Wow, I’m a year older. Guess I’d better do a review!

As the title suggests I am a year older (and that means me and not the blog) so in the tried and tested tradition of most bloggers on an anniversary of some kind I thought I’d do a review of my efforts since my last birthday.

September 2012 - Septmeber 2013

Well it was quite a significant 12 months in terms of gaming and hobby related bumpf (Yorkshire slang for “stuff”). It was around this time last year that I finally made the decision to abandon GW products completely, my reasons being much the same as many other gamers, bloggers, housewives, employees etc:

• Price increases
• Rules changes
• Change from hobby to profit orientation

I could wax lyrical on the decision however suffice it to say that I have happily not looked back. I had already been playing WAB for a while and still do occasionally, that being the one rule set that still appeals. However I have since broadened my interests into more historical periods and much like most wargamers out there have been overwhelmed with the amount of good material being published, cast, moulded etc. That’s not to say that it wasn’t available previously however it would seem that to this humble bloggers view there has been a sea change in where the £/$/Y/E is being spent and thus a number of smaller companies (one man bands) are benefitting from this bounty.

So where did my hard earned get spent in the last twelve months? Well my list of hobby projects seems to have sky rocketed over this period, with slight deviation into the evil world of WHFB (argh!):

In Her Majestys Name - Ooh where to start. A nice cheap ruleset from Osprey, skirmish based so there’s minimal outlay and the rules writers are active on discussion forums. The epitomy of hobby based wargames in my view and spawned my desire to do a little fictional writing (see Inspector Johnsons Casebook here).

WAB/Clash of Empires - Still playing however not so much CoE as it feels a little like the poorer cousin to WAB. Unfortunately I have too many projects on the go at the moment (Saxons, Early Imperial Romans, Greeks).

Bolt Action - World War 2 skirmish games at their most “Hollywood”. I jumped in feet first on this one when the rules were released, managed to drag a big chunk of our gaming club along as well and will be assisting in a campaign day we’re running in December. The side benefit is it managed to revive my interest in WW2 gaming in general which resulted in :

Flames of War - My disillusionment with GW led me to trade in a big chunk of my rulebooks to Amazon (boo hiss I hear you cry). However I then spent my ill gotten gains on a US Airborne force with some online sellers and have been thoroughly enjoying this revival in a system that big chunks of the gaming populace seem to have abandoned (typical). In a similar vein this leads to:

Lord of the Rings - I know, I said I had abandoned GW. Well it would seem that not entirely although in my defence I would categorise this as New Line/Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings gaming as the imagery comes from the films hence my reason for collecting this. It was also done as a way to demonstrate that you can game fantasy settings on a budget, all my purchases have been from other gamers who need to clear their lead/plastic pile and I have made some mutually beneficial trades.

WFB - Warhammer Fantasy Battle (on a budget). I did this purely as a finger to the ridiculous pricing policy of GW and put together a 1500pts Daemon army for our club tournament. I did badly however won the best painted for my £11.09 army (for my see my article here)

Saga - Still trying to figure this one out however its fun, uses my existing figures and seems different enough for me not to get it confused with other systems.

English Civil War - I started this simply because I picked up a bunch of Warlord Games Parliamentary figures on the cheap. Luckily a fella at our club is a bit of a local ECW buff so ran a small campaign based on the local area using WAB ECW and Pike & Shotte. We’re still finishing this one off!

Naval WW2 - This is a bit of a solo effort by me and I still have no opponents. Not sure what rules I’ll use however I intend on setting up the Hunt for the Bismarck and picked up the Davco models from Skytrex at Triples earlier in the year.

So am I going to complete any of this? Well I am still plugging away at my LoTR models and have opponents at the club on a slow boil (metaphorically speaking). WW2 seems to be my focus at the moment with our upcoming Bolt Action campaign and Flames of War modelling (which I’m thoroughly enjoying). I should have a bit of a modelling update shortly and have been trying to sort out the terrain for a Normandy beach assault for the club so will share that once I figure out the beast way to layout 5 x 6’ boards on a limited budget.

Historical Wargaming - Where do you get your supporting info?

I play a range of historical war-games that date from antiquity through to World War two. My war-gaming background, much like quite a few of you good people (and if you’re not a war-gamer you have weird reading tastes) is primarily Games Workshop. I started out on the now hallowed 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles (which is now revived by the Oldhammer movement) and continued on through to the current 8th edition (pfffft, yuck, argh!!!) so there was always a well delivered and tailored amount of “fluff” or background. As this was all created by GW it was easily accessible (for a price) and was only limited by the imaginings of the company.

However then along comes maturity and historical wargaming and the “fluff” aspect gets blown apart. You see there is no such thing as “fluff” when it comes to playing a WW2 war game or other period. These things actually happened, there are huge amounts of literature written about them, with many divergent themes and interpretations therefore it is not as though the game authors can control the story driven aspect of war-gaming for these periods.

So what’s the point of this post, well I thought I’d share some of my current sources of background information. The titles are all clickable links if you think they sound interesting, and I'd be interested in any recommendations you all may have.

The History of WWII Podcast - by Ray Harris Jr

Great podcast on the history of WW2 starting with the political shenanigans and going on to the battles as they happened. Episodes range in length from 30 mins to over an hour.

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major DickWinters

Gives so much more background to E Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne than Stephen Ambrose's book, covering the wider Normandy campaign that Easy company was involved in.

Osprey BattleOrders 25: US Airborne Divisions in the ETO 1944-45

Useful companion book for historic structure of the divisions and equipment. A little dry and sterile though.

Together We Stand - James Holland

The history of the war in North Africa 1942-43. It’s a great read and I’m currently three quarters of the way through it. Great if you want an insight into the weirdness that was the desert war in North Africa and some of the politics that went into it. Its not just politics though as it cleared up some of my misconceptions of both Rommel and Monty.

  

H.G.Wells - War of the Worlds

Tricky to read as the pacing and language is a little odd, although it was written some time ago. It does get me into the mood with my Victorian Science Fiction gaming and its a free download from Amazon, which is always nice

The Civil War in Yorkshire: FairfaxVersus Newcastle (Battlefield Britain)

Thoroughly interesting read and as it covers the English Civil War in the region around my home town it was easy to visualise events. Sadly it is very Parliamentarian in focus and I would prefer a more balanced viewpoint

The History of RomePodcast by Mike Duncan

The Grandaddy of all history podcasts this covers the full history starting from the founding of Rome. Well worth it, especially if you play anything from 600BC to 500AD

Xenophon - The Persian Expedition

First hand account of the March of the Ten Thousand that occurred between 401 B.C. and March 399 B.C. An interesting account of Greek warfare translated from the original text. I’m just dipping into this one now so am not sure whether it will help my burgeoning Greek project. I have an old paper copy although it is free over on project gutenberg.

IHMN - Inspector Johnson's Casebook Interlude - A Letter of Dark Intent

For all you good IHMN players out there in Bloggerland here's a further installment to the Casebook of Inspector Johnson. What with the lovely weather and summer holidays there's been a dearth of players available for gaming recently therefore this edition is a little bit of back story to set the scene for our next games.

Hope you enjoy.

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