The Joys of Parenthood

Today was a very special day in the Crook household. Holly, my daughter, was one of thousands of students up and down the country going to collect her A Level results. She came away with an A Star, an A and a B grade for the three subjects she took.

Am I a ridiculously proud and teary-eyed, sentimental and smug grinning old duffer? You bet I am!

Many, many congratulations to my darling daughter - you have made mum and I so proud!

Timely Arrivals and a Milestone

I arrived home yesterday evening (at my usual time of 7:35pm) to a welcome package from Stonewall Miniatures. Contained therein were the missing ships from mt 1/2400th WW1 collection including some Orion and Revenge class battleships, a Lion class battle cruiser and, to make up the minimum order required, a Hipper class cruiser from WW2. The castings need a little attention - specifically the Orion class as I will have to remove the rather awkward tripod foremast. I have removed the masts from all of my models for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they never seem to come out cleanly (to be fair the moulds are getting on a little) and secondly for gaming purposes they tend to get in the way. I realise that for C in C and GHQ these are included but they make for a fragile model - at least for me they do - and anyway, the Panzerschiffe types do not seem to have any and the Stonewall models will need to fit in with them from an aesthetic perspective.

Mention of the Hipper will probably give a small clue as to where the collection will be heading once the WW1 models are completed - and for the record the casting is very nice indeed. She will be accompanying my previously painted model of the Bismarck on a foray into the North Atlantic at some point in the future.

I managed to make a start on the bases for the British battleships but did not get very far before tiredness kicked in so I opted to stop for fear of messing something vital up!

I noticed as well that I have managed to pass 250,000 page views - this is a quite astonishing achievement and so my humble thanks go out to everybody that follows my ramblings or that just drops by from time to time. I am coming up to the fifth anniversary of the blog so an average of 50K per year is pretty good going. I am conscious though that my blogging has slowed down somewhat due to work over the last year but many thanks to all for your continued support - it is, as ever, hugely appreciated.

That was the year that was....

Early I know but I wanted to get in quickly and before the rush starts!

I would normally write this post tomorrow but I am going to be rather busy then and as I currently have a window of opportunity between domestic chores figured now would be as good a time as any!

2013 has been an eventful year for me and the biggest thing has been getting back to work - more specifically, changing my career. It has been a huge cultural change and the hours I am working has come as quite a shock to the system. The biggest casualty has been time. Time to spend with the family; time to spend with friends and time to game. I should not complain - especially as at least I am coming home every night and am not away for months at a time, nor am I working anti-social hours.Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying my new career but it has taken rather a lot of getting used to.

The project list for 2013 has failed spectacularly and to be honest, the list may as well be torn up and started again! The only real progress I have made has been with the block collections. I have managed to expand the collection to differentiate between troop types which will be important when I look to tackle the musket era. I have a number of ideas around this and various clues have been dropped via the blog over recent weeks. I have nothing concrete scoped out just yet but hope to shed some further light in due course.

I have some painting to catch up on - the 1/2400th scale warships and a whole pile of aircraft - and had hoped to get some work in over the holiday but this has rather fallen by the wayside. The only thing I have made a lot of progress with is catching up on my reading - either via my priceless Kindle or using real books.

I have a lot of hopes to realise a few games using variants of Bob Cordery's 'Itchy and Scratchy' rules and with this in mind I want to make sure that next year any projects are small, self-contained and can be resourced from my existing collection.

Next year will hopefully see the Ancients getting some attention - the sequel to 300 is due in March - as I have rather a lot of 1/1200th galleys needing some TLC. This may also spawn some 16th century naval action as well as I have a hankering for some Renaissance gaming in some fashion - I have prepared a selection of Janissary blocks specially with this in mind - with the army of the Sublime Porte taking centre stage.

Oh, and some science fiction stuff, at long last....;-)

It only remains then, for me to wish each and everyone one of you a very happy 2014 and I hope that all your respective projects and endeavours come to fruition.

The Christmas Haul 2013

The Western Front during the first weeks of WW1 is a fascinating period to study and game

This is an Osprey compilation hardback containing five of the Duel series of WW2 fighter match ups.

Crossing the Balkans on foot during the 1930s- the third part of the trilogy published after the author's death in 2011.

Well the Christmas day festivities have been and gone - the turkey has been eaten (well half of it has), numerous glasses of seasonal cheer have been drunk and the presents unwrapped. I have done very well this year and no mistake! Aside from the three books you see above I also acquired five Blu-Rays - The Message starring Anthony Quinn, Conan the Barbarian starring Arnie and also the Matrix trilogy. There was also a vast quantity of chocolate and sundry other items and a small sum of cash courtesy of my son that will be suitably invested....;-)

Home Before The Leaves Fall by Ian Senior (published by Osprey ISBN 978 1 84908 843 5) is a study of the German invasion of 1914 and focuses on the German and French actions during the opening weeks of World War 1 as seen from the German perspective. This is a refreshing change from the more usual accounts of the B.E.F and it is an area that I am keen to investigate further. There are plenty of supporting maps and orders of battle included so I fully expect to get a lot of block-based scenario ideas from this. My copy came courtesy of my son - via the monies he treated the 'old man' with for Christmas for the princely sum of £4.99 down from £18.99 as sold in The Works.

Dogfight edited by Tony Holmes (published by Osprey ISBN 978 1 84908 482 6) is a compliation title of five of the 'Duel' series. The match-ups consist of the following:

• Spitfire vs BF109E
• P-47 Thunderbolt vs BF109G/K
• P-40 Warhawk vs Ki-43 "Oscar"
• P51 Mustang vs FW190
• Seafire vs A6M "Zero"

I will enjoy this and hope that it will give me sufficient inspiration to get cracking with the painting of my Axis and Allies Angels 20 aircraft. Again, my copy came courtesy of my son for the princely sum of £6.99 down from £20.00 as sold in The Works.

The Broken Road - From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos by Patrick Leigh Fermor (published by John Murray ISBN 978 1 84854 752 0) is the third volume of his trilogy describing how, as a young man of eighteen, the author decided to walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul during the 1930s. I now need to get a hold of the first two volumes!

I first discovered Patrick Leigh Fermor in the book Ill Met by Moonlight written by W. Stanley Moss - the story of the kidnap of the German General Kriepe from the island of Crete during World War 2. I also discovered several large quotes from his book The Wandering Tree (about his travels in the Caribbean) mentioned in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Live and Let Die.

I am a huge fan of travel writings and so when I discovered that he had undertaken the journey culminating in the Broken Road (although as mentioned this was published posthumously) I was hooked - especially as the area he had traversed was the Balkans and Greece!

One to savour methinks!

All in all then I have been very fortunate this year and still have some funds to be invested although into what exactly is another matter entirely!

In the footsteps of Ebeneezer Scrooge....

....or A Christmas Carol revisited

The great Alastair Sim as Ebeneezer Scrooge

Readers of the blog will doubtless be aware that I work in the City of London; a mere five minutes from the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street. The area surrounding the 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' is a fascinating myriad of buildings old and new; of small alleyways and secret courtyards lost within modern and classical office buildings, shops and hostelries of every type. Of particular interest in this respect is the block between Cornhill and Lombard Street - it is full of small alleyways and with surprises appearing at almost every turn.

One my personal seasonal traditions is to reread Charles Dickens book - A Christmas Carol during the week before Christmas. I have done this for many years now and always enjoy the experience; more so this year because my offices are located virtually in the heart of where most of the book was actually set - within the heart of the City of London.

Whilst Dickens does not offer much in the way of actual place names in his book by virtue of some local knowledge and some 'google-fu'; together with my trusty electronic copy of A Christmas Carol, I have managed to identify a couple of places featured in his story.

Ebeneezer Scrooge was a businessman with offices in the City of London. The actual location of  'Scrooge and Marleys' is not revealed although reference is made to him conducting business in or around the Royal Exchange as Dickens described 'Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.' At the time of writing A Christmas Carol (1843) the present Royal Excahnge building was still under construction and was not finished until 1844, the previous building had burned down in a fire in 1838. However, across the way from Cornhill is Change Alley so did Scrooge conduct his business there perchance?

Change Alley - the site of many small businesses in Victorian times, benefiting from the building work being undertaken in the construction of the new Royal Exchange. Did Scrooge have an office in here?

Of one thing we can be absolutely certain of is Cornhill, which is mentioned when Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's downtrodden clerk, 'went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of it being Christmas Eve,' and there is indeed a slope from roughly the exit of Change Alley down to Poultry.

Looking down Cornhill. Change Alley is on the left and the right is the new Royal Exchange building completed in 1844 - the year after A Christmas Carol was published. Note the water pump on the right hand side near the post box and the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in the distance, complete with its churchyard .

The water pump is not mentioned in the book per se but I reckon that is contributed to the slide that Bob Cratchit used as it was originally erected in 1790 for watering horses so it would not be beyond the realms of possibility that the sloops had congealed into ice and ran away down the slope towards Poultry.

The Cornhill water pump erected in 1790. the trough was still there until quite recently although all that now remains is the two supports you can see on either side.

When Scrooge left his offices to head home he stopped off and 'took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern'. Now I have a theory about this. I reckon that he probably made used of either of the following two hostelries - the George and Vulture or possibly the  Jamaica Wine House or the Jampot as it is known locally.

The George and Vulture - now primarily an eatery with the small alleyway leading to....

The Jamaica Wine House is certainly quite dark and melancholy on the inside as it boasts much in the way of dark wood paneling and numerous booths - just right for a solitary diner. 

The above venue also features in as a possibility supporting my next theory - no less than where Scrooge actually lived.

'They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with the other houses, and forgotten the way out again.'

In my mind's eye I see a small house tucked in a corner, surrounded by other taller buildings.

Is that house in the middle of the picture that of Scrooge?

The block of buildings you see to the left back on to the Jamaica Wine House which is significant as the cellars run under the house. This is mentioned when Marley's ghost arrives 'as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar.'

With the exception of the 'Cornhill slide' much of the above is speculation and the locations described in the book could easily refer to just about any part of the city at some point. For me though, as I took these pictures this morning on Christmas Eve I could not help but think about whether or not Charles Dickens wandered around these very streets and alleyways when coming up with the idea for A Christmas Carol some 170 years ago.

It only remains for me to wish all my readers past, present or yet to come; a very Merry Christmas and and a very peaceful and prosperous 2014. Perhaps I should leave the last word to Tiny Tim,

"God bless us, everyone!"

A Very Special Day

Yours truly and the officially grown up Holly - I am not ashamed to admit that I did have a bit of a wobble when I saw this picture!

Yesterday, the 15th December was a day of much celebration. My darling daughter Holly reached 18 years of age. I cannot really add much to this other than to say how proud and blessed SWMBO and I have been by her and that whilst as parents you always hope your children can learn from you I can safely say that I have learned much from her in return.

I also learned a valuable lesson in computers as I set up her present from SWMBO and I - a Macbook Pro - in that using Apple is so easy after Windows!

The celebratory sombreros courtesy of Pancho's Cantina will feature in a separate post....;-)

So in closing - to my beautiful, witty, intelligent, considerate Holly, a very, very happy birthday!

What have these got in common?

The Millennium Falcon.....

The Millennium Dome...

Robbie Williams singing Millennium....

All of the above have one thing in common and that is also something that I feature with as well. Today sees A Wargaming Odyssey reaching its own personal Millennium - that is 1,000 posts!

I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am to have gotten this far and as ever I should like to thank everybody that have read and commented over my modest endeavours since 2009. Since then I have covered such a lot of ground and I can honestly say that writing the blog and interacting with people from across the globe has truly enriched my enjoyment of our hobby and that the resulting friendships have made the entire thing a really worthwhile effort.

There have been modelling posts, gaming posts, boot sale posts, ooh shiny posts, posts from life for when things were all too grim in the real world (special thanks for them!) and shared posts where the feedback has taken me into new and often uncharted territory.

Many, many thanks once again to one and all and here's to the next 1,000!

SELWG 2012

Well I broke with tradition and made the journey to Crystal Palace for the annual SELWG show for the first time since 1995, just before my daughter was born (she is now nearly 17!).

Despite a minor navigational hiccup the journey was largely uneventful and parking a breeze. I managed to hook up with Postie's Rejects in the queue - complete with the towering man mountain that is the Angry Lurker

A coveted trophy - mine, all mine....

I was happily exchanging banter with these erudite gentlemen when Angry whipped out a rather impressive gift for me - a genuine Postie's Rejects d6! I was moved to apathy at the generosity of this gesture and the said dice now holds pride of place with the other 6,000 or so I have....

Many thanks chaps, much appreciated!

After having discussed the finer points of the film Shoot 'em up starring Clive Owen we made our way into the venue.

Many thanks to Bob Cordery for these - I know have 17 similar to this and reckon that should I head to Greece next year I should be able to complete the collection!

I won't go into too many details about the show - suffice it to say it was big, busy and with more temptation than you shake a large wallet at! - and will instead let the pictures do the talking. I was able to catch up with a number of old friends including that rather splendid  Bob Cordery  - especially as he was able to pass over to me a selection of ceramic houses acquired for me from his recent Adriatic adventure. We talked about things many and varied and it was good to share several thoughts around our respective gaming ideas. As ever, always a pleasure Bob - we should get another game in at some point as well!

SEEMS with their alternative WW2 Zombie apocalypse game - The Restless Dead

Sagrajas 1086 - Almoravids versus the Kings of Leon and Castille by the GLC gamers in 28mm

Brave Little Belgium - 15mm WW2 by the Crawley Wargames Club

The Invasion of Denmark - 20mm WW2 by the Deal Wargames Club

Aspern-Essling 1809 - I forgot the club in question (apologies chaps!) other than the fact that my old Newham gaming friend Derek Oram was commanding some French!

I splashed the cash in a number of directions but overall was fairly restrained. I picked up the following:

I read this many years ago and was really pleased to pick this up for a mere £8!

Just to prove that I can suffer from the 'Ooh, shiny' syndrome just as much as the next man although DO NOT expect me to tackle this in 28mm!

I also picked up a selection of CinC 1/4800th WW2 ships from Wargames Emporium - mentioning Tim Gow opened up all manner of doors - and they are absolutely drop dead gorgeous. the range is limited to the RN and KM for WW2 but what the heck - I can live with that minor inconvenience.

All in all then it was a good day out and the great thing about the venue is that actually doesn't feel that crowded - it feels like a big small show or a small big show. I will probably not leave it another 16 years until I revisit it though....;-)

Many thanks once again to the Rejects and Bob Cordery and to all the clubs that chatted about their particular games.

Partying like its 1995....

Did somebody say FREEDOM!!! One of the film 'highlights' of 1995

1995 was a very special year for me in that it was the year my daughter Holly was born. It was also the year in which it was the last time I did something. The something in particular was going to SELWG - the wargames show organised by the South East London Wargames Group. This year however will be different as I have decided to break with a 16 year habit and intend going to the show - SELWG 2012

I am quite looking forward to it (although the attending trade may well have in its grip of 'Ooh, shiny' before I can batten down the wallet!) and will promise faithfully to take pictures - lots of pictures.

It should be fun - at least I hope so.

Madasahatta - What it meant to me

SMS Panther - the Iltis was one her sisters

This post is very much in addition to Bob Cordery's Madasahatta revisited and for fuller details of this legendary campaign see his Colonial Wargaming website for all manner of things Madasahatta related  (and a good few other things besides) - Colonial Wargaming.

I came to this campaign more or less at the last knockings but the impact and the imagery that it cemented in my consciousness has stayed with me ever since and, if truth be told, has coloured much of my wargames plans and ideas over the years. At the time I was a young man of my late teens/(very) early twenties and I was awestruck at the sheer scope and panache of the undertaking - in my opinion fully up there with any of the works of Featherstone, Grant, Young, Lawford or anybody else - and it took my own wargames adventure into directions I would never have considered otherwise.

Thinking back, my very brief cameo role in the campaign (I commanded a German gunboat during a naval bombardment) as a junior officer in the Imperial German Navy using Fletcher Pratt as the rules of choice - on a tabletop mind! -  (Port Maleesh if memory serves although I remain to be corrected) introduced me to a number of lifelong interests including naval wargames, SMS Seydlitz, a passionate interest in anything Ottoman Turkish and also a liking for the idea (if not the execution) of the small war.

SMS Seydlitz with her Combat Air Patrol - an unusual picture if only because she is in one piece....

Bob and I have been bouncing a number of emails around about the whole Madasahatta idea and how it could be gamed again in some fashion. I have a number of ideas (as does Bob I am sure) involving for me blocks and Memoir of Battle as the rules of choice so I will be sure to post what comes out in the wash.

In passing I should say that this will not even be an effort - it will be fun, just like the original.

Four 'As' and Five 'Bs'

Well done Holly!

Today is GCSE day in the UK and so my kind beautiful, intelligent, witty, and thoroughly lovely daughter went to her school at the bottom of my road to collect her results. Holly managed to achieve the grades above and so both SWMBO and I are very proud and, I am not ashamed to say, teary-eyed at her success.

Well done Holly, we are so proud of you - all that hard work has been worth it!

The Punic Wars, 100,000 plus hits, 120 Followers and 895 posts

It has been a funny old weekend and not at all as I had planned. The funeral of my Uncle Jim has left me somewhat depleted in spirit and so my planned ACW game has been postponed for the time being. Aside from the usual domestic round though I have managed at last to start the great label sticking fest and have managed to complete both armies from the Command and Colours Ancients base game - Republican Roman and Carthaginian. I will have two sets of the armies from the base game couretsy of the recent trade with Tim Gow and so the prospect of some Epic scale Punic Wars games is a mouthwatering one. Especially as I also have (again, courtesy of Tim) a further three map boards which are double sided. The first side is for the usual 13 x 9 playing area whilst the reverse is one half of a double sized 'big battle' board. With the double sized Punic Wars armies I am thinking that perhaps Cannae may get a run out on a multi-player big battle basis which should be enormous fun to do. It also means that I have two sets of the base game terrain tiles which I will need to punch out at some point.

In the meantime though, I realised that the blog has just passed the 100,000 hit mark since I first set it up back in 2009. I am delighted by this for a number of reasons the main one being because it is gratifying to know that my occasionally incoherent ramblings or maddening inconsistency have got some kind of audience in the real world and not solely in my imagination!

I am truly appreciative of anybody that takes the time to read or comment on anything I post and I consider myself to be really fortunate to have, for better or worse, the opportunity to allow the most extreme excesses of my butterfly like imagination out for all and sundry to consider/debate/ponder/dismiss at leisure.

Many thanks to one and all for the unstinting support.

My Uncle Jim - R.I.P.

A Wellington Bomber over the coast - note the four other RAF bomber types in each corner. this was painted when Uncle Jim was a mere 85 years young....;-)

On the Saturday before my return from Turkey (14/07) my Uncle Jim died after a short illness. He was 91 years of age and in full possession of his mental faculties although understandably was 'feeling his years' physically - especially as he was acting in the capacity of a carer to his wife, my Aunt Pearl, during the last year of her life. She passed away last year and obviously my Uncle felt her loss very deeply and the toll it took on him, physically and mentally was immense although he was never one to complain. The funeral was today and was a suitably solemn and moving occasion. His coffin was dressed in an RAF ensign and featured his campaign medals from his service during the second world war. He was very much an influential part of my life during my formative years - especially after my mother and father separated when I was a small boy. I absolutely idolised him as a youngster and this feeling matured as I grew older into one of unstinting respect and reverence.

Uncle Jim was an RAF pilot during the war flying Wellington bombers with Number 9 squadron . In many ways in his appearance he was the epitome of an RAF officer, neat, dapper, fastidious and with a carefully trimmed moustache and lacing his everyday conversation with RAF slang. He was a quiet and thoughtful man, a talented model maker - he loved making kits of fully rigged sailing ships -  and painter (the picture at the head of this post was painted by him for me at the age of 85 whilst awaiting a cataract operation!) as well as an accomplished musician playing both the accordion and the piano. He also possessed a great sense of humour and was always ready with a sparkling comment. The only word that springs to mind when describing him is gentleman, in the fullest and most complete sense of the word.

As a young boy, growing up in the 1960s and early 1970s and bought up on a diet of Commando books and Airfix kits he seemed like a living legend - the embodiment of all that excited me about the RAF and the war years. Like most ex servicemen he was very modest about his wartime exploits and one had to coax most information out of him. He would happily talk about amusing incidents and trivia but of his 29 combat flights he was far less forthcoming. At the time a tour was either 30 missions or 6 months on operations. His two daughters (my cousins) have given me permission to copy his log books with the view to researching the missions he took in part in and to get a sense of what, as a young man, he had to endure.. By his own admission (I had seen them on a previous occasion), these were populated with the minimum amount of information he could away with as he jokingly said that paperwork was tedious. I want to cross reference these to the actual operational records to get an understanding of what flights he undertook and why these have been so uncomfortable for him to discuss. My research will form the basis of further posts in due course.

Our last conversations were centred around the then forthcoming unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial - which he fully intended visiting with a suitable entourage. Sadly he will not be able to make that journey now but those that have survived him, myself included, are going to do so in his memory and also for those that were not so fortunate to have been able to live to see  the day.

It is a cliché I know but they don't make them like that any more.

God bless Uncle Jim, rest in peace and as was observed today, you now have your second set of wings.

2012 and Anniversaries Abounding

Napoleon no doubt thinking about warmer weather somewhere else - this was of 1814 but is usually always associated with 1812 and rightly so, capturing as it does some of the wintry bleakness of the dreadful retreat, at least in its early stages

From a wargames perspective the chances are that almost every year at some point will bring an anniversary of some campaign or event that strikes a chord and invariably generates a few ideas for games and projects etc. 2012 is for me one such year. For my own particular palette the anniversary calender includes the following major campaigns:

• The Balkan War of 1912
• Napoleon's invasion of Russia

You could easily add the Turkish-Italian war of 1912, the war with America and of course the battle of Salamanca in Spain.

The two I have mentioned are favourites both old and new as the Napoleonic Russian Army of 1812 was my first ever painted metal army (now in the collection of Eric Knowles) dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Balkans are a much newer interest for me but a significant one all the same. Over the course of the year both of these campaigns will feature from a gaming perspective as I shall be undertaking battles using my block collection for each.

Of course 2015 will be a vintage year for sure!

The New Year is here....

....and so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my regular readers and occasional passers-by a very happy, peaceful, prosperous and above all healthy new year!

Many thanks for all your continued support and comments and here's hoping that 2012 will see all of us undertaking many new and exciting gaming related ideas and projects and more importantly (especially in my case!) actually seeing them through to completion!

The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future....

"God bless us, every one!"

A Christmas tradition for me is that every year I make a point of reading 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens again and as a story it never fails to get me fully in the festive spirit. The fact that I am also working in the heart of the city of London where the story is set has added to the experience this year for sure - especially as my office is located more or less on top of where I think Scrooge was located!

As it is that time again I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year. Feel free to choose whichever one suits your particular circumstances best of all!

I will leave the sentiment best expressed by Tiny Tim as my seasonal greeting of choice - courtesy of the Muppets amongst others....

"God bless us, every one!"

Have a great time and hopefully some quality 'toys' as well....;-)

"A Date which will live in Infamy" - December 7, 1941

70 years ago today Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, thereby ensuring that the United States were irrevocably drawn into World War 2.

Pearl Harbor

A big anniversary and a big reminder that sacrifice knows no international boundary.

A Proud Parent

Yesterday evening was my soon-to-be 16 year old daughter's 'Learning Review' at her school. This is a one to one with the head of the year in order to review her effort and predicted attainment when she sits her exams in May and June of next year. The predicted exam grades are then used on her college application form for her intended further education. Holly, my daughter, is a very bright girl (no bias there then!) and so parents evenings at the school are always a pleasure for SWMBO and I and last night was absolutely no exception.
Each of her subjects has a series of categories that are marked for both effort and predicted attainment at exam level based on that effort. The categories include such things as homework being on time, classroom involvement, quality and quantity of work, presentation etc. For every category and in every subject Holly scored an A for effort (the one miss was a B) which is quite simply, a staggering achievement and one that both SWMBO and I are hugely proud of. Her predicted grades at exam level are all in the B - A - A star range which is equally impressive and this means she is comfortably on track for the required results for her chosen college based A Levels.  Coupled with an truly glowing report in respect of her social skills and all round classroom contribution and enthusiasm (she was also made a prefect earlier in the year) meant that it was a very happy and parentally fulfilled household last night.
It makes it all worthwhile….;-)

(500) Reasons to be Cheerful....1, 2, 3....

I had hoped to be able to produce more pictures of my newly painted ACW ships (which should have been finished for the most part last night) or even an update on my continuing and evolving thoughts on my Balkans project. I also cannot bring any new insights into my Napoleonic Command and Colours plans; nor the sci-fi ideas currently in the project planner - OGRE, Battletech, VSF and various others. The Minifigs ships, Memoir 44 and Battle Cry, 20mm Vietnam, scale undecided French Foreign Legion and WW1 Arab Revolt (with apologies to T.E. Lawrence) not to mention the planned scratch build of some 16th century galleys and a serious look at the wars of the late Roman republic - these all have little if any news to pass on.

It is a big list of projects, ideas, dreams even - but it is a list that I have happily enjoyed scribbling about and even more important, that people have enjoyed sharing with me - usually with many helpful hints and nudges along the way which I have always greatly appreciated.

The reason for this post then? Today sees my 500th blog post and that is for me, 500 reasons to be cheerful. I am quite sure I have enough ramblings to fill another 500 and so I plan to be around for some time to come - you have been warned!

Many thanks to all though, for getting me this far.

PS Is it me or does Ian Dury look very much like Dexter?

C and C Napoleonics with 400 not out....

Apologies for the repeated picture above but it was the only one I had to hand and I do not have the time this evening to take anything more up to date. Last night at the club I had my first game of this variant of the Command and Colours system against the redoubtable Mr. Fox. The scenario we tackled was the Rolica (French Second Position) which in a nutshell had the British trying to catch up with the withdrawing French that had turned to fight a rearguard action along a line of hills. The only way the British could get to the Fench was along 4 very rugged gullys. Mr Fox was the French whilst yours truly was the Duke (and if anyone has ever seen my nose they will understand exactly why I am eminently suited for the part!). I will not describe the action on a turn by turn basis - suffice it to say the French won 5 - 3 - simply because I want to concentrate on the rules etc themselves. All credit though to Mr Fox who handled the defence in a masterly fashion and successfully made a meal in pieces of the British piecemeal attacks! Briefly, the British were only able to attack from the flanks due to the cards and although these attacks were able to force the heights it was always with insufficient strength to make it stick and so these isolated forays were easily overwhelmed. Mention should be made though, of the 'kamikaze' Portuguese cavalry unit that, had it been as historically effective as the unit in question in the game, could have given the Duke some interesting options....

The order cards for the game really capture the feel of the era and the use of a block based system for resolving combat rather than having units fight at full strength until they are destroyed works well but does take a little getting used to after Battle Cry and Memoir 44. The effect of stationary infantry being more effective than moving is nicely captured and the effectiveness of light troops is handled well although I suspect that this area of the rules will be subject to some debate. The rules for infantry squares seemed to work well - an infantry square parked on a hill with enemy cavalry hovering close by and under attack by two enemy foot units should really not expect to be around for long and this was indeed the case.

Inevitably after reading the rules after the game I have realised that a few things were not handled correctly but will obviously be taken under consideration for the next outing which I hope will not be too long in coming. I want to use the blocks on my Hexon terrain on a 3d basis and believe that this will look good - even to the extent of deploying the blocks in formations as the game board hexes are too small to be able to do this.

All in all it was very good first run out and my thanks once again to Mr Fox for the game and the object lesson in how not to attack an enemy parked on a hill line!

Today also sees my 400th post and as ever, I am truly thankful to everybody for their comments and observations, hints and ideas and continued support for my efforts. It is no exaggeration to say that without these contributions and unstinting support many of my projects would still be languishing on the back burner and so I thank you all for taking the time out to keep me ticking over!

Here's to the next 400!!