Where have all the bloggers gone?

About a year or so ago I posted that there seemed to be less activity in the world of wargames blogs and after taking some advice I linked my blog to Facebook in an effort to generate more interest Whilst I can understand why Facebook is a handy tool to expand readership and followers it is also a double edged sword. To be honest I really don't like the medium and find it increasingly unnerving as I invariably read the views of some people who frankly may have serious mental issues. Unfortunately I don't help because if I have a view I seem to have to express it. This would be fine if one was dealing with sensible people but nowadays they seem to be in the minority. It is many years since I was called a warmonger for playing with toy soldiers and I honestly found myself glowing with nostalgia when one woman became very irate at my love of all things military and a lover of war to boot.

 Anyway I have noticed that less and less wargamers are continuing with their blogs or are posting very intermittently. Now I appreciate that real life, families, jobs etc interferes with hobbies but I think that somehow blogs are losing their appeal.  

 I can understand to a certain extent why people decide to stop posting to what appears to be a silent audience if there is even an audience at all.But I find it really sad that some of my favourite wargaming blogs have fallen silent because they have always been a source of inspiration for me and in a lot of cases a source of information and military knowledge. This is not an announcement that I am chucking in the blogging towel because I'm not. Its just an observation.
  Mind I may free myself of Facebook simply because some of the ire I have received recently is a tad close to home and I  also seem to have pissed off a wargames magazine editor when they took issue with my alternative political view regarding certain UK policies. I must have pressed his buttons quite a bit because he sent me a few messages off line.
  It used to be never discuss football and politics when in a pub, now it seems never offer a different viewpoint in politics and wargaming when on the internet. So it looks like I'll never get another article printed in one of the wargames magazines. Shame that.

Anyway onto brighter things. I have finally based up my first Parliamentarian foot regiment after it has been sat forlornly for a couple of weeks. I purposefully reverted to gloss varnishing as I sought to replicate the wonderful armies John possessed in the 1980's. Gloss varnish does make certain figures and colours sing and I really like how Hampden's Greencoats have turned out. They'll never win any painting competitions but they do look, well, bright.

I also finished two Royalist cavalry regiments, one is a repaint job from figures I bought on E Bay and the second is the Queens regiment which contained French mercenaries and the like. Again the gloss varnish has made their colours jump out. So to the hysterical lady who screamed warmonger all I would like to say is 'yah sucks and boo!... If this is warmongering then I want more.

Naturally all the figures are Hinchliffe. Yes some of Gilders horses suffer from wonky legs but for me that is part of the charm. I did say that I was building a Hollywood version of the English Civil War so expect more of the same.

 Finally an image of the three Royalist cavalry regiments I now have. A long way to go me thinks.

Hammerhead 2018.

 Well today was a first for me as I took the trip south to Hammerhead at the Newark showground. Normally I would give this show a miss and wait for Partizan in a couple of weeks time, but family commitments meant I was missing Partizan. Needing a show wargames fix I opted to visit Hammerhead.

 Hammerhead is clearly a different beast from 'normal' wargames shows in that all the games are participation games, which means smaller games with fewer figures. However there was a lot of trade expected at the show and the added bonus of a table top sale so I bit the bullet and tested the waters of a  participation games show. I was very pleasantly surprised with the quantity of well produced and quality games spread over two halls.

 One of my personal favourites even though I know nothing about fantasy stuff. A beautifully crafted temple and cellars produced by Mierce Figures [ I think] called Darklands. I do know this company sculpt wonderful figures and this game showed them off really well.

 The recapture of Umbar by Sally 4th Wargamers. A Lord of the Rings scenario with top quality terrain and ships. The game used the GW rules and looked a great scenario.Really nice.

 I caught this game between participation's. The whole terrain was of the highest quality and I particularly liked the wall decorations. A brilliant piece of modelling.

           There were several western tables on show and two of them had steam trains.

        I do like a good steam train and both tables that exhibited them were of the highest quality.

 Dave Docherty exhibited a great looking western game with a very large number of cattle on show waiting to board a great looking train. The whole game was a terrific advert for the hobby in general.

 I enjoyed the fact that there was a high percentage of historically based games on show and I was very impressed by this Napoleonic one based in Spain and using the brilliant Eagle Miniatures range. Ian from Eagle Miniatures should be applauded for producing some top quality figures. A really lovely game. I think it was a Sharp Practice one, but I am usually wrong on these things.

                         A large Sudan game , again with well painted and exhibited terrain.

           Finally my personal favourite, The Dambuster Challenge, a simple idea which required skill from the public who had a go. I chickened out.The whole game was very well thought out and was not only fun but also very informative. I could see this being a great way to educate some children in a history project about just how brave and skilled our pilots were.

  The actual controls to be used by the participant in conjunction with a great model of the original Dam Buster bomb sight.It really added to the whole game.

                                               The bomber with great engine sound effects

 The target with removalable dam sections should you actually hit the damn [see what I did there] thing.

 So what was my verdict. Well I thoroughly enjoyed the day. It seemed to busy all the time I was there. There was a higher percentage of people under the age of 50 and also a large number of women who actually didnt look like they were glazing over with the boredom. Apart from the usual stalwarts from the wargaming trading fraternity there were several different traders which was nice to see. The food and parking are totally acceptable and of course the venue is easy to find.
 I can only apologise for not mentioning more games that were there. What I can say is that there wasnt a duff game on show in the two halls. Did I mention the fact there was two halls?
 One observation that I think Kallistra who organise the fine event should perhaps reconsider and amend was the tabletop sale.
 One could book before hand in order to guarantee a table to sell your stuff but I found that the people who had booked the first spots managed to remain in position for more than the one hour slots and were still selling two hours+ later. So really like a cut price trader. Apart from the fact that once you had checked what they were selling, there didn't seem much point in returning if the same people were still there two hours later. I also noticed that some were in fact traders in all but name. I dont think I would be very pleased if I was a trader who had booked as such and then found that a so called wargamer was selling the same products. So I would suggest cutting the time slots to a maximum of 45 minutes and a clause where the same person couldnt return for say two hours or so. Just a suggestion.

Minor progress in my ECW project.

 Progress on my ECW Hinchliffe project has been a little patchy but I have completed a couple of regiments of Parliamentarian horse and some new commanders. Not my best work, but hopefully with some practice I hope to get the best out of Gilder's wonderful range.

 When I was expanding my Seven Years War armies I took to buying old painted figures from E Bay and then touching them up. The ECW armies will be supplemented by the same method. I bought a unit of Parliamentarian heavy cavalry and gave them a touch of paint. Below is the before and after.

 No self respecting ECW wargamer should be without Arthur Haselrigge's  cuirassier regiment and I always loved the Hinchliffe figure so I had to have the unit.. Sir Arthur after Marston Moor was detailed to oversee the quelling of the North East and was billeted at the Bishop Durham's palace a short distance from where I live. From what I have read he didnt endear himself to the locals and managed to kill the last of the famous white deer herd that grazed in the palace grounds.Nice chap.

 Here are the two units brigaded together. A lot of iron to see off the cavaliers. So progress is being made albeit not as quickly as I would like.