Gladiators

 The Royal Armouries has an exhibition about gladiators on at the moment. I was pleased to see it was rather busy when I went, although that may have had something to do with the building having highly effective air conditioning on an extremely hot day.

There were some fascinating exhibits, not at all well represented by the photos I took. (I didn't compensate very effectively for the low light levels.) For example there was lots of detail about how they built the Colosseum and also how they marketed the shows.

The personal and professional lives of the gladiators was well covered. I was most surprised that they ate a mostly vegetarian diet, less so that their average age of death was thirty.

The headgear of the chap on the left doesn't at first glance seem very well designed for combat; his peripheral vision would appear to be somewhat restricted. 

Lard Workshop the Second

 The Mojo Dojo Casa House Epictetus still has no kitchen, and so I have been getting out and about as much as possible. As luck would have it the second Lard Workshop took place in Nottingham on Saturday and gave me the excuse to take a couple of days away. As with last year, I spent an afternoon exploring part of the city, on this occasion the National Justice Museum. I wouldn't suggest making a special trip, but if you're in the vicinity it's worth a look. Like many museums these days it featured costumed interpreters, here seen explaining how 18th century executions worked, including more detail than I felt I really needed to know.

You'll be as relieved as I was when I tell you that the lady above, convicted of stealing some scraps of lace, had her death sentence commuted to six weeks in prison in the nick of time. There was a bit of a theme for the weekend though, because one of the first sights that greeted me when arriving for my first game was this victim of evil Prince John.

We were in the 12th century where I was playing the, previously unknown to me, Sheriff of Lardingham, who was attempting to find some mead to serve to the aforementioned Prince John and to Archbishop Roundwood, the latter appearing to be named after the chap who put on the excellent 'Flashing Blades' game which I played in 2022. Sadly, I managed to get his Grace killed rather than refreshed. However, the forces of law and order captured Maid Marion, eliminated Little John and Friar Tuck, and badly wounded not just Will Scarlet but also Robin of the Hood himself, so came out the winners. The rules used were an amended version of Dux Britanniarum. I'd never played these before, but they were similar enough to other Too Fat Lardies rules to make them easy to pick up, while being different enough that one could still get confused. Excellent fun though.

My afternoon game was once again 'Infamy, Infamy'. When I played it last year my intention was return home and put on a game immediately, which obviously never happened. It's unlikely to happen this year either as we have just started the long awaited Peninsular campaign (see James' blog for full details). But it was a great game anyway. I was one of the Roman commanders, attempting to burn the wagons of some marauding Goths. We had a plan - which we didn't get close to being able to even try out - but, as always seems to happen to me in this game, I got ambushed. I like the rules overall, even if I find the close combat a bit convoluted, and wouldn't mind playing them more than once a year.

I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, apart perhaps from finding my train home full to bursting with disgruntled Grimsby Town supporters, and I am particularly happy to be able to report that Don had arranged for the weather to be much cooler this year.

Lard Workshop

 The lack of postings here, and the fact that medieval cattle raid hasn't been played yet, are of course due to scorchio. Indeed the only reason I am writing this now, is that the cumulative effect has all been too much and I have retreated indoors. This is not to say that there has been no wargaming. We completed our second game of 'Soldiers of Napoleon', about which rules I have nothing to add to what I have said previously. We shall have a go next week with move distances tweaked to match the specific size of table and bases, and I shall report back. It was fairly sweaty in the legendary wargames room on Wednesday, but nothing to compare with the sauna that was the Old Chemistry Theatre at Nottingham Trent University on Saturday for the inaugural Lard Workshop (*).

The Workshop, which took place alongside the BHGS Britcon show, was organised by Don, my old (very old) school friend and bandmate, despite which it was a great success. I for one thoroughly enjoyed it, and had a blast. And no one could say that it wasn't excellent value for money. For £15 one got a £5 voucher to spend with the traders, a free sandwich lunch (which was rather good I thought) and to play two games; what's not to like? The one thing wrong with it was the heat, plus it was very noisy. So the only two things wrong with it were the heat, the noise and the fact that the toilets were a long walk given that middle aged men need to visit fairly often. Having said that, there were a couple of gamers involved who clearly didn't have prostates, which was the first time I've seen so many female wargamers since, well, since forever; another good thing.

I was travelling light and didn't bring a decent camera, which I regret because the eighteen games on offer were all worth photographing. There was a Far East set game of Chain of Command (possibly run by Richard Clarke himself; I wish I'd taken some notes as well as some pictures) which had more terrain crammed on to one table than I can remember ever seeing before. Very sadly I only took one photo of David Hunter's game of 'Infamy, Infamy', which I played in the afternoon, and that is very far from doing the table justice.

I'm playing the chap at the front left, tasked with getting my men along the road to a camp manned only by some unreliable slaves. The game was set in the civil wars of the early first century BC and, while I didn't get anywhere near the camp my Gallic ally and I had killed enough Italian rebels en route to win the game. I had played Infamy once, pre-publication and pre-pandemic, and despite reading through them again was feeling a bit lost at the start. However, as the game progressed I found it all began to make sense (**). Maybe I should get the chariots out before I forget it all again. 

You've got to love a measuring stick

I took more - and more useful - photos of the game I had played in the morning, Sidney Roundwood's 'Flashing Blades'. It wasn't hard to get a larger amount of the action into the picture because everything happened in a 2ft x 2ft square. It's not obvious from the above, but it's mounted on a Lazy Susan (£14 from Amazon according to Sidney) and players seated around the table can easily turn it to allow them to move their musketeer. Because the Mousquetaires du Roi, opposed inevitably by the Cardinal's Red Guards, are what this cracking little game is all about. The rules are not yet published (***), but they are in a pretty polished state already. The rules have quite a lot of the boardgame about them - and I mean that in a good way - and produce a result that, at least in our game, was a positively cinematic narrative arc. I loved the game, almost, but not quite, with the same passion that James has for SoN. And that was only a little bit helped by it being one of my characters, Monseigneur d'Eclair, who rescued the Comtesse de Chablis from the scaffold and spirited her away.

D'Eclair leads la Comtesse away through a crowd of Parisians

Interestingly, in the afternoon Sidney ran a Samurai scenario using the same mechanics. As for what I spent my £5 on: a copy of the second edition of Lion Rampant, of which more when I have read it. To conclude, thanks to David, Sidney, my various teammates and opponents, Richard Clarke and, in particular, to Don for a most enjoyable, albeit hot, day of wargaming.

* If you are going to Google that, then I would try to be precise in your search terms unless you genuinely wish to find out the best way to render lard, which is a very different thing and quite possibly smells even worse that a hot room full of wargamers.

** Except perhaps the close combat rules, which are, shall we say, convoluted.

*** Next year possibly, depending on the rest of TFL's publishing schedule.

Go back to your oar, Forty-One

Five or so years ago, before the galleys were put away, I think we had agreed that grids were the way to go, not least because it avoids all debate about who can ram/board/rake what and when. When the galleys once again emerged from the display cabinet last week, we picked it up where we left it: hex grids with ships occupying two hexes, principally I think because ships are longer than they are wide. Whilst last week's game was fun, there was I think a consensus that it wasn't quite right. If you look carefully at the picture below you can see that one change made was that ships are now back in one hex

.

The big difference that makes is to make turning easier, not so much for the models, but rather for the players trying to figure out how to get stuff from A to B. The whole thing was, to quote Peter, "slicker" and I'd go along with that. There were other changes, pretty much all of which seemed to work, and the traditional post-game discussion came up with potential solutions to the few that didn't. This is the type of game that needs to be played to a conclusion quickly. Grids help, the 'slicker' turning and moving help a bit more, and what would really top it off is if the ships sank or surrendered a bit sooner.

The initiative rules have ended up as somewhat of a hybrid between classic Piquet and its derivative, FoB. It includes, I think by chance, the latter's mechanism for potentially interrupting one side's long runs of initiative by a short burst of activity from the other side. I seem to remember that we've tried that combination before, and I was reminded last night of its merits. For what it's worth I vote for all 'Dress the Lines' to become 'Lulls'. While on that subject, the deck for 'Fleet of Battle' - that's what the rules are called - contains one card whose name is frankly impossible to pronounce, to the extent that I mentally think of it as the 'She Sells Seashells' card. I need some help from this chap:

Plures Nugas Vitae

 There was some galley action last night, more than five years after they last hit the table, or possibly just since they last hit the table while I was both there and bothered to write about them.

Mine are the three ships marked with a 6. The one on the left has rammed and sunk the wreck; the one in the centre has rammed its target to no effect, has lost its ram (that's the pink bead) and is entangled; the one on the right tried to rake its target, failed and is entangled. Believe it or not, this was the absolute high point for the Carthaginians. No sooner had our other squadrons of ships entered the fight than they were either boarded or rammed, or occasionally both. The rules? Well, they possibly need some work. 

Having opened the book on Edward the Exile mentioned yesterday, I have inevitably been reading it. I'd forgotten how full it was of all sorts of interesting digressions - such as how the son of the Doge of Venice came to be King of Hungary - but it also has some sections which seem strangely relevant to the zeitgiest. For example:

"The democratic Kievan period upon which the Russians now look back with nostalgic yearning began with the coming of the Viking Varangians in the ninth century and ended in the holocaust of the Mongol invasion in the middle of the thirteenth century. Kiev's leading role was taken over by Moscow whose princes borrowed the tools of statecraft from the tyrannical Mongol system."

Valeria Messalina

 I have in the past compared the goings on at 10 Downing Street with scenes from 'I, Claudius' (see here and here). I am going to do it again.

Messalina was Claudius' empress and he was ignorant of, or turned a blind eye to, her ruthless ambition, rampant promiscuity and the fact that her selfish political machinations had caused the deaths of many innocent people. Eventually her faults became so obvious that the Praetorian Guard were sent to instruct her to commit suicide. She couldn't summon the courage and so in the end they did it for her (*).

The bumbling Claudius, elevated far above the level for which his talents and competence befitted him, is represented in this analogy by the Conservative Parliamentary Party. 

* Sorry about the lack of spoiler alert, but if you watch the 1976 BBC series - which you certainly should - then it's best not to get too attached to any of the characters.

Vellem nescire literas

 As befits a wargaming blog, no wargaming has equalled no posts. Reasons for not gaming have been various, but this week appear to have been related to a Brigadoon-like canal, which is sometimes there and sometimes isn't. I can't paint either because, whilst my balance problems have largely abated, the remnants make close focus work inadvisable. An ideal time therefore to design some scenarios, knock a few rules into shape (e.g. the hex-based version of Pax Romana) or perhaps even just tidy up the annexe (the mice having ceased to be, I am pleased to say). But no, instead I have been gadding about.

I have been to the Nero exhibition currently on at the British Museum, which poses the question: "Was he a young, inexperienced ruler trying his best in a divided society, or the merciless, matricidal megalomaniac history has painted him to be?". I think we all know the answer to that, although the exhibition stressed that he was very popular until he, well, wasn't. I came away conscious that pretty much my entire 'knowledge' of the period comes from watching 'I, Claudius'. Anyway, it's well worth visiting, especially for the Boudiccan revolt section. A bit of rank bad planning meant that I was there the day before the Hokusai exhibition opened, but one could now combine the two.

I also found myself in Leicester, and took the opportunity to go to the Richard III Visitor Centre, which I thought was very well done. The ground floor is given over to concisely explaining the Wars of the Roses, with major figures projected onto the walls and telling us their side of the story. It's a complicated subject, and the museum hasn't got a great deal of space, but they have a reasonable and balanced stab. It's not their fault that pretty much everyone is either called Edward or Richard. The first floor recounts the story of the search, the find and the scientific analysis required to establish that it was indeed him. It's a fascinating story, well told and again worth a visit. One's trip round culminates, as it should, standing by the hole in the car park itself, or more accurately the hole which used to be in the car park.

Yet more bad planning meant that I didn't manage to visit the tomb in the cathedral - it was shut - but while I was in the city I also went to the National Space Centre. It's not Cape Canaveral, but nonetheless was a worthwhile way to spend a morning. It's full of rockets, spacecraft, artefacts etc with plenty of informative and hands-on displays. Visiting the planetarium wasn't perhaps all that advisable for someone suffering from vertigo, but I closed my eyes and it all went away. My companion for the trip crashed in her attempt to land the lunar module, but as I had experienced her driving I wasn't entirely surprised. One of the most entertaining aspects for me was the timeline of the space age (which is almost entirely congruent with my own lifetime) which included many non space-related events, both significant and ephemeral, none of which seem to have happened in the order that I would have said that they did. Memory is a funny old thing.

Britannia AD 43

 So, the fact that the world won't stand still is restricting my ability to indulge in those few things that remain legal in Leeds, sitting all alone at home painting figures for example, but oddly enough I can read books without any problem (computer screens are more difficult) and I have been looking through a recently published book in the Osprey Campaign series: 'Britannia AD 43: The Claudian Invasion' by Nic Fields.

I hope I'm not damning with faint praise when I say it's OK. Two obvious problems that the author has are a lack of sources plus the significant changes in the geography of both the Kent coast and the course of the rivers Medway and Thames during the intervening two millennia. He copes with both as well as could be expected, although he does tend to repeat himself a tad. It's copiously illustrated with both paintings (by Steve Noon) and photographs of subjects ranging across museum exhibits, re-enactors, Roman remains from well after the invasion, much later buildings which happen to be where something may or may not have happened at the time etc. One of the photo credits is given to Neddy Seagoon, so one can't complain that the publishers have not looked in every possible place that they could think of.

Everyone will come to the book with a different level of prior knowledge, and most will be greater than mine. When Fields says that many people's impression of Claudius himself comes from Robert Graves via Derek Jacobi, he might have been describing me. Personally, I found the description of the difference between the alae and the cohortes equitatae to be very helpful, although I can't imagine it will make any difference to how I classify my Roman cavalry in 'To the Stongest!'. Also interesting was the contrast between the tribesman using local knowledge to finding their way through estuary marshes and the Batavian auxiliaries' ability to swim across rivers and move directly into combat. The text further prodded me towards thinking that the way chariot rules work in 'Infamy, Infamy' is more likely to reflect how they were used than those in TtS!; still, the latter shouldn't be hard to change. Lastly, but by no means least, I am very tempted to model (when vestibular stability has been restored) the illustration of Claudius parading towards Colchester on an elephant. And why not?

Still remembered

Edouard/Édouard

“The rain set early in tonight,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its best to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up and all the cottage warm;”

- Robert Browning

For reasons that are no doubt perfectly logical it is only winter storms which are named in the UK. So when two weeks ago we were hit with hailstones the size of eggs and my garden was flooded twice, once because the hail was so intense that it washed the moss off the roof and blocked the gutters, it didn't have a name. A few days ago the wind was so strong that it broke off a sizeable chunk of the tree outside my house. On that occasion the branch - big enough to be used as a social distancing measuring stick (old school) - blew down the road at great speed causing cars to have to swerve out of its way, but still no name. Yesterday, the media got very excited about the approach of what is apparently known to everyone except the Met Office as Storm Edouard - and there's a definite touch of Johnny Foreigner about that name - to the extent that I planned a day inside. And what happened? It rained a bit, which, let's be frank, is not that unknown in the UK in July.

What I would have been doing if not for Edouard

Anyway, in the end I have managed to achieve a few wargames related things. I have had another try at washing figures in my new ultrasonic bath, and I think I have revised upwards my impression. It's all subjective, and the proof of the pudding will be when the paint doesn't flake off, but I think it's actually a pretty effective method. I have only tried it on metal figures so far and will have to report back when I have had a go with some plastic figures. I have almost, but not quite, finished off the couple of dozen ancient Britons which were left half-painted when lockdown commenced and were then never touched despite all the time I had to do so. The auxiliary cavalry command set that's next up has highlighted the limited extent of my reference library for the Romans. I have far more books on, for example, the Mexican Revolution despite not gaming that at all. The problem is that it contains a Vexillarius, and I could work out what he had on his head. Most online sources suggest an animal skin - although there is no unanimity about which - but the only animal it could plausibly be is a donkey, and I find that most unlikely. I have continued my reading of 'Infamy, Infamy' - another typo on page 22; come on Don, get a grip - but really need to set something up and work through it. That of course means either finishing off or abandoning the game currently set up.

And last, but not least I have had a go on the laser cutter for the first time since February. It was hard enough remembering how to get into the workshop, let alone how the machine itself worked, but it is another small step forwards.

Shaking All Over

I have acquired an ultrasonic bath. While my reasons for purchasing it were not wargaming related, it would have been remiss of me not to try it out on some figures as a method of cleaning them prior to painting. These is the Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry Command pack from Newline Designs.

Whilst I have no way of objectively measuring it, my best guess is that it has made no difference when compared with just soaking them in some warm soapy water for a while. Still, what's the point in having toys if you don't use them.

Actual Arrival of New Rules

I have received my pre-ordered copy of 'Infamy, Infamy', the latest rules from the Too Fat Lardies, complete with pack of cards and some game markers.

I haven't read much of them yet, having been distracted by the credit and name check given on page 1 to Don, my first ever wargaming opponent from fifty plus years ago. Fortunately there is no photograph; the poor old sod hasn't aged well at all. I wonder if it's him that's to blame for the typo on page 6.

I shall definitely give them a go and, given that I know Peter has also bought a copy, there may be some support in getting it into the schedule. However, no one knows when wargaming is likely to start up again and the longer the delay the more figures that James will have added to his Peninsular War set up; it would, of course, be rude not to christen those.

Anyway, that all gives more time to ponder the question of basing.The sabot bases which I already have aren't for the same size as the units specified here. My initial reaction was to bodge it some way, but on the other hand I do have access to a laser cutter....

Lucius Aelius Sejanus

If any of the players in the current shenanigans had any knowledge of the classics, they may have been considering what, if any, lessons could be learned from the story of Sejanus.

In the 1976 BBC production of Robert Graves 'I, Claudius' - which I recommend most highly - Sejanus was played by the wonderful Patrick Stewart. I confess that I have been staring at the above photo for a while trying to work out if that's a wig or whether Captain Picard did at one point have blonde, curly hair.

Baldness hasn't done Stewart any harm though, as he is married to the somewhat younger Sunny Ozell. Here's a song of hers that might also have a message for the PM. It's called 'Git Gone':

Via Romana

In time I shall get bored with my new toy, but that time is not now.

In my version of Pony Wars the rescuing civilians bit stays the same (I have some dreadful cardboard villas, but they are too big for the lightbox), but the Stagecoach, Pony Express etc are changed slightly. First century Romans had better roads than nineteenth century Americans living in the West and so the board is intended to have a road cutting straight (*) across it. At random intervals something will appear moving down the road, providing a target for the Celts and something that needs to be protected by the Romans.

The exact nature of the passenger, and therefore its victory point total, would also be determined randomly. This could be empty or it could be carrying the Emperor's mother.

As could this, although I'm not sure how far they would manage to carry that thing along a road.

I'm also not sure why this lot are re-surveying a road that's already there. Perhaps they are going to build a fort, which is something I don't currently have.


* Obviously it will be straight; they're Romans!

More civilians

The reason I have all these peripheral figures is for the often mentioned, but rarely played, Roman version of Pony Wars. The group above have also appeared in a 'burn the village' scenario we played using To the Strongest!. I confess that I have no idea what the pair below could be used for.

Perhaps they are on their way to rescue this chap.

Lightbox

I'm sure I am not alone in admiring the Palouse Wargaming Journal not just for the quantity and quality of the newly painted units of which photos are posted, but for the fact that the pictures don't look as if they have been taken on the dining table. For all I know that is exactly where it all takes place, but the use of a lightbox hides all those unsightly crumbs. Consequently I've always intended to get myself one at some point, and frankly this seemed as good a time as any.

This was probably the last unit which I painted

If we waited for me to paint some new stuff before trying it out then we'd be twiddling our thumbs for a long time, so I've set to with whatever happened to be in the boxes closest to hand, which were Romans because that's what was last played in the annexe. Three things become apparent at this point. Firstly, my whole painting technique is aimed at the mass effect on the table, not at being viewed close up. I can't say that bothers me very much; I've genuinely never had a interest in improving things, and beyond adopting a variety of approaches to dipping and washing I've never changed the way I paint. Secondly, I've mostly gone for a gloss finish, because they are toy soldiers not scale models. I think they look OK in the flesh, but they really don't suit being photographed in a lightbox. Thirdly, I seem to have collected an awful lot of stuff with no military value whatsoever, which therefore never gets on the table. Now is a chance to rectify it.

The above amply illustrates all the problems. You can tell the difference between the lack of detail caused by the shiny surface of the figures compared to the matt of the printed mosaic floor. Plus of course, it is not often going to pop up in an army list.

Ditto for this really. Anyway, brace yourself for a stream of poorly painted, incompetently photographed models that don't seem to have much to do with military history. For the record all photos were taken on the dining table.

Overlord and overwatch

The second night of the Soor game was postponed for the most topical of reasons, but I do have some wargaming to report. As a first stop on my trip to London I went to the Overlord show in Abingdon. Now, you have probably spotted that Abingdon is neither in London, nor anywhere near the route from Leeds to London. Still, what's a bit of a diversion between friends? It was very quiet when we arrived, but that probably wasn't surprising as it was mid-afternoon. I would say it was about the same size as Fiasco: fewer traders perhaps, but more games - and better lighting, although I still didn't take any photos. Shopping on the day was restricted to a plastic kit of a WWI ambulance, although I have subsequently ordered a strip of railway track matting from Tinywargames based on a conversation I had at their stand there.

The next day I spent playing a couple of games with Don, previously outed here as my very first wargames opponent from a lifetime ago. I'm sorry to have to report that he hasn't aged as well as your bloggist, although he still had sufficient of his marbles left to take me through both 'Chain of Command' and a preview of the not yet released 'Infamy, Infamy'. These days Don runs with Rich Clarke's posse and is an expert on Too Fat Lardies rules, which doesn't in any way explain why I won both games, despite never having played either before.

The CoC game in particular was a complete travesty. Having unsurprisingly come off worse in the patrol phase I compounded the error by putting a rifle section (I was playing early war French and defending) in a house that could be, and was, battered by fire from many attackers at once. About the only thing I did right was not to bring all my forces on too soon. Having been seriously outflanked I was considering throwing in the towel when I consecutively threw four sets of double sixes out of five dice and so got four turns in a row and was able to reduce the opposition morale to zero before Don could respond. It didn't bear much resemblance to the games we played as teenagers, except that Don was the Germans and seemed to have substantially better troops and greater firepower; that definitely rang a bell.

Second up was the work-in-progress that is 'Infamy, Infamy', with the development of which Don has been quite involved. I confess to having become a bit confused between the detailed mechanics of CoC and I,I by that point, but I enjoyed it a lot. It seems not dissimilar in some ways to 'Through the Mud and the Blood', although the concept of fervour is a well-thought through differentiation between Romans and barbarians. I shall definitely be buying a copy when it is eventually finished and published. I'm not sure how I won this one; mostly by avoiding fighting the legionaries I think.

So a nice time was had by all. It was actually Don's birthday, but thankfully there was less vomiting than I recall from our birthday celebrations as young men. Many thanks to him and Julie for the hospitality.

Another TtS! triumph

Jonathan asked in a comment on yesterday's post why no photos of James' superb Crusades armies. In response I can only offer photos of my badly painted 1st century CE Romans and Ancient Britons. But never mind the figures, take a look at those bases.

Keith, who clearly has never been told that it's rude to point, returned to the annexe after a bit of a gap for a game of TtS!. You may recall that as soon as he got the hang of C&C Napoleonics I switched games. It had been a while since his first game of To the Strongest!, to give me a chance to double the size of the units in order that they filled the squares, as previously discussed on these pages.

When one overlays squares on to the Hexon hexes on my table there are basically two ways of doing it. The first, which was how I had set it up for his last visit, is six rows deep and the other is nine rows deep. The latter is better just from a manoeuvrability perspective and so I switched this time. The net result is that the new warband bases are too big to slide from one square to another without knocking the grid markers out of position. So, joined up thinking in action then.

Keith had largely forgotten how the game worked, but fortunately it's a set of rules that I am completely on top of, so we didn't have any problems. Nor did the Romans, who saw off the onrush of Celts without much trouble. I don't have any decent photos of the massed chariots, although they did account for the only auxiliary infantry unit to be destroyed with an impressive flanking sweep and charge.

Hopefully, we'll schedule another game after a shorter interval than the last. Maybe some terrain features next time as well.

Turpe

We turned to the Crusades for a game of To the Strongest! in the week, and most enjoyable it was too. Perhaps inevitably the Crusader wagon train didn't make it across the the table; there was at one point a tempting gap, but I couldn't successfully activate the oxen to head for it before more Saracens arrived. I'm pretty sure we weren't playing the rules entirely correctly, but I suspect you took that as a given by now.

To the Strongest! is also set up in the annexe at the moment. In a burst of laser cutting frenzy I have produced enough (actually somewhat more than enough) warband bases for my new expanded unit sizes. I am a dozen or so warriors short, but that's only one or two per base so we can play without while I paint some more up. What I can't work around is the missing couple of dozen Roman auxiliaries, but they are all on the conveyor belt so just a couple of days and we should be good to go. The massed chariots are looking good even if I say so myself.

The first century AD is the period covered by the imminent release from the Two Fat Lardies, to be called 'Infamy, Infamy'. These were being demonstrated at Vapnartak by one of the play testers. I didn't have time to play a game, but was able to ask a lot of questions and also take a look at the draft, loose-bound version of the rules. They looked OK and I shall be buying a copy when they are eventually published. As Peter and I agreed on the way home, they look like they will address the niche that my going-nowhere Pony Wars mash-up was always intended to, and the included scenarios will hopefully give me a chance to get out on to the table all the non-combatant type figures and buildings that I've accumulated over the years. For example, the demo game included this:

I'm afraid that I shan't be making one, but it reminded me of happy, and very much missed, times past.

Pot90pouri

Firstly, commiserations to Jonathan Freitag over at Palouse Wargaming Journal, who, in case you hadn't heard, has broken his leg. Get well soon old chap, and I trust you will find a productive way to use the time.

Last night was day 2 of Sidi Rezegh Day 2. You may have formed the impression that I didn't like either the scenario or the the rules, and you would be correct in doing so. I'm not going to say any more about the set up of the game, except to remind you that it involves the Germans charging onto the table, the British moving towards them and then eventually someone winning. I am however going to be rude about the rules. Now, clearly James really likes them, and he is a person of high standing within the wargaming fraternity, whereas I am just some chap who dabbles in toy soldiers in such intervals as a heavy schedule of cultural activities and wanton women allows. Nevertheless, I don't like Blitzkreig Commander.

In no particular order:

• I don't like the way the benefits of being in cover increase in an exponential manner while the benefits of better quality or greater quantity are linear.
• I don't like the lack of a target priority rule, which inevitably results in ganging up on the opposition's strongest unit.
• I don't like the key role played by command radius, a spurious concept at the best of times and one that seems out of place in the period. In practice it is a significantly greater handicap to attackers than it is to defenders and makes it difficult to co-ordinate close assaults with artillery support. There is a small tweak in the rules to somewhat ameliorate this issue, but James has taken it back out of his house rules; wrongly, in my opinion.
• I don't like the activation mechanism. It is crude and offers the player no real choices; one simply keeps rolling until one fails. I would compare it unfavourably with, for example, the process used in To the Strongest!, which achieves a similar objective, but relies on the player making some real decisions. 

So, to recap, I don't like it.

Laser cutting continues, and I am pleased to say that I think I am beginning to get the hang of the various programmes and machinery involved. Which makes it all the more surprising that my first attempt at a corner for the wall didn't fit together and had to be thrown away. In happier news I have produced another attempt at a warband base, which is shown above squaring off against a couple of Roman units. 

This is it compared to the base I have previously been using; much better I think.

Laser-less focus

Despite Bruce Lee's advice of the other day I couldn't really call myself a wargamer if I didn't wander off topic occasionally. I am still making progress on the modular wall thingie, but I have allowed myself to consider what the laser cutter could do for another of my in-hand projects. As I'm sure I have mentioned before I have decided to beef up my Romans and Ancient Britons. Having made To the Strongest! the rules of choice, and the size of the table therefore determining the size of the squares, I find that the units I have now look a little on the small side. It is easy enough to upgrade most things - just paint some more - but the warbands are more difficult. They are already based in the largest available movement tray that Warbases make, and sticking two together doesn't look good at all. So, what could I knock up myself?

For reasons I have since forgotten, most figures are based on pennies, while those bearing standards, totems and musical instruments are based on 2p pieces as are the chieftain type figures that I use to represent heroes, and casualty markers are on 30mm circular bases; hence the different sized holes in the above.

Add a base layer and one has a movement tray. My idea is that, instead of standing behind the tray and getting forgotten when they move, heroes and casualty markers will be on the same base, at the back. Incidentally, the stuff in the background is what I think will be the production version of the wall tower.

This is the painted up version.

And this is it standing next to the existing movement tray. I think the concept is good, but the design still needs work. One problem is ironically that in trying to represent a 'deep' unit in  TtS! terms, I have made the base too deep. I shall have another go, flattening out the oval a bit  and squeezing the figures together.