Friday 29 November 2013

Pro Gloria where are you?

Now I may be jumping the gun, but does anyone know if Pro Gloria are still in existence and trading.
 I placed an order with them in October for their new arquebusiers. These were due to be released October 22nd. Anyway they never came. So I e mailed their contact point and also sent a couple of Facebook posts. Nothing.
 I then tried via their English agent Empress Miniatures, not that it has much to do with them, to find out if Stefan was still doing the business, as they say. All they could do was forward on my e mail.
 So if anyone knows what is going on please can you tell me. I love the figures and it would be a damn shame to lose the range. Oh and it would be nice to have my arquebusier order honoured.
 On that happy note.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Smoggycon 2013.

Well yesterday was Smoggycon, and I think it went pretty well from a wargamers point of view.
 There seemed to be plenty of people through the doors, and the show didn't empty till after the witching hour of 2.30pm.
One thing that did strike me after I had set up our game, which was the first time that my entire Borgia army was on show. It was the fact that I had painted so much stuff!
 When you knuckle down and start painting a new project, ie 28mm renaissance, I was enjoying myself so much painting the figures that I forgot to see just how many units I had.
 I will now have to carry on of course, and paint up a similar amount of opponents, probably French. But then I think some Spanish would be nice. Its amazing how one can justify anything.
As for the actual game, well Pike and Shotte can be a bugger to play when you are throwing bollocks dice. The dice gods were certainly playing games with me, the first time I went to fire my battery of guns I threw double one. Now John tried to convince me that it meant the battery was out of action for the entire game, I was having none of it though. He likes to play games with an opponents mind. John kindly let it go stating that they were out of range anyway.
 Of course when he moved into range on move two, and I again throw double one then you start to believe that things are against you. Especially after I read the rule about battery firing, and of course John was right. So bang went my guns.  [ See above]

Move three witnessed me throwing a blunder which allowed my infantry to wander around like lost sheep.Moves four and five saw me fail the command orders. By this time what had been a mature wargamer was beginning to behave like a child, and a naughty one at that.
So I called a time out, to allow me to speak to various people who needed urgently to talk to me, well actually I was a bit like the looney on the bus, as I tried to engage in conversation with anyone who stared towards where I was stood.


 It was nice though to meet and actually talk to people about wargaming. I finally met Andy Callan, of hair roller fame which was very pleasant. I also bumped into Phil Robinson and was able to hand to Charlie Wesencraft a copy of Achtung Schweinhund which I hope he enjoys as much as I did.
I finally got to meet JorD ie Dennis who only lives in Redcar. [Dont forget to e mail]
Anyway after a time out, things began to swing my way. Colin who had the left flank command was slicing through the enemy like hot butter, whilst John managed to blunder the Black Bande back across the table. After that my dice throwing improved, certainly enough to claim a victory if I was that way inclined. I had hoped to show some decent photographs, but my camera is playing up.
 I did learn I need more command bases. I will certainly need to construct some movement trays, and I will have to cut the sub units down to three bases.
 Apart from that I think people who stopped to look will have enjoyed the game.
 As a show Pendraken are to be congratulated, the advertising appeared to pay off, the food was cheap and pretty good and the traders who I talked to appeared to be happy.
 

I didnt really get to view many games, but Ian Callan, brother of Andy was next to us, with The Battle of Gettysberg in 6mm. I was really taken with the way the game used tiles for hidden movement.I have used this idea at the Wargames Holiday Centre, but not in our 6mm games. It looked good and worked well. 


Saturday 16 November 2013

An update.

Its been a while since I posted on my main blog. I have managed to post on my sister blog, but this has few followers up to now. Still I can hope.
 With me concentrating on painting renaissance units, my SYW project has taken a bit of a backseat. Couple this to my need to campaign against my councils desire to pave over all of Durham county, things have been a tad busy. It also didnt help when the driver who kindly wrote my car off and one of his passengers have suddenly discovered that they have whiplash! and need a dose of compensation. It only took them five weeks to discover this problem. It didnt stop them entering the local golf open the day of the accident,the bastards.
 Anyway back on the wargaming front, which is a great stress reliever. John introduced me to  Longships. All I can say, is what a cracking set of rules and what a great way to spend a night. Produced by Peter Pig, these are a great set of rules, that give enough historical content mixed with a simple game mechanism to add to a fun night. Recommended.
I also took a day's leave on Friday to go through to interview, Charles Wesencraft in order to produce an article hopefully for Miniature Wargames.
 Charlie is one of the most interesting people one could hope to meet. Very knowledgeable on military history, coupled with a great sense of humour, this is one of the nice people of the world.
 Hopefully I have done Charlie justice, as the two books, he wrote, Practical Wargaming and With Pike and Shot are classic wargaming books. Charlie deserves a lot more recognition than he has gotten.
 I hope I can set the record straight. I dont know where he finds all the energy to do all the hobbies and events that he does. Anyway lets hope I create an interesting article.

I am attending Smoggycon next Saturday, so hopefully after that I can start painting my backlog of SYW units. I really want to paint my Stadden Grenadiers prior to Christmas.

My 6mm Napoleonic set up.

My 6mm Napoleonic set up.
Austria 1809.

Austrian Hussars

Austrian Hussars
Hinchliffe figures

Austrian Grenzer

Austrian Grenzer
Austrian Grenzer

Smoggycon 2013

Smoggycon 2013
Smoggycon 2013

Smoggycon 2012

Smoggycon 2012
Smoggycon 2012

Smoogycon 2009

Smoogycon 2009
My French getting another beating