Ironclads and Biplanes

It contains a role playing element but can be used as a straight up game of WW1 aerial combat

The back of the box

Blimey - January 31st already! After weeks of lethargy and meandering around way too many projects, potential and otherwise, my butterfly-like brain cell has finally gotten itself into some kind of order. At last!

To begin with, my order from Warbases has arrived so it means that I will be able crack on with the ships - no doubt much to the delight of the respective commanders! I plan to undertake some work on them over the weekend, along with a couple of other outstanding items. Work on Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame can resume in earnest.

I remember seeing Dawn Patrol when it was released back in the early 1980s but never picked it up - Richthofen’s War, Wings and Aces High were more my thing - and I remember thinking at the time “no hexes?” The game uses squares rather than hexes which, at the time, is probably why I passed it by. I have a far better relationship with squares these days so am more than happy to be proved wrong!

The game had a long gestation period - some ten years - and was inspired by the film “The Blue Max” and as well as a tactical system there is also a role playing element so players can develop their pilots over various missions and accrue ‘kills’ (or not, as the case may be!). 

The box contains the following bits and pieces:

The rules and data book which also includes play sheets, mission logs, manoeuvre cards and scenarios

The map. The squares are 1”

The counters. These are 1” square (observation balloons are 2” x 1”) and are nicely coloured but are sadly printed of quite thin card - no matter, I shall probably mount them on bases.

I was really pleased to pick up a copy of this to add to the WW1 collection. I will happily play with this as is but naturally, I have a couple of ideas as to how best to make use of the components. The aircraft counters are delightful and of a sufficient variety of type and nationality to satisfy most of my needs. As mentioned, I am seriously considering fixing the counters to an MDF base in order to increase their durability and ease of use. I am even thinking to making some flying bases to use with them but that, as they say, is for another day.

I will need to revisit my WW1 aerial film library though - purely for research purposes of course…. 

Of Ben Hur and Spartacus (with a nod to Gladiator…..)

The box art

The contents - the rules for both games are in one booklet.

A close up of the gladiator figures - identical to the AH version as I recall. Note the white plastic stands for the figures.

The map is double sided with the chariot circuit on one side….

….and a rather more serious looking side for the arena. I shall be getting this laminated.

Back in the days of the Newham Wargames Club, located in the cellar of Eric Knowles shop - New Model Army Limited, I picked up a copy of an Avalon Hill Game called Gladiator. This was all about man to man combat in Ancient Rome in the arena. It was enormous fun and was released with a separate game called Circus Maximus which covered chariot races. I never played the latter but certainly did the former!

I did not know until fairly recently that these were originally published by Battleline in a combined set - you got both games in one box.

Anyway, I happened across a copy for sale on eBay (which is where I first became aware of the ‘twin set’)  so immediately snapped it up!

For a game from 1979 it is in pretty good condition with only some of the chariot counters punched. 

I seem to remember an expansion set for gladiator being published which included some other types and also some wild animals so I will keep a look out for it. 

The arena seems to be a lot larger than the AH version but I would have to check but in any event it is huge compared to the hexagonal game I purchased from Lidl a while back - which may be turned into a small provincial style arena with the addition of some bits and pieces and a paint job. 

“Nos morituri te salutamus!”

(We who are about to die, salute you…..sorry, couldn’t resist….)

An Age of Sail Mystery

Something that piqued my curiosity - cheap and cheerful age of sail wargame of indeterminate origin, circa 1982. This folds in four with the game components stored within

Yup! It uses squares no less

The rules are on eight pieces of card and on the flip side of each sheet is a ship record card….

Each side has a 64m two 38s and a 20 gun armed merchantman

A series of event cards is included along with the material you see - note the self assembly D6! I was intrigued by the range stick -not something one usually associates with a grid based game

The ships. These are designed to be folded in half with a sea ‘base’ for them to stand up. The pictures had a dash of colour to differentiate the two side - British and French

I have never seen the above until I came across a copy for sale on eBay for a ridiculously low price so I grabbed it for a look. There are some interesting ideas contained within the rules along with a fair degree of tongue in cheek humour and for those reasons alone I am tempted to give it a spin over the weekend.

In the meantime though, I will do some digging to see if I can find out anything about it.

Curiouser and curiouser….

Continuing Flights of Fancy

The Avalon Hill ‘Smithsonian’ board game Mustangs - the successor to Air Force/Dauntless and the Expansion Kit, all designed by S Craig Taylor Jr

Although the base game was quite limited in scope there are some official expansions and a whole pile of fan made unofficial material - including using the core system for WW1, the Korean War and even Vietnam

 

The feeling of lethargy I mentioned previously continues to nibble away at me - for longer than usual this time - and so I have carried on meandering across various ideas and projects in play or yet to be in play. It is at times like this that I often make what seems to be snap and occasionally ill-considered decisions - and this current bout of inertia has been no exception.

Gone is the relatively recently acquired Wings of War/Glory WW1 1:144th collection - all 48 aircraft, 4 gaming mats and an observation balloon - due to a rethink about how I want to game WW1 in the skies. the scale is lovely, as are the models, but I could not see a future with it due to the cost of the available models, the ability to tailor the collection how I would have liked (lots of painting potentially involved), and, to be honest, the game system itself. 

It is a fun game for sure but there are elements that I find a little clumsy - needing a specific deck of cards per aircraft for movement and then using a damage deck for combat for example - but to each their own. It is a popular game for sure but I suppose having fought most of my air wargames over the years I feel more comfortable in a grid based environment!

So what to do then? Well, I want to fight WW1 and WW2 aerial battles using models - essentially swapping cardboard for metal/plastic/resin so the big (or small) question is what scale to use. 

I tried 1:100th via Axis and Allies: Angels 20 - again, great fun as a game but the randomness of the whole ‘collectible’ part of the process (with the attendant price scalping for the rarer models - the same with Wings of War/Glory) is a little tedious -  and also the painting required in order to build a cohesive collection. The models are also on the large side, especially when one starts using bombers.

1:200th via Blood Red Skies was a viable scale but try as I might I could not get on with the rules - again, to each their own - and so the embryonic collection I was building has also been moved on.

That leaves 1:300th and 1:600th as the remaining contenders. I have some history with 1:300th going back to the early 1980s when I painted up a pile of late war German aircraft for ground support using Heroics and Ros. They were surprisingly easy to make a reasonable job of and given that my copy of Mustangs that I got from Mr Fox had a selection of late war US and German aircraft it makes sense to use them. I added a few models to the selection - mainly to ensure that the flights were all of four aircraft and primarily for use with Mustangs.

The Heroics and Ros WW2 models, some of which were included in the game. The US have P38s, P47s and P51s whilst the Germans have 109Gs, FW190As, FW190Ds and Me262s - bear in mind that Mustangs was designed for small numbers - usually two to four models a side.

Mention of Mustangs (designed by S Craig Taylor Jr and in my opinion a worthy successor to the excellent Air Force/Dauntless/Expansion Kit trilogy) brings me to what was is an exciting development. I have scored another copy of the game along with the very rare expansion set and also some additional aircraft counters produced to go with an as yet identified magazine. Also included in the bundle is a copy of the Avalon Hill General magazine covering the game at its launch - I have the digital version of this but it is nice to have the hard copy. I also have the ‘miniatures’ expanded version fan based rules available from WarFlags under the Sky Pirates label - at the time of writing the website appears to be down - for WW2 and WW1 along with Mig Alley for the Korean War so in effect it is one rules system to cover the three periods. 

In addition to Mustangs, I also have plenty of other rule sets - all hex based - Check Your Six, Bag the Hun, Algernon Pulls it off to name but a few. I am rather liking the idea of a single rule set to cover them all (and in the darkness, bind them….) though, keeps things simple for me!

I rather like the idea of WW1 in 1:300th although I have it good authority the Heroics and Ros range are a little uneven in terms of quality and are also fiendishly fiddly to put together.I may buy a couple of models to see for myself but I am thinking that I will have to look further afield methinks. As I recall Davco produced a small range of WW1 types ‘back in the day’ so I will take a look and see what I can find.

In respect of 1:600th there is a pretty good range of WW1, WW2 and modern types available from Tumbling Dice. I am in two minds about this as from a cost, storage and price perspective they would seem ideal but they are small - perhaps too small for my eyesight!

So there it is then, the deliberations etc about what I am going to do and how I am going to do it or even when I am going to do it. For now though, this is all a ‘project or projects in being’ kind of thing.

Thoughts on Wind and Water

As well as being a magazine cover this image was also used on the box lid of the Battleline version of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. 

I have been feeling fairly lethargic over the last couple of weeks and despite having a gazillion things to do I have really struggled to get motivated. I suppose this is off the back of my prolonged chesty/throaty thing and is sure to pass soon. It usually does!

Anyway, whilst in this meandering state, I decided to browse through the recently rediscovered CD of the Avalon Hill/Victory Games Naval Games and, for no particular reason, settled on the folder of articles about Wooden Ships and Iron Men. 

I was certainly glad I did!

The Avalon Hill board game Wooden Ships and Iron Men is a simplified version of the original Ship ‘O’ the Line miniatures rules (one of my favourite rule sets for the period) and uses hexes rather than squares. The original miniatures rules were some eight years in the making and started life as a very detailed set of ship to ship rules, not the fleet level version of later.

Contained within the folder of articles there is a whole lot great material ranging from scenarios, mini campaigns, tactical discussions, additional and alternative rules and much more besides. The Russo-Swedish War and the Russo-Turkish War both feature with plenty of varied actions to be fought. There is also some really interesting background to the game design and its evolution from a miniatures set to the award winning Avalon Hill board game version penned by the designer himself, S Craig Taylor Jr.

Pirates feature, along with a series of scenarios based on the actions featured in the Richard Bolitho stories  written by Alexander Kent, the pen name of Douglas Reeman.

All in all then, there is plenty to get one’s teeth into for the period - which leads me quite nicely into the next bit!

Age of Sail thoughts

I own Wooden Ships and Iron Men (the Avalon Hill version), Flying Colours, Seas of Glory (more of a strategic game based on the 1805 campaign ending at Trafalgar) and also Micro-Fleet Napoleonic Naval so am well served in respect of board game options. Would I use models? The short answer is yes, I would and indeed, having built ships with a full sailing rail for the ACW project I am sure I could make a good fist of it. The only downside is time and in all seriousness I could not see myself undertaking what would be a significant building program anytime before 2027. The board game options will have to suffice, at least for the foreseeable anyway.

Of course there is always the range of 1:4800th scale models available from Tumbling Dice….

I think I need a lie down…. ;-)

A Disc that Slipped (the mind, that is!)

A Disc that had slipped from my mind….

No, I haven’t injured myself - I am instead referring to a CD I purchased way back in 2010! The CD is a compilation of PDFs of the components from the Avalon Hill and Victory Games Naval Titles. Also included are all the appropriate articles from the Avalon Hill General magazine associated with a particular title.

There are scanned copies of the rules, counter sheets, map boards, record logs/plot maps as well the aforementioned AG General articles.

At the time I purchased this solely for the Jutland content but upon rediscovering the CD I realised that there is a whole lot more good stuff to plough through. To give you a flavour the list of games covered is as follows:

Attack Sub

Submarine

Bismarck (1962 and 1978 versions)

Trireme

Carrier (Victory Games)

Flat Top

Midway (1964 and 1991 versions)

Peloponnesian War (Victory Games)

Tokyo Express (Victory Games)

Pacific War (Victory Games)

War at Sea/Victory in the Pacific

Wooden Ships and Iron Men

I own a few of these - Submarine, Bismarck (1978), Flat Top, Midway (1991) and Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Jutland I no longer have although I do have the Avalanche Press Great War at Sea version.

The big advantage of this is having the magazine articles in one place and already I have seen a whole pile of stuff that will be useful - not just scenarios and additional rules but designer insights etc. For example, a couple of articles in the Wooden Ships and Iron Men folder were penned by the designer S Craig Taylor Jr. I shall look forward to reading them and the series of scenarios covering the Russo Turkish war during the Napoleonic era.

I have a similar CD that covers the Avalon Hill version of Air Force and Dauntless - I already have the Avalon Hill Generals devoted to Mustangs and Guadalcanal.

That will be my reading material sorted for a while methinks - in between painting ironclads that is!

WW1 Naval - Micro Fleet style

A boardgame without a board - a tactical game with more weight than Avalon Hill’s Jutland 

The components - play sheets, move/damage record charts and counters. The rules are in the cover and are 21 single sided pages long.

Well this is a blast from the past and no mistake! My good friend Mr Fox was having a tidy up of, I believe, his Area 51 1/2, when he came across his copy of the above, along with the Jutland Fleet packs. Having no further use for the same and knowing my interest in the period and old gaming systems, he very kindly passed them on to yours truly.

Published in 1976 by Tabletop Games, the game was part of a series which included Napoleonics, ancients, Colonials, Sci Fi, WW2 naval, Napoleonic naval and I believe Medievals. Contained inside the cover were the rules, playing aids and record pads along with counters to represent the units. There were additional army packs available and for the Napoleonic naval version the fleet packs for Trafalgar. As I recall the WW2 naval version covered the Denmark Straits and the River Plate with an expansion covering Matapan. 

For the WW1 naval edition the base game features ship counters for the Goeben incident, the Falklands, Dogger Bank and the battlecruiser actions from Jutland. The two expansion packs add the remaining ships to the Jutland order of battle. the rules were very much of their time - chart and factor heavy with written moves.

I remember playing many games with this system, including Jutland, with an old friend of mine using his lounge floor. It was great fun but limited as to the variety of ships available - British and German only. I never knew who designed this but I had many a cracking action with it. Would I use it again? Possibly for nostalgic reasons but as an inveterate rules tinkerer I would probably look to, ahem, borrow some of the ideas and put my own spin on it.

I would be really keen to reverse engineer the ship specs just to see how the designer got to where they got to.

My thanks to Mr Fox for passing this on to me - as ever much appreciated!

BTW, if any readers have any of the other editions of this series they no longer need then please let me know - especially the other two naval titles, WW2 and Napoleonic.

A Tale of Two Assault Cannons

Two types of Assault Cannon to inflict the Emperor’s vengeance upon his enemies. The unmounted version looks more business like in my opinion.

Whilst the latest paint on the ironclads is drying I took the opportunity to take a look at the Terminator Assault Cannons I had recently acquired for use with my copy of Space Hulk. As you can see there are a number of differences between the two types. The model I converted uses a simpler looking AC whilst the newer version has rather more detail. I have opted to use the latter for a number of reasons. To begin with, the weapon looks better balanced with several millimetres of the weapon effectively behind the marine. It is also a couple of millimetres shorter so will not stick out quite as far as the first version. Finally, the weapon has a better muzzle finish - the ring that the barrels are mounted in is missing from the first version - and so looks more business-like.

The same conversion technique will be used to fashion the three models I need and I am hoping that I shall be able to re-convert the original model to the new standard. 

I also plan to convert some sergeants and a captain figure so as to round the selection off. 

Painting Progress

The ships of the Sublime Porte. The main hull sections are at the top - as you can see they are painted black. The two white sections you see are undercoated as they are a visible part of the main deck and so will be painted as such.

The Royal Navy. You can see the red layer that will be on the waterline. The black hulls need masking tape before I tackle the white ‘boot strapping’.

 I had some good news this morning in that Warbases are now on the case with my small order - I was expecting to wait another couple of weeks or so - meaning that I shall be able to get to the Royal Navy sooner rather than later. To this end I decided to increase the pace with the Turkish ships so these will be definitely finished first. The pictures illustrate the state of play so far with the lower hulls.

My plan now is to paint the Turkish ships main decks over the weekend so they will then be ready for the deck features and masts etc. 

The pieces I am waiting on from Warbases impact five of the Royal Navy models - numbers 2 until five along the bottom row from the left and also number eight. For the first four ships (2 to 5) I am waiting on the main deck whilst number eight has some bespoke pieces needed. 

For the Turks I have a number of masts already assembled but I need to see if they are of the correct dimensions first - I will tackle this once the lower hulls and main decks are as complete as they can be first of all though.

Mr Huband will no doubt be delighted at the progress being made with the Turks, Mr Fox less o with the RN!

The Plan Taking Shape

A rather attractive poster that Mr Fox found online. He kindly sent me a digital version of this and guess what I found on it?

The Turkish ironclad Messudieh - sister ship to HMS Superb, both of which will be featuring in the Anglo-Turkish War of 1880

Work on 24 of the 16 models I am building for the Anglo-Turkish War of 1880 continues, albeit at a rather leisurely pace. The Turkish lower hulls are complete whilst the RN are awaiting the white boot strapping - this is not difficult but it is fiddly and time consuming and one really needs to be at the top their game when doing it. I am not quite there yet as the chesty/throaty thing lingers on although not as bad as last week. In any event, I am waiting on Warbases for some bits and pieces for the RN models - well, five of them - so the Turks will probably be finished first.

The battle report that will feature in Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame now has a pair of commanders for the opposing sides. Messrs Fox and Huband will be commanding the Royal Navy and that of the Sublime Porte respectively - for which I am hugely grateful as it means I can concentrate on making sure everything runs smoothly and that the all important after action report is as accurate as possible. I am more confident of the latter than the former though!

The battle will consist of both sides having around 8 ships each and so this will the largest game undertaken using the rules. It will also be fought on a square grid rather than hexagonal.

Each commander will be able to choose eight ships for their respective fleets with the umpire being able to swap out one or two of them, to add a little variety to the set up. I am thinking of running a smaller game beforehand just so Messrs Fox and Huband can get a handle on the rules - in my experience there is no substitute for actually moving the models about rather than relying solely on the written word so to speak.

Anyways, the ships available to either side are as follows:

Royal Navy

HMS Monarch

HMS Devastation

HMS Superb

HMS Hercules

HMS Agincourt

HMS Minotaur

HMS Audacious

HMS Invincible

HMS Swiftsure

HMS Triumph

HMS Belleisle

HMS Orion

Of the ships above the first two are turret ships whilst the final pair are coastal defence rams. HMS Superb, HMS Belleisle and HMS Orion were originally intended for Turkey but were purchased as a result of the potential war with Russia arising from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78. 

Turkey

Mesudiye

Osmaniye

Mahmudiye

Assar-i Tevfik

Assar-i Sevket

Necm-i Sevket

Luft-u Celil

Hifz-ur Rahman

Avnillah

Muin-i Zafer

Feth-i Bulend

Mukaddeme-i Hayir

Mesudiye is the sister ship of HMS Superb and was eventually sunk during the Great War. The two ships were the largest broadside battery ironclads built and whilst both were equipped with a full sailing rig neither were ‘sailed’ as such. Apparently HMS Superb was so unmanageable under sail that she never had a sailing manual produced for her! I noticed that the Turkish navy reduced the sailing rig on their ironclads pretty quickly - I have no information as to why but suspect that perhaps manpower may have been a factor. 

There is an interesting mix of types in both fleets and so the resulting action should be a lot of fun in an anarchic kind of way. As ever, victory will go to whoever makes the best use of what they have to hand, along with the occasional smile from Dame Fortune. 

Once again, my thanks to Neil Fox and Nick Huband - I only hope they know what they have let themselves in for!

Defying Gravity - Leviathans Style

Gotta love the idea of a flying battleship! The base game contains 8 PRE-PAINTED models - 2 battleships, 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers split equally between Great Britain and France. These are made from plastic and are scaled at 1:1200th - the same as those from Brigade Models from their Aeronef/Imperial Skies range

I have a long history with Victorian Science Fiction aerial wargames. Initially this was down to the Aeronef rules produced by Wessex Games years ago - a set I have fond memories an, along with Aussie Paul of The Man Cave fame,  even collaborated on a mini campaign supplement called Aeronef over the Aegean. I scratch built fleets of Balkan dirigibles for the Turks, Greeks and Bulgarians, and in short, had a lot of fun with the genre.

Since then I have sort of looked at genre a few times - mainly with a view to scratch building the models again - but never really got anything off the ground so to speak. I am going to look at Robin Fitton’s Imperial Skies (available from Brigade Models I believe) and even revisit Castles in the Sky for additional inspiration but something has appeared at Maison Crook that the genre did probably not expect….

Leviathans is a miniatures based game of flying warships set around 1910 - firmly in the Dystopian Wars/Steampunk ‘era’. I remember seeing mention of the game prior to its launch around 2011 and being pretty ‘meh’ about the whole idea. I have a vague recollection that the models were going to be released moulded in transparent plastic which I was underwhelmed by - not sure why but at the time it did not appeal for some reason - and also the range of ‘official’ models seemed quite limited. 

Nowadays I tend to be a little less precious about ‘official’ models - how very avant-garde of me - so when a copy of the released game popped up for sale on one of the Facebook groups I belong to I thought I would take a look - just for old times sake and all that.

I looked into the current situation of Leviathans and was surprised to see that a further edition had been fully funded on kickstarter and added in the Germans and Russians as well as extending the original game to include the Great War. The new base game features French and German Leviathans with the inevitable extra fleet packs adding additional models. A quick messenger exchange with the game’s producers - Catalyst Game Labs - confirmed that the new version is essentially the original game rebadged and expanded and critically, all the original material is still relevant and usable. That clinched it!

Now I should perhaps explain my thought process at this point. Obtaining a copy of a game like this - self contained, with pre-painted models and ready to use straight out of the box - is at the present time probably the best way for me to get into something new. Although this is not strictly a new project per se, it is something that has been on the radar and I do have ‘form’ with it. Is that a justification? Perhaps - but it what passes for rational decision making in my universe it was a no-brainer!

The Game Itself

When this large box of goodies arrived the first thing I realised was that aside from the eight ships in the base game there were also the British and French expansion packs - a further eight models! I queried this with the seller and he said he had forgotten about them. He did not want any extra money as a result which was a generous gesture indeed although I had managed to score one of each set off eBay in anticipation - which now means that I will have twenty four models in all!

There are two double-sided map boards - these are 16 by 17 hexes (the hexes are 33mm across the flat sides). The above are the ‘land’ sides….

….and this is the ‘sea’ side

Some of the models on their bases along with the data cards and damage cards

More of the game components

The paperwork - the Lieutenant’s Manual is the quick start version whilst the Commanders’s is the full rules set. The Gazetteer is a 90 page background guide to the world of 1910 and the technology involved. The world is very much historically aligned although a few changes are present!

A poster featuring the main types involved in this version of the game.

All of the models - the lighter grey types are French, the darker are British

The models from the base game.

The models are rather nice but do feel a little fragile. The paint jobs are acceptable although even reluctant old painter me has felt the urge to ‘pimp’ them up a little - time however, is still my greatest adversary!

All in all then, this is a welcome addition to the collection that crucially does not need much in the way of getting it table ready. The new version should be available later spring so will increase the available models somewhat. I would have liked to have scratch built them but sadly time would not permit so having an ‘over ready’ option for the genre is really handy.

The map boards could also serve for 1:600th scale aircraft games so all in all the game has many benefits - even if I used the models elsewhere. 

In closing the only thing I would say is that I am not a fan of the bases used!

The Ship Builder’s Progress

The Turkish fleet. These are going to be limited to plain black hull sides, possibly with the lower hull in brick red, and with the inevitable white trim around the main deck.

The Royal Navy. The single thickness hull templates at the top of the picture will be painted brick red for the lower hull and the layer above will feature the thin white ‘boot strapping’. The main deck will also have a white trim.

After what has been the best part of three months I am finally on the last lap of my on and off seasonal chesty/throaty thing - an affliction that is not serious but is extremely wearing. I tend to lose concentration easily (more so than usual!) and suffer from what feels like a permanent slightly nagging headache - tension based and no doubt due to the coughing. In short, it means that I am at somewhat than optimal efficiency and so most gaming related activities are greatly reduced.

The pictures you see above at this stage do not look like much but I was able today to get the models up to a tipping point prior to the next phase. I cannot begin to tell you how good it felt to be knee deep in MDF once again and in a meaningful way! 

I have a few pieces I am waiting on from Warbases but I am at last at the stage where at the very least the lower hulls can now be undercoated prior to painting. The main decks will have their hatches etc added before being painted so that the first phase will be just the lower hulls. I want to get all the hulls completed  (I am waiting on half a dozen pieces main deck pieces from Warbases for these) before I tackle the masts, bowsprits, flagstaffs, flying decks, funnels, turrets and barbette mounted guns. 

I am quite pleased, relieved even, to be back in business and am also delighted that the 24 of the 16 models planned are back on track….

New Year, Old Challenges….

Portable Ironclads in action

The Block of Ages - expect to see these in the new year!

Our first trip abroad since Laurel’s surgery - a fantastic week so we have booked for two in 2025 (which means I shall miss Broadside in June but I reckon the Paella will make up for that, along with the planned visit to the Alhambra palace!)

Dunno what he looks so pleased about but he is definitely punching above his weight…. ;-)

The view from the breakfast terrace at the hotel - just soak it in!

For Steamer Wars: Hexed - Charlie and Rose keeping a low profile in the African Queen

The Lake Tanganyika collection

First of all, a (belated) very happy new year to one and all! I hope all went well in whatever way you chose to celebrate (or not).

Ours was a quiet affair as SWMBO and I binged watched the final three episodes of The Winter King - it was OK-ish - before retiring in advance of midnight. That was probably not a smart move as the fireworks marking the new year seem to go on for ages and with a disturbing level of WW1 barrage intensity!

2024 was a little like the curate’s egg in many ways. My redundancy and four bereavements - one of which hit us both particularly hard - set against the backdrop of Laurels continued struggles and for me a prolonged series of bouts of my seasonal throaty/chesty/coughing thing over the last quarter, and now an infection in my right eye means that yours truly was probably less than enthusiastic about seeing the new year in! Nothing fatal in there though, just tedious and energy sapping.

The brightest spot of the year was when Laurel and I headed off to Andalusia in June for our first trip abroad since 2019 (when we went to Cuba). It was a fantastic week that all went off swimmingly - much to our (especially for Laurel as this was her first trip as a disabled traveller) relief. Flying from our local airport (Southend) was a huge advantage as it is small and less busy than the larger ones and so less stressful. The staff on hand for the assisted travel were absolutely top drawer - all of which helped to settle the nerves etc. My daughter said that in many ways it was like ‘ripping the plaster off’ as all the imagined problems did not materialise although Malaga airports for the return was a different story. We will know how to deal with though, when we return this June for two weeks, with a visit to the Alhambra Palace.

The gaming front has been relatively quiet but with a few bright spots. The hex based version of David Manley’s Steamer Wars was written and published and of course I was able to build some models to go with it. It was great fun to do and a couple of cracking games came out of it - along with some ideas for my planned WW1 Madasahatta inspired campaign plans.

A number of boardgames came into the collection as well as a fair few going out and also the library saw a lot of ‘churning’. The books have been greatly reduced but some choice acquisitions have kept it honest and more importantly, me inspired! In both cases the reality is that I am no longer able to get out as much I used to due to caring responsibilities and also, inevitably the day will come when a down size will be needed. The more precise focus has certainly been beneficial though as concentrating on a mere 247 projects instead of the usual 862 is easier to manage….

I was finally able to get to The Other Partizan in October. It was a flying visit but an enjoyable one and next time I shall be better prepared.

I managed to get a couple of ACW Portable Ironclad Wargames in which were great fun and indeed, there are a few more models to be built for the collection - once the Royal Navy and Turks are finished.

Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame is three quarters ready in terms of text. Some 24 of the 16 models needed are now under construction and as soon as a couple of things are in place I should be good to crack on with them. On the writing front I have some pretty good news but this will have to wait until after DTPIW is published, hopefully at the end of Q1.

That is about it for now as concentrating for long periods is quite wearing at present so once again,

Have a great new year - stay healthy keep rolling whatever you need to roll!

Catch you all later!