Thursday 28 January 2016

Battle of the Brandywine 1777 refight

    The AWI game on Sunday has been announced as the Battle of Brandywine, also known as the Battle of Brandywine Creek September 11, 1777. This will see the American army of General George Washington and the British army of General Sir William Howe slug it out.
    I need to get my share of the Americans ready and refresh myself on the Black Powder rules.







Friday 22 January 2016

Preparing for 1st game of the year

My first game of the year will be with the Conwy Wargames Club. One of our many members called Pete is organising an American War of Independence game in 28mm using Black Powder rules.

My contribution to the game is 2 x 16 man American infantry battalions and 1 x 16 man American light infantry, plus 4 generals and cannon. I'm looking forward to the game as I've never had a chance to play with these figures before.

Thursday 21 January 2016

Spotted in Wargames Illustrated

..... Me! I spotted my wonderful profile in the Lokhivitsa Campaign article. I'm in the overhead picture middle left being comprehensively beaten by Juho from Finland. Great game and to sound like a broken record I musty finish the AAR for all 3 games over the weekend!

Tuesday 12 January 2016

2015 Review

2015 saw a different wargaming rhythm than previous years since I'd moved from England to Wales. My usual shows were now quite a drive away rather than no more than 1 hour, and new shows came in to range. I didn't manage to fully explore the new show options but I'll get round to it. I didn't expect to paint much and managed nothing, but did manage lots of work on the house. I had expected to finish the Wargames Eyrie but that will now be in 2016, but not necessarily the full vision but a working version. The move meant I was now out of range of my good gaming buddy for our monthly 1 day games, but we did manage a game. The move did bring me back to some old gaming chums and I attended all the Conwy Wargames Club games except one.

Well on with the review or more correctly a list of wargame and related stuff I did in 2015.

Places Visited 
We took an early holiday knowing the year was going to be busy, plus we did a lot of exploring of the new surroundings. Not much to inspire a wargamer, hence few blog photos. Conwy castle being the most military related and I really enjoyed revisiting this old haunt and this time it was so much more informative. A great game could be made of Welsh rebels sneaking in to the castle and taking it by surprise, as actually happened.

Games played - 17
I had 14 games with the Conwy Wargames Club. 13 as part of the monthly meet and 1 day game. The other 3 were at the Battle Group Campaign Day.

The monthly Conwy Wargames club games were:
X Wing
20mm Force on Force - first time played. Definitely needs more practice but it was fun
28mm Dux Bellorum - again first time played. Easy to pick up and fun.
28mm Saga - another first. I found the rules atmospheric, but I need more practice.
1/72 WW1 air combat Game 1 - a new game for me and it was hilarious.
1/72 WW1 air combat Game 2
1/72 WW1 air combat Game 3
1/72 WW1 air combat Game 4
Star Wars Armada - first game and loved it. Found the rules easy to pick up.
20mm Battle Group Fall of the Reich
20mm Battle Group Barbarossa - my practice game for the campaign day. Must write AAR!
15mm Hail Caesar
15mm General de Brigade Plancenoit 1815

Conwy Wargames Club big game
20mm Rapid Fire WW2 Pacific 

Battle Group Lokhivitsa Campaign weekend
3 x Barbarossa games . Another set of AAR's I need to finish and publish. It was a great weekend and I won a game. Even better it was against my old gaming buddy Guy.

Finished models
0 - for me
I did paint some toy knights for my cousins' son


Shows visited - 2
West Midlands Militaire Show (WMMS) - the best show I've been too since Hammerhead
There were loads of great games for periods I like. This one inspired me the most as I have the makings of these armies already and I like the use of ACW plastics with some conversion to creat a variety of troop tupes.
Sheffield Triples

Blog posts - 82

Kickstarters backed - 1 Battle Systems Urban scenery

Books Read
This year I managed to read quite a lot of historical books which makes a change:

  • THE SOMME 1870-71. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN IN PICARDY 
  • FRANCE AT BAY 1870-1871 The Struggle for Paris
  • Three German Invasions of France: The Summer Campaigns of 1870, 1914 and 1940 
  • GUARDS BRIGADE IN THE CRIMEA
  • CAVALRYMAN IN THE CRIMEA The Letters of Temple Godman, 5th Dragoon Guards 
  • Behind Soviet Lines - Hitler's Brandenburgers capture the Maikop Oilfields 1942 (Raid)
  • French Carabiniers 1679-1871 (Officers & Soldiers) 
  • The British Army since 2000 (Elite 202) 
  • Romanian Army of World War II (Men-at-arms) 
  • Fall Gelb 1940 (1) (Campaign) 
  • The Conquest of Saxony AD 782-785 (Campaign 271) 
  • The Battle of Leipzig 1813 (Men and Battles) 
  • Empires at War: 1911-1923 (The Greater War)





Tuesday 5 January 2016

The Xmas loot 2015

Santa gifted me a nice haul  of miniatures and books both hard copy and on Kindle.

I received the latest(ish) X Wing Miniatures releases - I am now only 1 wave behind and a Imperial Raider short. I am now also caught up with the Star Wars Armada. The Star Destroyer is huge. I'm really looking forward to playing with these.


My historical book haul was pretty good, with Santa surprising me with some excellent choices. Missing from the picture was a late arrival which was Michael Embree's book on the 1866 campaign in southern Germany. Both Embree books are full of lovely illustrations and the 1866 book has a lot of uniform plates. I've jumped in to reading 'The Ottoman Endgame' which I'm really enjoying.

On Kindle my wife, sorry I mean Santa chose the lasted John Scalzi novel I hadn't noticed was out in 'paperback'  and some great pulp Sci fi and Zombie books.

Lucky me.