Dispatches from the front XV - Welcome to 2021.

Well good riddance to 2020..... You really curtailed most gaming this year and now living under Tier 3 or 4 can't see any face to face gaming for a number of months...

Locked down has had it's advantages and freed up a fair amount of additional painting time, it's amazing how much multi-tasking can take place whilst you are on yet another zoom call.  I did manage to clear an awful lot of the lead pile, I had a plan at the beginning of the with year to either paint the "spares" or sell of those that were never going to reach the paint table and this has largely been achieved - Thanks Covid....

The spares ranged from everything from 80's Korean Armour, WW2 Eastern Front and the Far East, Elizabethan England and a whole bunch of undead plus the last of the French in Egypt. Some of these have been hanging around for at least a decade.

With the lack of face to face gaming being woefully short and with the club house closed, closely followed by meeting in each others houses, like many of us dabbled with some solo engagements I found Bolt Action to be really good at stopping some of the bias that can creep into solo games.

I think it's high time Stickler hit the table again.

Then there was the pbem campaign for Diplomacy (that's one off my wargames bucket list..) and Cry Havoc over Face Time I am so glad I kept this classic from Standard Games and my wargaming buddy also kept his copies.... Preparation took a little while but our Thursday night calls became great fun, we did manage to resist the urge to turn the games to miniature, but the Baron's War stuff almost pushed me into a new project.

The highlight of in the second half of the year had to be the new Too Fat Lardies release Infamy Infamy. Whilst designed for the Romans vs Briton and Gaul, it was easily adapted for LOTR's, the Water Margin and this year the Egyptians/Hittites.

So what for 2021?

It would be good to get these on the table having spent the past 5 months painting them having funded the entire project from selling off the odds and sods. I am pleased with the first phase, I am still a little light on chariots and some more auxiliary units for the Egyptians but I certainly have enough to field a force and support options for both side.

The big (little) project for the year ahead takes me back to one of my first ever periods. The US cavalry's campaigns against the Sioux, I could not face repeating it again in 15mm, so this time figured I would attempt it in 6mm, it feels like it would better represent the expanse of the Midwest plains and allow me to play on a smaller table if necessary especially if we are facing restricted game time. 6mm will be a challenge, micro armour is one thing, but cavalry - let's see.

Blimey - That's a lot of bare metal.

The plan would be to use these forthcoming release of the Pony Wars rules - B Troop ain't coming back although in the short term I may dabble with a Sharp Practice variant from back in the Lardy Christmas supplement from 2014.

I have been watching a lot of East Asian historical drama's of late thanks to Netflix which got me thinking about expanding the Song Chinese forces to include Mongols from 1st Corp... but the thought of all of that cavalry :-( 

If not then perhaps a few more adventures in the Water Margins of Liang Shan Po as I am currently wading through the original box sets, the rest of the house are loving it :-)

Despite the amount of time spent at home, I really need to catch up on the every growing pile of novels on the bookshelf, I have long been a fan of alternative history from Harry Turtledove and his Southern Victory series set in an alternative ACW through to Larry Bond and Cauldron - Dissolution of the European Union (rather timely given recent events.) - Could I really clear 21 novels in 21?

Kicking off I have been saving this one up to respark the Red Phoenix Project, this is the sequel to his 1989 offering set in the Korean peninsula.

If these 510 pages was not enough this offering from DC Allen looks interesting, a modern day alternative history with the Islamic Caliphate expanding across Europe, a little far fetched in that the Islamic State survived the coalition attacks and went on to capture the entire middle east before striking at the heart of western Europe. Still lots of scenario ideas for future games skirmish games or corp level games.

Steve over at Wargaming Addict recently posted this thoughts on books which inspired his gaming. You can read his post here.  It got me thinking about my early inspiration and this book which detailed key battles in history in miniature. My copy went missing years back, but thanks to Steve and the power of Amazon a replacement copy is on it's way.

So there we are.....  Despite all the real world stuff, it been a very productive year and great to have a hobby which is all encompassing.

Happy New Year everyone...