A mysterious arrival

 Bob and Bert are scratching their heads this morning. A new arrival at Penedredfel Station is causing something of a stir-

                                                           Is it a boat, is it a train, is it a…

Anyway all they can do is paint it in the P.L.R livery and wait to be told what to do with it…

Wargamers , just want to have fun… or do they?

 I’ve been musing of late how we seem to have lost our sense of fun as a hobby. We take ourselves too seriously at times, move towards rivet counting and pedantry. Not everyone ,by any means , but we are in danger of losing our child like , playful side in a striving for historicity and simulation. After all we play with toy soldiers and that’s that!

The Oldhammer community , for example, seems to retain the fun , core element of enjoyment-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lfp45pcRoXc

Many blogs retain that essential fun. Here’s an example-

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2023/09/07/red-box-toy-soldiers-types-of-the-galactick-empyre-1-airfix-space-warriors/

I’ve just finished a dbm fifteenth century Army in 28mm. It will take to the table for the first time later this month. I don’t care if I win or not. I just want to play in character , in period as much as possible and have an enjoyable game with a strong narrative and anecdotes arising from it.

These guys are fun-

Self indulgent , nostalgia dripping, seventies project. I totally admit it. To be played with fun rules. I still recall how daylight caused my trolls to turn to stone on a bridge thereby blocking it totally for friend and foe alike. That happened nearly fifty years ago but has stayed with me. 

So let’s have fun in the hobby. Boo to points values, competition gaming and pedantry! However if that’s your thing, enjoy it and play with fun. Rant over. Thoughts please…

Moving well along the road

 Yesterday a combination of free time and warm ( but not horrendously hot) weather allowed me to soak the old bases, remove them once soggy and stick the figures to their new ones. Starting earlyish l have managed to get everything finished except for a few figures. The postman arrived with the new bases in the morning so all proceeded really well.

I will see what bases I need still to buy and work out how I will identify the hero bases, as well as decide on a size. I may go with circular as it is easy to spot. Now all that is left are coats of green base paints, touching up a few flaked patches of paint and lashings of gloss varnish. I had thought this project would get done in far longer a time. I am pleased to have been wrong…

One page rules and rebasing

 I came across this the other day-

https://ramshacklegames.co.uk/ramshackle-publications/mini-gangs/

What fascinated me was the very simple one page starter set -

http://downloads.ramshacklegames.co.uk/MiniGangs/MiniGangs_Casual_web.pdf

Very simple but elegant rules which would give a quick but fun game in any period or scale.  I like the one stat nature of them. One could add weapons, traits etc , as the company has. Looks fun and I will try them today…

In other new Mythical Earth rebasing continues well. There will be a short interlude as I ordered the wrong base size somehow. Anyway it moves forward well-

Railways!

 Every month l look forward to this small journal coming through the letter box-

In this high tech age there is still something exciting about hearing the post arrive and fall through the letter box, even though much of it is either bills or rubbish! 1973 was a good year in many ways hobby wise. This month’s issue was a double one with freebies also, to celebrate the 50th anniversary. 

Recently l tried to take the garden railway project a little forward-

This was bought during lockdown. Who knows it might get on the rails yet! The wiring diagram ( simple and only battery related) gives me the willies! I will persevere however,

Fifty years on…

 Failed miserably to show this on Zoom this afternoon having spent ages doing it as an iPad equivalent of a power point. Anyway here is some of it-

1973 was a splendid year for music, Genesis at or near their pinnacle almost.

1973 also saw the release of the Mythical Earth range by Minifigs. Below is review from an issue of Airfix  magazine at the time-

I first encountered “The Hobbit in first year. The teacher read the first chapter and then dramatically closed the book, telling us that if we wanted to know what happened next we would need to read it ourselves. I did so then bought LOTR en route to or from, can’t recall quite, France on a school trip, from a station book stall in London. That’s me around the time , I am the one in the middle of the back row.

I started to recollect my ME army around 2012- see below

Influences were the DBM army lists .

The rules l played with in the seventies-

These excellent Army lists-

Forward in time to 2023. My collection is based in all sorts of ways. What I want to do is to base in a uniform simple style to allow games to be played using DBM, the SESWC rules by Jim Duncan and maybe 6th edition Wrg.

The soaking to remove from bases begins…

An old baking dish and boiling water facilities the process well…

The first lot rebased, varnished and ready for action…

Gondor takes on the bad guys…

Plan is to have the whole collection rebased by the end of the year. Watch for updates later…

Updates

 Firstly a huge thank you for all  the support given this week both as comments on this blog and also as individual emails. All have helped me and are most appreciated.

Wednesday saw me meeting number two daughter off a plane from Cornwall. She has moved back to Scotland for the time being. With plane departure delays plus baggage delays it took up much of the day. An airport is a splendid place to people watch.

The weather has dramatically improved and I have had a chance to drink coffee and eat meals in the garden , which has been a joy. More importantly it has allowed me to do some gardening rendering things almost tidy and pleasing on the eye once again. Last night saw me hosting the girls and their respective partners for a meal , which went really well. A good chance to catch up.

I have returned to hobby things and will post about the project priorities in the coming days. I have begun to get my mojo back…