A welcome return?

 

I’m conscious that I’ve rather neglected the blog on the past few months. I’ll attribute this mostly to work which has left me disinclined to endure yet more screen time.  Anyway, I’ve had a couple of weeks away and have a massive backlog of game and holiday photos to share.  

Where have I been?  Well the photo above is a clue to one country. If you can name the two others (more photo clues below) you win the right to name some figures in a 1916 British ‘Pals’ battalion.  I know, not much of a prize but it is that time of year. 

Oh, and if I’ve seen or spoken to you since my return, you are disqualified!  

UPDATE 6 July:  So far we have Netherlands and Belgium  but what’s the third?

Christmas Kit Build

It's (nearly) Christmas, I have toys to paint and kits to build and this blog has 200 followers!

To celebrate the latter I will shortly be running a competition with actual prizes. 
Admit it - until you remembered it was me writing you were mildly excited.

Until then I need your help choosing which kit to build next.  The Poll is to the right of this post - please vote and leave a comment supporting your view.  Even if it's that I should get a life.

The options and their stories are as follows:

Lavochkin LA-7

Appalled at my having had a hastily built LA-5 stand in during the TF Smith game, John found and kindly gave me this kit the following Wednesday.  He is insistent that it is ready for the re-run of the TF Smith scenario.  And apparently it was cheap.

Hawker Sea Hawk

Bought on a whim on eBay (yes, I was shocked too...), I may have a need of a Sea Hawk in Royal Navy markings for a Suez '56 scenario I am plotting.  I have never previously owned a Sea Hawk in any scale.  This kit was, at £8 including postage, the most expensive of the trio.

HH-3E Jolly Green Giant

It's big and has an amusing name.  I can offer no more rational explanation for the presence of this monstrosity.  Many years ago I had the Revell version and no doubt I made a hash of it.  Perhaps it's time to make amends.  This was slightly cheaper then the Sea Hawk.

Vote now - polls close at 1100 on Christmas day!

Not dead yet!

My apologies for the dearth of posts of late but I have been rather busy with other matters.  The end of the tax year (5 April) here in the UK can produce a 'spike' of business - in my case never more so than this year.
As a result time for wargaming has been very limited, though I have managed a few games and even a little bit of painting.

More about these chaps in a forthcoming post....

2014 review

A couple of days later than intended but here it is.  The blog continues to be an important part of my wargaming life and though post numbers are down to 221 (from 278 in 2013) this still exceeds my 'target' of four per week.  Once again I thank all those who read my ravings - especially those who comment.

Funny Little Wars
Due to the manoeuvrings of a real army we had to put on hold the Tannenberg project but plans are afoot to resurrect this in 2015 - watch this space.  In preparation for this game I added more 'Russians' to my forces.

Command & Colours
The C&C games - both Ancient and Napoleonic versions - continue to be great favourites.  The acquisition recently of part of the collection of the late Bob Plumb will considerably swell the ranks of my pointy-stick period armies so expect to see plenty more of this.

Megablitz
Nothing to report.  No games and not even (I think) any new toys.  Perhaps I'll put together a large game this year.

NATO Brigade Commander
Several games organised by Martin R using his 2mm toys.  Several people have suggested I publish the game when time allows.

Diplomacy
One of the highlights of the year was the PBEM game run by Mad Padre.  This was the first Dippy game I had played since the late 1980s and quite possibly my best ever showing.

Little Cold Wars
This has been the surprise of the year!  From a brief and none too serious chat with Funny Little Wars author PW back in March I knocked together a game and soon a proper cold war style arms race was in full swing.  Playtesting and writing continues and it is hoped to have the thing published during 2015.

Inter-continental para drop!

I picked up some of these Crescent figures at Triples in May.  They were spotted by Col in the far off colonies - he of the astonishing scratchbuilt tanks - see his blog here.  Col mentioned that he had a few more of these figures and kindly offered to send them.  They arrived a few weeks ago but soon demonstrated their field craft by hiding in my toy room, necessitating an intensive search to find them again!
So thanks again Col - I now need to decide what unit these chaps will be finished as and settle on a paint scheme.

On the subject of freebies, fellow blogger The Depressive Diplomatist is giving some stuff away - go and have a look!

Shameless plug

A shameless plug for another blog now.  Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist offers an eclectic mix of topics.  And he's offering possible prizes for plugging his blog!  I must try that ploy sometime.

1,000 not out!

It is with great pleasure and not a little surprise that I find myself typing this - my Thousandth blog post!
Though the blog was started in 2008, it was late 2009 before it really got going.  Here are a few boring statistics for you:

172 Followers

8,374 Comments to date

359,180 Pageviews to date, including 11,170 during the last month.

129 The number of other blogs I follow.

Based on the past week's pageviews, the audience is located as follows:

United Kingdom 807

United States 741

Russia 150

Germany 105

France 58

Australia 42

New Zealand 32

Canada 29

Poland 25

Italy 24

Given all this it looks as if I'd better carry on!  My thanks as always to all readers, especially those of you who take the time to leave comments - they are much appreciated.

The coming weeks will see a couple of game announcements, the start of a new series of 'themed' posts and a competition with actual prizes!

Plug of the month

From time to time I plug other blogs, so I have decided to make this a regular feature and to plug one a month.  Regular readers may at this point be rather traumatised by such a degree of organisation but then we're only in January - there's still plenty of time for it to go horribly wrong!

So let's start off the year with a mention of:

The Life And Times Of A Wargames Fanatic

Being a sometimes decidedly vitriolic look at the gaming hobby through the eyes of a gamer, who has spent more time in fantasy worlds than the real one.

This appeared late last year and so far there have been 60+ posts.  The blog carries the thoughts and words of Mark Hides.  Mark was one of the first wargamers I met in Sheffield and so far he has tolerated me for over 20 years.  But don't hold that against him.  Mark makes his living from painting figures so his views are partly those of an 'industry insider'.  Do have a look at his rantings - and tell him I sent you.

New Year Message, 2014

So it's that time of year again?
The blog continues to feature prominently in my wargaming life, and although post numbers are slightly down on 2012 (278 as against 299), as I was aiming to post four per week I shall continue to do so.  Thank you to all who read the thing, and especially to those of you who leave comments.  They are much appreciated.

Funny Little Wars
A very active year for the 1/32 scale chaps, starting off in February with the game played by David Pinder and Julian Spilsbury which they kindly invited me to umpire.  A classic case of the partially sighted leading the blind!  Several. More tabletop games followed during the year,  but for me the real high points were the lawn games at Sandhurst.  The Little Wars Centenary event in April was a delight, and a great opportunity to meet other devotees.  The Nordic amphibious actions were fun but I really loved the Gettysburg game in July.  There will be more big games, and outline plans are afoot for a Tannenberg inspired extravaganza in 2014.
On the painting front, I completed the large but as yet unblooded Tratvian Army (think Russian) and a few ACW units and odds and ends.  Plenty more still to come.

Megablitz
For the second year running I ran a game at Shrivenham (facilitated as usual by Tom Mouat).  We used loads of toys and the players are still speaking to me, so I think I can consider it a success.  A few new toys were added.  I must give some thought to a game for 2014!

NATO Brigade Commander
A few games, mostly run by Martin using his 2mm (no really!) toys.  I don't think I have added any new (6mm) toys, but I do have some scenario ideas.  Mind you, I said that last year.....

Command & Colours - Ancient
We played a few games and I added some 'new' toys.  We continue to be very keen on this series of games and they provide consistent entertainment.  The additional toys have mostly been sourced from eBay and bring and buys at shows.  They include Egyptians, Assyrians and an assortment of hairy barbarians.  I'm sure 2014 will see regular appearances of this game.

Command & Colours - Napoleonic
A continuing favourite.  2013 saw my Spaniards, Russians and Austrians in action and no doubt we'll see them all again over the course of 2014.

Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame
Ships from my 1/1200 fleet have seen action several times during the past year, including a rather successful game played on the lawn at Knuston in July.  Several additional ships have joined the fleet, so expect plenty more of this.

President Fred

The latest appearance of President Fred saw his alleged death (and about time too!) but I already have ideas for what may happen next in the unfortunate state of Ph'tang.

Sheffield Wargames Society
I continue in post as Chairman of SWS and am pleased to be able to report that paid up member numbers are up on last year.  New members are always welcome - see the SWS website for location details.  Triples is on 17th and 18th May 2014.

Cars
Not strictly wargaming I know, but the toys and I have to get about!

The Saab is gone - long live the er, Saab!

The 9-5 HOT Aero has made way for a 9-3 TTiD Aero. Power down from 250bhp to 180 (though much of the time you'd never know it) but turbochargers up from one to two and fuel consumption down from 35mpg to 48mpg.  And I can fit more toys in it!

The Megablitz archive - poll results

The polls are closed and the results are in!  33 of you voted - a modest 19.3% of followers - and the results are reproduced below.  Most have left any decision making to me (never a wise choice) so I will post material in my usual haphazard fashion.  Or I may try to roll it out in a vaguely chronological order.

Anyway, enough of this - all blog posts need at least one photo, so here is one of the mobile polling station used to count the votes.

Kick in the Door ('97)	2 (6%)
Kick in the Door ('98)	1 (3%)
Tunis ('99)	1 (3%)
Tunis ('00)	0 (0%)
Market Garden ('05)	1 (3%)
Market Garden ('06)	6 (18%)
Tunis ('07)	1 (3%)
Sicily ('08)	0 (0%)
KlPzBefWg	2 (6%)
Not fussed - just get it all posted!	18 (54%)
Don't care - I just live for internet polls	1 (3%)

Votes so far: 33
Poll closed 

Poll dancing

My poll on the format of the blog has now closed and the results are in!  61 votes were cast and the scores on the doors are as follows:

80% of voters (49 votes) are in favour of the old (current) format.
9% (6 votes) preferred the 'new' flipcard format which I tried out for a few days in early March.
6% (4 votes) either didn't know or care
3% (2 votes) claimed that "I don't read this rubbish, I just like internet polls."

I know that doesn't quite add up to 100% but don't blame me.
So for the time being at least we'll be staying with the current layout.  Flipcard looks great but for the moment at least takes far too long to load up - even with a wired fibre-optic broadband connection to the interwebnet.  Maybe this will change in the future, so I'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile what passes for 'normal service' will be resumed...

A blog post ain't a blog post without a photo of some toys.  Does anyone else have a corner of a shelf full of crap like this?  10 points to the first reader to identify all the toys...

Another bl**dy poll

You will no doubt have noticed that I experimented with a new blog format last week.  This attracted one positive comment and quite a lot of grumbles from readers who felt it took too long to load up.  Despite having a pretty fast fibre optic broadband connection, I too was frustrated at the time it was failing to fire up - sometimes needing reloading several times in order to access comments. 
While the new format seemed to drive up pageviews, comment numbers were noticeably down - suggesting that many were finding things a bit tedious.
I have therefore decided - for the moment at least - to return to the 'old' template and I invite your thoughts on how best to proceed.  To this end I have (in a desperate effort to justify the lame post title) posted a new poll by means of which you may make your views known.

In a breathtakingly clever play on words, here is yet another Pole. 
Jan III (or John Sobieski) in fact. 
The chap who duffed up the Turks at Vienna.