Saturday 2 January 2010

**Happy New Year to One and All!!**


After what seems like an age of bacchanalian excess we are finally back to a semblance of what passes for normality in deepest Rayleigh.The family are on the road to recovery although we are all still hacking away on the coughing front. As far as Xmas went I can safely say that Santa was unusually selective in his choice of prezzies for yours truly. Aside from the usual plethora of domestic sundries - smellies, pants and chocolate by the lorry load I was pleasantly surprised to receive a couple of very nice books in the shape of 'Eden to Armageddon - World War 1 in the Middle East' by Roger Ford (ISBN 978 0 297 84481 5) and 'The Battle for Spain - The Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939' by Anthony Beevor (ISBN 13: 9780 0297848321 and 10: 0297848321). Both of these are in hardback and are superb additions to the library.
The Spanish Civil War has been a long time interest of mine although sadly I have never gotten around to gaming it. This revised and updated version of Beevor's 'The Spanish Civil War' from 1982 may revive the old yearnings of wishing to get some figures for this although not until after the Balkan Wars have been tackled!
The book by Roger Ford covers my preferred theatre of operations for World War - namely the Middle East and the trials and tribulations of the armies of the Sublime Porte. The book neatly divides into four sections - Palestine and the Arab Revolt, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and the actions against the Russians in the Caucasus. This book is a peach and I am really pleased to get this as in one volume it covers all the areas I have an interest in from the Great War. All I need now then is to think about (again) how best to tackle gaming in this theatre!
I want to keep the project list to a minimum this year - if only because I want to make sure that I finish what I start - the perennial problem for the wargamer! The Balkan are first up and if I want games in the meantime then the old standby of War at Sea and Memoir 44 will suffice to keep the grey matter ticking over.
I would also like to take this opportunity once again of thanking everyone that has contributed to and supported the blog over the last year - I certainly hope that you will continue to do so and I have valued everything thus far.
I hope that you all have a peaceful and prosperous 2010 and that whatever projects you are involved with all bear fruit.
Peace and goodwill.






3 comments:

El Grego said...

Happy New Year to you and yours!

I have yet to give your naval rules a good test, hopefully that will be soon.

Paul O'G said...

Glad to hear you are all recovering from your Lurgy mate. Great pressie from St Nick - congrats!

Mem 44 I think is a very under-rated game - I have nearly all the expansions, which give great depth available for all sorts of goodies, from air support to amphib ops. The Campaign book is excellent too.

Count me in as another staunch supported for 2010!

David Crook said...

Cheers chaps! As you rightly say Tas - Memoir 44 has a huge amount of potential and I am quite keen to make use of it as an 'instant' campaign system. I need to get the campaign book at some point and I would love to explore the Overlord king size scenarios.