Warp Speed into 2025

 The last year has been quite challenging. I suffered a stroke in November 2023 and have spent the last year or so in recovery. I'm not there yet, but doing well. This blog was one of the casualties of that but I'm aiming to get this up and running again as wargaming development and 3D modelling has been a handy therapy. I completed a number of projects in the last 12 months, including a solitaire game covering the Yangtse Incident,  rules and models for gunboat battles on Lake Garda in 1866, and several 1/600 ACW ironclad and gunboat STLs (the last one being the CSS Virginia).

Getting back into this blog is thanks to one of my regular readers who prompted me about it the other day. They said they missed it and hoped it would be back soon. I took that as a metaphorical kick up the backside and so here I am again. No firm "plan" for 2025, I'll take things as they come, but a few highlights will be:

• developing a modern naval primer board game for Fight Club International 
• doing something similar with a couple of serious board games for seabed operations and critical undersea infrastructure (I've been working on this for 3 years or so now but its getting some serious attention now), and a "fleet level" naval primer game
• developing my "bumper boats" ancient galley skirmish rules and WW2/modern quick play set that I last looked at in 1998!

There's probably a whole load of other things that I inwardly said I needed to do but those are good for starters. And another prompt is the restarting of F2F wargames at the Tudor Arms - the Berkeley Vale club rises again!  

Happy New Year

Hi everyone, normally I would be posting my "review of the year" today and my plan for 2024 tomorrow. 

But as some of you may know I'm poorly in hospital at the moment. I will post my review and plan in a few weeks when I'm back home.

In the meantime, happy new year everybody :)

Trents Reach, INWarD 23

My game for INWarD 23 was a refight of the battle of Trent's Reach in 1865. i've played this one out quite a few times, and this time was the first attempt at it with my "Man o War" variant rules (which are intended for not entirely serious play but as it turned out went down pretty well) All warships and gun batteries were 3D prints that I had designed and made (and if they aren't on Wargames VAult already then they will be soon. The game was a blast and attracted a lot of attention.

The Confederate forces made a good job of penetrating the river obstructions (I had simplified these to a line of scuttled ships and log pilings - I didn't include the mines/torpedoes as that would have slowed things down a lot), but by the time they had punched a hole the Onondaga had arrived on scene and started shooting up the Confederate ironclads to great effect. Hunchback went town to a spar torpedo from one of the Confederate Squibs, Virginia was sunk in quick order by four concentrated shots from Onondaga which caused flooding criticals, Fredericksburg was also shot up and sunk. 

Richmond looked to be getting past the Union fleet but a shot damaged her engines and she was slowed up (and had suffered heavy damage to her armament) and it was obvious that Onondaga would overhaul her and sink her quickly, so we called the game. A Union victory but it could have gone either way. 

Thanks to Stuart and Nigel for running the Union and Confederates respectively (with occasional help from passers by), and to Helen and Nick for popping in. A fun day for all I think

INWarD 2023

 Its that time of year again - the 7th International Naval Wargames Day, celebrating the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T Jane, takes place on 6th August. Its an opportunity for naval wargamers around the world to play games with each other F2F, online, or solitaire and then discuss their experiences. Or just share ideas and experiences on wargaming forums, websites etc. nd, as always, we aren't that fussed about the date, consider it a week of celebrations either side of Fred's birthday :)

For my part, INWarD coincides with the Thornbury IMPS and wargaming show, where I will be running a participation game covering the American Civil War battle of Trent's reach. All in 1/600 featuring 3D printed models that I've created, printed and painted. Hopefully a fun day for all! 

Not a Great Day at Legionary 2023

 I had a strange experience at the Legionary show in Exeter yesterday. During the week I decided to "weed" my 1/600 ACW collection and sell of some of the duplicate models that I have acquired. I was helping to run the "Wings of Glory" game at Legionary and thought it would be good to put the models on the Bring and Buy.

I had 20 ships in total. Each one individually recorded on the two record sheets that I was given by the staff. Each model was individually labelled with a reference number and a price, and they were in a box that was marked "£10 each". So all seemed OK.

Around lunchtime I noticed the box and models wasn't on the B&B any more, and around abut 2pm I  asked the staff how the sales had gone. at that point I was told "one sold". So where were the others? Turns out they had sold ALL of them in a single lot for £10. Nice. So despite them being individually recorded they'd sold the lot for the price of one model. At this point I'm quite adamant that they owe me £200 so they then discover that they know who the models were sold to. The call him and the guy says "but they were in a box marked "£10", and there were no labels, they must have fallen off". SO I explained that it said "£10 each" but the guy was adamant that wasn't the case. Anyway, he then admits there must have been a "mistake" and says "I'll post them back to you". No way that's happening, so I ask him to return them. Long story short, he's at a pub 20 miles away so off I went to collect them. And lo and behold, all the ships have labels, and the box very clearly says "£10 each".

Every model labelled as thus, with their own code number.....

...and this written in the box which clearly means have everything in it for a tenner (if you are an idiot, or just happened to be holding your thumb over the word, by accident of course.....) 

Now I'm obviously not saying there was anything dodgy going on (although some of my friends were convinced it was deliberate), but you have to be some kind of special stupid (or something else not right-minded) to think that it was £10 for the lot. And you have to be some kind of incompetent B&B staffer to not follow the VERY SIMPLE process they had in place to record sales. Especially as there were plenty of other boxes of multiple items, individually recorded, on the tables. 

The good news is that the senior guy on the B&B did manage to find out who had my models and was VERY apologetic for the obvious errors. I'm sure the club would have been very happy as well since it saved them £200 of expense.

I was happy to get my models back unscathed, but decidedly not impressed that this had happened. It was the first time I'd put things on a B&B for some time after previous bad experiences (notably when I'd had stuff stolen off the B&B at a show, and then when all the items I put on a B&B at a show in the West Country got immediately sold to a dealer mate of the organisers for the "deal" price I'd listed, before they'd even got on the tables), and nothing yesterday convinced me that I will want to risk it again in the future. It also ruined what was up until that time a veery enjoyable day. They say that the last 5% of an activity is the bit you'll remember for ever. My lasting memory of Legionary will therefore not be a good one.

In happier news though, I had a table at the Lincombe Barn Tabletop sale today, sold a pile of stuff, bought a few nice things and caught up with many old friends. A much nicer day :)

Black Hawk

 Its a wet and rainy Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, so naturally (after the Coronation fun and games had died down) I've been 3D modelling. My main "work" on this over the last week or so has been the Confederate squadron on Lake Ponchartrain (more of them in a later post), but I've also been working on an old favourite, the Union flagship Black Hawk. This is a beast of a model in 1/600 and should look suitably imposing when I get a chance to print her out :)

ACW 1/600 Torpedo Boats

I've had some fun modelling this trio of ACW era torpedo boats. They are now up as a "pay what you want" download on Wargame Vault, so you can have them for free if you like :)

The subjects are the Union picket boat (Picket Boat No. 1 being notable as the craft used by Cushing to sink the Albemarle), and the Confederate "David" and "Squib" class vessels. The models are intended for printing at 1/600 but may work well in 1/1200 with resin printers. The picket boat and Squib are probably useful for eras other than the ACW. 

Enjoy :)