Wild Geese Weekend 2023.

I treated myself to attending the Wild Geese Weekend at Kenilworth a few days ago. The weekend was started several years ago and was originally based around the group that purchased the release of John Ray's beautiful book, a Military Gentleman. The weekend was seen as a way to fight Seven Years War related wargames, meet like minded wargamers and have a few beers. It was and is a very nice way to spend a weekend.The latest one was no different. I hadnt been for several years for several reasons including lockdown of course but I was greeted as if I hadnt been away. Well thats what Im saying anyway.

Usually there are five or six games set up for attendees to take part in, they dont have to be tricorn games and this year they were in the main related to that period, from the Indian Wars to the Great Northern war, with one game based around that Victorian era. All were great quality and featured some beautiful toys. So you get pleasant company, a great setting, lovely looking toys and the chance to chat to real wargaming enthusiasts.

I was lucky enough to get to play with Will Harley's brilliant Spencer Smiths using a set of simple rules he had created. I had to be French who were  attempting to get a convoy off table. I'll be honest I was like a child in a sweet shop. Yes we lost, naturally,but it was an absolute pleasure to take part in. A really tense but fun game.

                             I like to think we gave those ghastly Prussians a hard time.

After lunch I got to take a command in a wonderful refight of Kolin using Command and Colours. The game was staged by the very talented Steve Metheringham using his wonderful 40mm Prince August self casts. I could have just sat there admiring the beautiful figures. I shared the Austrian command with Aly Morrison who can talk more than me which is saying something. Ive only played Command and Colours a couple of times several years ago, but they worked really well in this refight and we won! I would like to say it was down to tactical genius but Im still not certain how we did it, but it was a great way to spend a few hours.  On the night after dinner, was staged a very difficult military quiz but I was lucky enough to be in a team with the talented Dave Andrews and won. It did a get a bit tense when we lost points for me spelling Mollwitz with an extra I, there are some very nasty wargamers about, you know who you are, Gary. 

I enjoyed the game so much I managed to play it again the next day, but this time as a Prussian, partnered with the old fox, Gary Phillips. But this time the battle was very, very tense and ended when my commander, Frederick the Great was killed! We lost three commanders in the battle, which is par for the course for me.Oh how we laughed, not. 

It was great to meet up with Paul Robinson from Grimsby who brought his beautiful SYW flats with him. Paul has been through a really hard time and it was great to see him and his lovely units.

Iain Burt brought his  fantastic shiny toys based loosely in the Victorian period. My photographs simply dont do them justice, they are inspiring.

                       The chaps below were made by Iain using milliputt. They were lovely.

I can only apologise for not knowing who produced the final two games and for not taking more photographs. One was a Great Northern War affair using the Riever figures, it was a cracker.

The final one, was a beautifully staged Indian Wars battle, using some lovely rafts and canoes.The weekend is open to anyone, you dont have to be part of a club, in fact you dont have to be a wargamer. All you need is stamina, a sense of humour and an affinity with beautiful toys.Thanks to everyone who put so much effort into making the weekend a huge success.

The Sick one returns.

                                                         God its been a while;

 Depressingly a big part of the reason for the lack of wargaming and posts is illness once again. Good health is such an important of ones appreciation of life, anyone who has any sort of long-term illness and yet manages to bugger on has my complete admiration. Unfortunately I dont seem to be one of these good people, in fact Im pretty hopeless when attempting to cope with such things. But anyway Im back.  

Painting like virtually everything else suffered during my latest bout of being off colour. I did receive a nice pick me up from fellow wargamer Iain Macmillan who very kindly sent me some lovely Stadden ECW figures, which I did paint, and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.They are little works of art.  

One of the many pleasures of attending wargaming weekends is being able to talk to other wargamers and see what they are up to. At the Billhooks weekend in Derby I saw some lovely Eureka Miniatures WOR figures and I had to have some. They are very fine figures that are compatible with Perry Miniatures. I painted a unit of their archers as my Burgundian Ducal Guard, it means that they can have a commander attached to them if required using the Billhooks Deluxe rules.

I took their costumes from a Funken drawing, I dont know if they are historically correct but I like them which is what counts.

During my latest hiatus I bought three secondhand books on the recommendation of a Slingshot Magazine circa 1975. The books by Professor Paul Kendall were published in the mid 1970's and concerned Warwick the Kingmaker, Richard 3rd and Louis 11th, the Spider King. I would recommend them to any wargamer/ student of the WOR period. Yes they may appear a little dated but they are written in great conversational style that I have always likes and provide a lot of information about the three personalities.