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.