Well, so far January has not yielded any 'real' on table gaming, but hopefully the desert will become an oasis in the coming weeks as campaign planning  and painting start to pay off.

The ACW Graysville campaign progresses. The Photo shows a Confederate order sheet. The first column will show ongoing unit losses. The rest of the the sheet is for unit orders .... the current order and if a replacement order is due, then the time / turn that the new order will replace the old and this is based around distance from the brigade commander, so hopefully that will bring a discipline of keeping the brigades together, rather than a free for all!

24 Union cavalry from the Epic range have just had their wash, so need a small highlight, matt varnish and then basing. These have felt harder work than hoped, but I think it is the batch size that has caused that.

Once the varnish is dry, I will get these straight off the sticks and put 8 Confederate mounted cavalry and 8 dismounted cavalry plus spare horses for horse holders onto the painting sticks and hope to fly through them within a week, while I get the Union cavalry based.

I am quite keen to get the ACW done, not only for the sake of the campaign, but I have had a nod that a small commission that I have put out for some Napoleonic French is close to completion and I will soon need to press on with painting some Prussians to fight them! .... another future project!

At the conclusion of getting the Confederates painted, I will be fully campaign ready. I am just reading a couple of Osprey books from their campaign series covering Shenandoah 1862 and 1864 with a view of capturing anything from divisional actions that I would like to see represented in the campaign - just to give a feel thing.

The WWII ladder campaign is pretty much ready, so some Old School Tactical games should start to flow shortly.

Also on the boardgame side of things, I have just done a first reading of the Eylau 1807 rukles and punched enough counters to set up the intoductory scenario, which covers the initial contact / fight for overnight quarters.

It is a cut down action that doesn't involve all of the system, but it is enough to give a feel of tempo and casualty rate etc, together with all of the base mechanics. This should reach the table over the next couple of days.

The quality of the components is very good. In all my years of boardgaming, I have never seen counters push out so easily from the frame and without any side or corner nibs!

Our face to face game was cancelled last Friday, due to snow / ice, but with everything thawed and a respectable warmth in the air, this Friday should see the first face to face game for 2025.

So all things considered - at last! the gaming dice should be rolling soon.