I am indebted to a reader of this blog who kindly brought the magazines from which the below articles come from. He brought them for me to photograph at Claymore. Thank you. I post them here so you all can enjoy.
The Duchy of Tradgardland
The adventures of an 18th century imagination, located in Northern Europe formerly ruled over by joint rulers Duke Karl Frederick and Duchess Liv.Not to mention the American colony of Ny Tradgardland the 17th century Colony of New Tradgardstadt and the newly restored territory of the Shetland Isles. Featuring a supporting bill of gaming in a diversity of times,places and scales.Hopefully something to interest all who pop by...
Tuesday, 4 August 2026
Monday, 3 August 2026
Blog recommendation
Do pop over to this recently created blog-
https://ratspikeandrenegades.blogspot.com/
Full of interesting reading and visual delights, not to mention the promise of fascinating posts to come…
Sunday, 2 August 2026
Claymore
Enjoyable visit to Claymore in Edinburgh followed by an excellent BBQ .
The blurb from an excellent 18th century game.Lovely Imperialist.
Excellent Ottomans.
A public participation game. Liked the use of a full sized shield plus background info.
Gask ridge towers and Romans were most effective.
A charming TYW scratch built fort.
Figures from the above game in 15mm , great effect en masse
Battle of Linlithgow in 15mm
They also did it in 28mm , l think, with Wofun flats.
I do enjoy seeing a Napoleonic naval game.
A Border Reivers skirmish which looked fun to play.
My only purchases. Rules from the folk putting on the 15mm TYW game, love the name of them! Book from Balkan Dave who was putting on the excellent 18th century Turks v Imperialists game.
Lovely bbq and catch up with friends and family in the late afternoon /evening. For the first time ever a seagull attempted to take food from the bbq whilst it was cooking!
Friday, 31 July 2026
New transport for the Home Guard
The Sargent showing the new platoon transport to an unconvinced ARP warden.
The platoon training with the new transport.
Admiring the sign writing skills on the van. The ARP warden is still unconvinced.
Local top brass having a shufti.
- Miniature signage by my middle daughter, using her artistic skills.
- Both sides of my family were from Pork Butcher stock. They came from Germany around 1900 and had shops in Leith and Edinburgh. My father was the first not to work in the shops.
- There was a large German Pork Butcher community in England and Scotland.
- 1927 was the year my father was born.
Thursday, 30 July 2026
Old school’s not out for summer etc
The figures from the previous post are now just about ready for the table top.
Opps noticed the shield boss on the elephant rider needs painting, easily fixed.Here they are ready and waiting to raid the far flung corners of the Empire.
Popped these old school delights on a single base as a unit of Dromedarii on patrol.
Here’s a link to an article on them-
Finally really enjoyed the Prog at the Proms on bbc iPlayer. Well worth a listen, some great interpretations of some classics.
Monday, 27 July 2026
An old school sort of day
It began by reading this splendid blog post over coffee-
https://pampersandp.blogspot.com/2026/07/a-further-tarriance-in-hyboria.html
And continued thus-
Looked out these Airfix Ancient Britons from the shed. This is the colour l recall from my youth. Sadly these have plastic rot and will need to be disposed of.Looked out these from the shed also and took them off their tired thin card bases. Wondered if this broken hollow cast elephant might be deployed with them…
I ordered the Airfix’s magazine below from eBay recently, it arrived pm.
Interesting series of articles from Bob O’Brien on converting Airfix figures.
Some examples of conversions, even mentioning Banana Oil!
An interesting review from the same magazine re WRG rules. The magazine cover below.












































