and more locally I got a good copy of Young & Holmes' "Military History of the Civil Wars" which I've enjoyed re-reading, and a copy of an early Osprey, "An Eyewitness to the Indian Mutiny", which I'm reading at the moment.
Well, that was rather longer than I anticipated, so I'd better stop drivelling on. Enjoy your gaming, whatever odd scale or period floats your boat: remember, its a great hobby but not a matter of life and death...