Cars, Fighters, Tanks and…. Triremes!?

609 Squadron for the Spitfires (top) and 242 and 303 for the Hurricanes. 

For the Germans we have both ZG and JG 26

It has been a busy few days and no mistake! On the non gaming front the big news is that I have at last taken the plunge and replaced our venerable 20 year old Honda Civic for something that is larger, more ‘upright’ and technologically updated! There was nothing wrong with the Civic but it sat quite low and so getting in and out was getting less and less easy for me - ironically Laurel could manage rather better - and it was also showing signs of age (rather like its owner!). It had been using rather more oil that one would expect and so it was time to jump before being pushed so to speak. In truth it had been a magnificent and trouble free servant for the fourteen years I had owned it and, to be honest, I will miss it.

I am now the proud owner of a 2020 Nissan Qashqai which has all the technological bells and whistles the Civic did not. More importantly, there is more storage space, the seats are higher off the ground and the whole thing feels more substantial on the road. I was quite surprised at the 1.3 engine, being of the generation that equated engine size with power, as it delivers over 150 BHP and at driving speeds has plenty of, what is the technical term? Oh yes, that’s it “Oomph!” 

On the gaming front a number of things have fallen into place. To begin with, my order of decals for the 1:100th Battle of Britain project have arrived for the USA. These were produced by Miscellaneous Miniatures and are quite simply outstanding. I have sufficient for the 24 aircraft of the first wave and so all that needs doing now is get the map sheets laminated - I am doing this as the cloth has not worked out - and then start on the painting. The map sheets are from the Angels 20 base game and represent a fairly anonymous looking aerial view of some countryside - that from Bandits High (the largely Pacific facing other entry level game) features an area of coast and again, is suitably anonymous looking. For a change I would use it for Battle of Britain games without any problem.

A low counter density strategic game of the war in the desert - sufficient to channel one’s inner Rommel

The back of the box - note the clear and easy to read counters

The Tank part of the title refers to a cheeky little acquisition I made from a local chap of a copy of the boardgame No Retreat: The North African Front. This is a strategic level game of the war in the desert but is handled in rather a unique way. The designer is not a fan of long maps of the desert on the grounds that there is a lot of unused space. He argues that most of the key actions in the war were in effect localised and so maps can be used that focus on those areas rather than overall. There are game mechanics in place to cover the movement between sections as part of the overall campaign - significantly this is a great mechanism for the linked scenario or mini campaign approach. As an extra bonus there is also a game based largely on the rules for the desert version which covers the German airborne invasion of Crete. 

At the time of writing there are further titles available in the series - Russia, Poland/France and Italy I believe. Definitely worth a look and with a production quality that is really high - individual counters with rounded corners and mounted map boards. 

Ooops! An oversight on my part that has now been rectified!

The last part of this post is rather embarrassing! You may recall that a while back I had finalised the design of a 4cm long generic looking MDF trireme, the idea being that this would be used for a refight of Salamis. To cut a long story short and after several minor tweaks the design was finalised and so Warbases sent me the quote for the cost of the 60 models I would need. I thought I had answered his in the affirmative and so was merry waiting for the invoice to arrive so that I could formally order the models. 

It turns out that I has in fact neglected to do so this but had thought I had and so was waiting for the invoice to arrive. Now Warbases are routinely very busy so the long wait was not a problem initially. I began to wonder if I had been forgotten and so decided to send a gentle reminder. It was at this point I realised my mistake and so I contacted Warbases whilst apologising profusely for what was in fact my delayed response! The invoice came back to me within a day…..