The game moves on very slowly, due to an increase in my back / leg discomfort.

Here is the end of Turn 1 and 4th Panzer have created an opening in the Soviet line at Tim.

By the end of turn 2, they have increased that penetration and are moving between the Oslo and Seim Rivers. The only issue that I see here for the Germans is the shortage of follow on troops to help consolidate the penetration.

I am in the rulebook quite a bit, not because this is a difficult game, but because it has a few aspects to it that are different. It uses ZOC's and ZOC Bonds. The ZOC bonds are rigid, but outside of them, units can traverse ordinary ZOC's, although more slowly (and retreat through them!).

The turns move along quite quickly, though I am just about managing a turn a day at the moment, as I stand at this particular table and that soon brings on discomfort.

In other news the DBN2 rules arrived yesterday, just 1 day after ordering. I noticed that the postage paid was 24 Tracked - so thank you Alex.

This is a Napoleonic variant of DBx type rules, produced by Alex Testo.

It was the work that I have been recently doing around my Napoleonic Pocket armies in the smaller scale that got me thinking about these rules. The 12 element army can essentially be thought of as a corps.

The rules are well supported by Alex, with quite a lot of YouTube after action reports, which include some bigger games such as Eylau.

Only a few days ago, he put up a video to discuss the rules, which made me jump off the fence to buy. A hard copy is £12 plus £4 postage.

Anyway, here is a link to his recent discussion about the system if you think this might interest you. If you go into his info panel below the video, there is a link to his web pages, where the rules can be bought (contact page) and where some free downloads of battles can be accessed.

LINK

https://youtu.be/zgplyR4T50k?si=UNUsgeS1iK1Eec-7

Panzer by Jim Day and published by GMT arrived ..... again! I say this because I have twice previously owned the game and perhaps there should be something in that, that should stop me wanting to own it again.

Anyway, I have re-taken a fancy with it and when browsing through GMT's P500 list, I noted that the this base game to the Panzer series had gone out of print and was on the P500 list for reprinting but with just 48 backers.

Now considering it has already had its third print run and it is a niche interest, I am imagining that it may linger on the P500 lists for some time. I did a quick check with Second Chance Game (UK) and they had just sold 1 copy and had 2 left in stock, so there was no time to hang around really, if I wanted this, I needed to jump now and so I did.

The artwork is a bit misleading, but lovely. It harks back to the Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz game, when in fact Panzer came from the Yaquinto line-up and had two follow up modules, Armor (west front) and 88 (North Afrika). There are now 5 follow on modules in the GMT Panzer game, but I think stocks are okay, so there isn't such a rush to dive into them (phew!).

There is some complexity to the game, but is a lovely thing to own. More to come.

Last night we played Gate Fulford from my pre-production copy of the game.

The nice thing about this scenario is that even though it has the same game engine, it plays quite differently from Hastings and Stamford Bridge.

The session was good with both sides fully engaged in the play throughout and it sat comfortably into a short session. 

There is a bit of an AAR up at BoardGameGeek on this link;

LINK

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3763743/a-replaying-of-gate-fulford

When last visiting the Warlord Games shop, I picked up their Epic artillery limber for the Prussians to add to the fast paint Napoleonic Pocket Army project.

Limbers are not strictly necessary, especially in a starter army, but they add a nice touch and are useful to show artillery that have been forced to limber up and pull out of a position, marking the delay before it can redeploy.

This blister pack kit actually includes 6 horses, but 4 already fully use an 80mm x 30mm base and I don’t really want a bigger base, but 4 horses make a fair representation.

The pack price for 1 limber is £14.50, probably at the top end of acceptable for me. The limber itself is metal and the horse / riders are in Warlord Resin.

The figures are sharply sculpted and clean with hardly any flash, which anyway is easy to clip away. What I did notice was that a couple of the puddle bases on the horse had a slight belly underneath, so that the base was not fully in contact with the ground.

I dealt with this by paring some of that back with a knife and then using ‘No More Nails’ to  glue the horse down, as this is a paste like substance and helps to self level the base.

As a small one off piece, it was easier to paint the parts before basing.

Method, black primer, dry brush white, contrast paint on horse and limber so coverage is an easy 100%, then block paint everything with normal acrylic, including going over the contrast paint. Then Ink wash and highlight. Brush on mat varnish lightly.

The groundwork starts with basing paste to hide the horses puddle bases and unite the wheels with the ground.

When putting the limber together, to stabilise it, a small bit of wooden cocktail stick was added as an upright support, at the harness end of the piece. I painted this brown so that it would get lost amongst the horses legs.

Overall, it is a nice addition to the Pocket Army that doesn’t take up much room.

New out, designed by John Thiessen and published by Legion Games, this is a lovely looking game with a 12 page rulebook.

The map is very clean, with a classic look, but with a very nice subdued graphic texture across the map on the open terrain, giving a modern flavour - nice job by Edmund Hudson (map Graphics artist).

We are in 1942 and the German offensive is about crossing the Don River and taking Voronezh and we also get a vigorous Soviet counter-attack, so I have hopes that this is an engaging game for both sides.

Each hex represents 9 miles across (14.5 km) with most of the unit counters representing divisions.

There are 14 turns in the game, covering 28th June to 25th July (2 days per turn). Having only just read the rules and not played, I am not sure at what tempo the game plays, neither the package or the web page give details on playing time, we might guess that this sits in the 3 - 4 hour type session - who knows!

Once played, I will do a bit of a light write-up, as this just might be the sort of game that could tempt a non-boardgamer to have a dabble! 

A while ago, I recalled having read an article by Clive Lane in an old wargame magazine, which dealt with the subject of figure gaming using hexes, a novel subject at the time (late eighties). I wanted to dip back into those articles again and so after a little internet research I found two candidates on e-Bay and ordered them.

The magazine in question was of course the rather marvellous ‘Practical Wargamer’, which had editor Stuart Asquith at the helm and was published by Argus Specialist Publications.

We should remind ourselves that in 89 / 90 we were essentially in the pre-internet world as far as the average household and the wargamer were concerned. This fact alone made this magazine a hugely important part of the fabric of the wargaming community.

Anyway, my two magazine issues ( Winter 1989 and September - October 1990) arrived, each with an article on hexes by Clive Lane - all good! 

I have just come across the magazines again today as I sort through boxes of treasure and they are being enjoyed as old friends!

The mags come in at 58 - 60 pages. They are largely presented in black and white text and line drawings, with some pages offering colour photographs and illustrations. 

There isn’t a WWW web link or an e-mail address or FaceBook page reference anywhere in sight. Instead, the adverts carry real estate addresses, telephone numbers and that typical request that the reader ‘sends 75 pence in stamps for a catalogue’ or a ‘Self Stamped Address Envelope for more information’ - which almost feels quite charming or quaint now.

Looking at an inflation calculator, £1 Sterling in 1989 would be valued at around £3.23 in todays money, so the front cover price of a magazine (£1.95) would equate to £6.45 today, so not a big difference on the face of it, but in those days, the average family generally had much less disposable income in their pockets (though that situation is on the rise) once priorities like food, gas, electric and rent / mortgages were paid for, so really by comparison, I imagine the mags were really more expensive …… though of course you didn’t have the ‘necessity’ of a mobile phone, an extra holiday and a car or two to worry about :-).

Browsing both copies I noted that;

The Beatties advert (a good, nay, iconic, UK model shop) had 59 branches.

Minifigs 15mm packs were 80 pence.

The entrance fee to Colours 90 (Wargame show) was £2.

W.E.Hersant Ltd were the big name book sellers for wargamers, rather like Caliver Books are today.

Alec Tiranti Ltd was selling all things to do with hand casting and centricasting.

Hovels buildings had a new Spanish range with a 25mm ‘three storey house and balcony in resin for £5.40 with 15% postage cost.

Don Featherstone has an article looking at the Egyptian army of 1882.

The marvellous Bob Marrion’s original artwork of soldiers in watercolour are given space amongst the few pages of full colour.

Southsea Models, Mili-Art, Britannia Miniatures, Mac’s Models, Skytrex, Hales Models Stonecast, Wargames Foundry, Spirit Games, Chelifer Books, The Drum and Minifigs are amongst the regular advertiser names that dominated ‘our yesterday’.

Overall, I always had an impression that this magazine was written for wargamers by wargamers and I note that sentiment is reinforced by a reader’s letter to the editor in one of the mags, as he complains about the mix of articles being too weighted to certain periods and the editor replies that he can only work with the material that is submitted to the magazine, so it sounds like at that time, we were still some way off from in house writers taking up that slack of insufficient submission from the readership.

The articles are underpinned by a strong sense / presence of history and sections explaining the important stuff of tactics and detailed construction of formations and their roles. There are several references to written orders and the business of wargaming feels like it is being expressed as a serious activity, with a level of exactitude that I sometimes wonder whether that flowed from the pens of those who had actual military experience and wanted things portrayed 'right'. It certainly comes from a time when more gamers were engaged with what was considered the importance of research and so this was all welcomed information.

Even in those days, I was interested in writing and boardgame design, but there was a seeming constraint that the world of publishing was coloured by those with an academic background, who through qualification had the ‘authority to write’ and the gateway to getting published was absolutely controlled by editors and publishing houses and you just had to rub along with that, a little in the shadows.

Fast forward to today and the power of print is at the fingertips of anyone and everyone. Self expression via the internet (this page for example), whether in written form or video, has brought a significant confidence and capability to pretty much anyone to project themselves into a public space - though of course that has not always been for the good. As the saying goes, the best thing about the internet is that everyone has a voice, the worst thing about the internet is that everyone has a voice. 

By contrast todays magazines, which of course have become just one part of what we now know as social media, seem to have a looser approach, with abstraction given due space and even the prospect of fun enters the language. Though editors must increasingly have a frantic job each month, just ensuring that they have enough content to fill the pages and maintaining sustainable circulation numbers. 

‘In house’ writing for magazines has reduced the voice of gamer diversity and I feel a slight hoorah! coming on for those early magazines and their editors who, given the times, gave space to the ordinary wargamer to share their own aspect of the hobby with the rest of us, after all that is how you get an article from the pen of say wargamer Clive Lane, playing on my mind over 35 years after it was written.

On a final note, one of my magazines has a strong smell of damp that is unpleasant and spoils it as an experience of ownership. Please don’t store documents and boardgames in attics and garages etc. Bring them indoors, yes I know space is a premium, but one might simply have to make room by getting rid of something less important, like the bed, dining table or T.V. and even all of the kids toys.    Good Luck :-) 

I recently bought a couple of boxes of plastic early medieval Irish warriors to make up some Kern bases for the Wars of the Roses. One box from Gripping Beast and the other from Wargames Atlantic.

Being early medieval, selections need to be chosen from the frames to give me a possible late medieval look, but that’s okay, it just reduces the amount of things I can use on the sprue, such as the large shield and helmeted heads etc..

The Wargames Atlantic box comes with models of Irish Wolfhounds, large dogs that were used by the soldiers. I’m not sure whether they were still a thing 400 years later for Wars of the Roses, but I thought I might do a vignette, just to include add a bit of visual fun.

And here it is, two dogs and their handler. I split some string to get out a thinner thread to use as the rope. It had PVA worked into it to lose any hairiness.

The Kerns in the Test & Resolve rules are categorised as missile troops. They suffer from lack of protection in the Wars of the Roses setting and so I might actually attach this base to a unit, to give it a one-off +1 DRM in any combat that the unit gets involved with, just to add a bit of colour. Anyway, a bit of visual fun and a good way to use the dog models on the sprue.

I might use them again when making a command sprue, but the commander would need to be in an animated pose for the running dogs to make sense, unless they are simply shown as running past him as a pack.  

You may recall that a few months ago I built some 10mm Napoleonic bases with a view to fast painting in a smaller scale, to get a small game to the dining table for when my back / leg pain is having a flare-up.

Well, now I have tried putting a few of the Epic figures (Warlord Games) down onto bases for some fast painting, to compare and also to re-assess the best way to present infantry.

Anyway, if this sort of thing interests you, there are some observations and photographs over on the Battlefields & Warriors Blog.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/08/starting-new-pocket-army-for-dodgy-backs.html

Nineteen Days in Autumn, authored by Erin Goeres and published by Penguin Viking, has just appeared in hardback (258. Pages) at my high street bookstore (Waterstones UK).

The front cover says ‘offering a new history of 1066’ ….. I won’t know until I’ve read it, but it seems these days that many historical books, as a matter of course promise a revelation and for the most part, you are just getting a re-telling of a story …. After a very fast glance through it, I am not seeing anything particularly revisionist, but this is such a good story, that stands on its own two feet anyway, that I don’t mind either way.

I have only browsed the content superficially, but there is certainly a writing style here that both informs and entertains. Emma Southon (author of A History of the Roamn Empire in 21 Women), puts her finger on it when she describes it as ‘visceral’, which I think she does by giving voice to several of the participants.

The author spends a little time discussing exactly where the Hastings battlefield was, but she doesn’t hang her hat on anywhere in particular. I quite like that her view seems comfortable in cutting past that to the simple fact that it was on a hill with protected flanks due to ravine and woodland etc. As Jim Bradbury says in his Hastings book (Sutton Publishing 1998)  - ‘on the crest of a hill, which ever hill’.

[note - I would add that the Norman left flank should be in the proximity of a small hillock, as when the Bretons broke, they routed to a small hillock, which helps make the traditional site a good fit].

Of Harold’s defensive position, one thing that did catch my eye was ‘They may also have planted sharpened stakes or spears in the ground’, though as an observation of this occurring at Hastings, it is not referenced to a source, but it is a fascinating thought never-the-less as such defences are generally anti-cavalry devices.

I like the little moments of story telling that suddenly pop up in the text - this is Gyrth speaking with Harold, urging that he should be allowed to head the army against William. ‘But remember Normandy. You took an oath not to oppose him. You swore on the saint’s relics to support his claim. You cannot fight him without committing perjury.’ ‘You know I had no choice,’ snapped Harold. ‘He held me captive, he tricked me. What would you have done, Gyrth?’ ……

Nineteen Days in Autumn is a catchy title and it refers to the time between Harold’s victory at Stamford Bridge over the Vikings and his march south to face William at Hastings - and that part of the story is accounting for around 40% of the content, but we are also given good coverage of Stamford Bridge itself and the earlier battle of Fulford, together with the earlier history that brought about these three battle of 1066.

That part of the book looks to be a well told account that is necessary to put the Viking and Norman invasions into context.

My overall early impression that this will be an enjoyable book to work through and will be a useful primer for the two 1066 based games that Legion Games will shortly release.

As an aside, sitting on the shelf next to this book in the shop was another new 1066 related book, simply called Harold (published by Yale). There will be a lot of 1066 interest this year in the UK as the Bayeaux Tapestry arrives on loan to the UK, while it’s usual home at Bayeaux gets a revamp.

The latest release in the Jours de Gloire (Days of Glory) series of Napoleonic games, arrived today from Vae Victis in France.

I only pre-ordered this 3 months ago, so that is quite a fast transformation to it actually getting into print.

This is their biggest package in the series so far with 4 counter sheets.

It covers three battles, all from 1813,  Lutzen, Bautzen and Dresden. Lutzen and Dresden are single Map games, on their reverse sides is the Bautzen 2 map game, though these single maps are only 59cm x 41.6 cm, so putting two together gives a footprint (A1 I think) that is only marginally bigger than a standard wargame map that we see in most American sourced games.

The rules and play aid are still running off the 2021 versions and both (and the play book) include French and English text.

For those who have bought these recent folio games, what you have come to expect is here, it looks exactly the same format and these big battles will fit into the series rather nicely.

Irish Kerns appear in two scenarios in the Test of Resolve scenario books, Stoke Field and Mortimers Cross, with 4 units needed at most.

For these skirmish missile types, my units will be two bases with five figures per base, so 40 figures are needed.

Preferring plastic, this leaves me with a choice of Victrix Games, Gripping Beast and Wargames Atlantic, though really all of these are intended for the early middle ages, rather than the late and so amongst the figures there are quite a few carrying a bit more armour than I would like, including helmets  and bigger shields, though both boxes do have a small shield alternative. The Gripping Beast box seems to have limited poses of bodies and heads.

I was also surprised to see that in several places, stocks were low or at zero, so I thought I had better jump now, rather than do anymore thinking.

In the end, I went for two boxes, so that I could mix things up a bit. Dark Age Irish from Gripping Beast with 25 figures and Dark Age Irish Warriors from Atlantic Wargames, which say 40 figures, but 10 of those are Irish Wolfhounds, so there are 30 workable infantry.

I don’t think the Wolfhound as a military feature was as prevalent in the late medieval, but certainly a couple dotted around on the bases will add a bit of interest. I might even do a base with a dog handler and two or three hounds just to add a bit of visual interest, depending on being able to build a figure with the right sort of posture.

The Gripping Beast seem to have spears rather than throwing javelins, so there is an obvious difference in size - I may have to operate on them or as is my wont recently …… just go with it and worry not!

Anyway, while we still have the good weather, I will get these glued up outside. 

Our face-to-face game took us to the skies for a change.

Age of Dogfights WWI by Forsage Games is a well produced and executed game of WWI aerial warfare with plenty of options and death.

We just started off with a basic scenario. A squadron of three aircraft per side enter the board and then later each side gets a reinforcement of another squadron of different planes.

The game has oodles of different models and it is the distinct differences between aircraft models that underpins play. My first flight had then Albatros D.V. and I was engaged against Mike's Sopwith Camel, which is what you can see in the photo. Movement is between the nodes and the aircraft stands are fixed at different heights, you just swap them out when gaining or losing altitude.

I have found that air games, rather like naval games, are designed by people who really know what they are talking about, with the danger (for me) that all of that rivet knowledge gets put into a game, becoming more complicated than my limited knowledge of those subjects needs - I would be more than happy with Hollywood style rules!

But here, the designers have managed to impart that knowledge and give the game good subject integrity, whilst still keeping a very playable and enjoyable game.

When we next revisit the game, I rather fancy one side will be trying to bomb a factory and we might even include a couple of their acetate cloud pieces.

There is also a WWII version and both games also do expansions, though from what I saw, the average land lubber would be more than happy with what the base set brings 

I have just concluded Turn 3 of the ongoing 1471 Campaign.

It delivered a battle that I must say has given me one of my best player experiences for as long as I can recall.

I have added all the details to the ongoing report on the Campaigning 1471 tab (yellow tab to the left of this screen).

The above photo shows Queen Margaret of Anjou inspecting her troops and no doubt giving encouraging words and inspiring great things from the soldiers. 

I hope you enjoy it.