Rejects fault

Damn the crossed eyes and gnarly hides of these two aptly named Rejects, Ray and Fran who have posted an 'Interview yourself' post on their blogs that I (and apparently several others already) feel compelled to partake of in my 3rd Blog of today !!

1. Favourite Wargaming period and why ?
Tough call but I guess overall it would have to be my first love WWII in particular anything post D-Day.
I like many grew up with Airfix figures and kits and World At War TV series along with Battle & War Picture Library comics and all war films which seemed to be on constantly throughout my youth.

I mean who cannot me moved to tears and trembling at the sight of one of these ?

2. Next period, money no object ?
American Civil War in either 15mm or 10mm

3. Favourite 5 Films ? 
I have to split this into 5 favourite WW2 types and 5 Other War types and 5 Other types....................

WWII (in no merit order):
Cross Of Iron
Hell Is For Heroes
Saving Private Ryan
A Bridge Too Far
Longest Day

Others Wars:
Zulu
Waterloo
Kingdom Of Heaven
Gladiator
Last Of The Mohicans

Others:
Jaws
Star Wars
Bourne Identity
Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Damn that was hard so many I had to leave out !!!

4. Favourite 5 TV series ?
Band Of Brothers
The World At War
The Office
Combat!
The West Wing

5. Favourite book and Author (I missed this out first time round !?)
I want to say the Bible and therefore God, but will go with
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan (one of my first 'war books')

6. Greatest General ?

Heinz 'Panzer' Guderian

7. Favourite Wargame Rules
Another tough one hmmmm...........................

Operation Warboard
(maybe not the best in truest sense of word but my first ever rule set and very fond memories of some great games)

8. Favourite Sport and Team
Rugby Union and has to be any All Black side if only for the Hakka alone !

9. If you had a only use only time machine, when and where would you go ?
Garden Of Eden and stop that stupid bint Eve from eating the apple.

10. Last Meal on Death Row
Full Christmas dinner

11. Fantasy relationship and why ?

Cant fathom the why part to this ?

And yes it would be a threesome :-)


12. If your life were a movie who would play you ?

My pick Steve McQueen

In reality a battered Mickey Rourke

13. Favourite Comic Superhero

Rogue Trooper loved his talking 'chips' and taking out Norts

14. Favourite Military Quote

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys.
Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!"
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

15. Historical Destination to visit

Normandy




16. Biggest Wargame Regret
Not looking after plastic Tank models from my youth as well as I could have.

17. Favourite Fantasy Job

Film Director

18. Favourite Song Top 5 ?

Another tough one and I have included stuff not strictly songs

Tubular Bells: Mike Oldfield
It Must Be Love: Madness
Nobody Does It Better: Carly Simon
Moonlight Shadow: Mike Oldfield
Father & Son: Cat Stevens

19. Favourite Wargaming Moment 

First visit to a UK wargame show ie Derby 1987 and sheer WOW ! factor

Close second would be initial opening of Squad Leader board game

20. The Miserable Git/Grumpy Old Men question, what upsets you ?

An ever growing list but I will go with, Irish Republican Terrorists, Islamic Terrorists in fact any Terrorists, Politicians, Reality TV Shows, X-Factor type Shows, Big Bloody Brother, People 'up their own arses' (eg Politicians again), so called News Reporters who give opinion as fact, mamby pamby footballers, thieves, other drivers, greedy bastard Bankers, unfathomable petrol pricing, Insurance Companies, rising cost of living, work, ill health, cancer..................................................................

DBMM Yuan Chinese vs Samurai

Played another Dbmm game at Stephens as he had yet another army he wanted to try this time Samurai (and very pretty it was too). I having as late as this so borrowed a Yuan Mongol/Chinese army as a near contemporary. Samurai used Pallisades (ie Temporary Fortifications) which we have not used before and it took us a bit of head scratching to work out rules for them as sort of strewn throughout rules. We made a couple of mistakes early on, main one being that whilst a destroyed TF counts as difficult going the winner advances beyond rather than into/upon this difficult going which makes sense, when combined with loser recoil base width not depth but took us a few reading to realise this. Another fun game of Dbmm



'Auld' iPhone pics (ie a bit ropey)

Thirty Years War video waffle & Kutusov

Another go with iPad of a trial run through of Thirty Years War Europe In Agony 1618-1648 by GMT games. And a very fun game it was too.

Since finishing Thirty Years War have now set-up Kutuzov on table for try out

Wings Of War plus Pike & Shotte arrive.........

Couple more goodies arrived today

£15 on Ebay and in excellent condition (does not look to have been played) I suspect if its a decent game  I will no doubt collect a few of the very nice miniatures associated with this

Big fan of FOGR but could not resist this one (£19.50 on Amazon) !

Personal note:
My son Steven got his his A Level results today and passed and so is off to Nottingham University to read History from late September.
I am a heady mix of immensely proud/relieved/emotional/missing him madly already (as essentially an overseas 'posting')/feeling rather old/end of an era.

NB He has had his girly hair cut since this as a real bug-bear of mine !! that is him on right by the way not the dashing and youthful figure on left playing 'pocket billiards' :-)

Postscript:

Check out 'The Blog With No Name' who has a giveaway type competition running and is looking to boost his follower numbers, some very nice prizes in pipeline

http://walladvantage2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/100-followers-why-thank-you-all.html

Thirty Year War: Europe In Agony board wargame

This game arrived from chap in Spain in absolute mint condition and just managed a hour or two (by burning midnight oil) to get it set-up for a try out.
Another card driven type and looks rather interesting (its a period I like).

This one just arrived today too !!!

DBMM Maurikian Byzantine vs Islamic Berber

Busy busy week but managed to get a Dbmm game in with Stephen.
Very little prep time (ie none) so we just picked a Book 3 army each to use and abuse.
I selected my Maurikian Byzantine (a glutton for punishment) and Stephen arrived at chez Barr with Islamic Berbers.
Another fun game ensued as I mass charged the Berbers hoping to pin them back and break through their massed lines.
My Kavallori 'wedges' as ever led by two Generals in front line failed again as ever to break through the spears.
Sadly my supporting Skutatoi foot were decimated by the Berber foot opening a gap that I could not fill (my Pip dice were awful this game averaging 5 or less each turn on 3 dice !!).
With terrain I could (indeed should) have adopted a defensive posture as I had two difficult hills on each flank...................but.......................its just not in my genes..........................


My excuse is I needed a quick game as I had to head off to work for the evening :-)

Both armies deployed note the Byzantine position nicely anchored on two hills

Psiloi on one of the difficult hills

Khazar contingent in march mode

Worms-eye view of Byzantine line

Kavallori massed in center

The Berbers (Herbet Lom is in there somewhere)

Byzantines initiate proceedings

Berbers await (El Cid contingent hug rear edge)

Kavallori up the Berber gullets

Mexican stand-off on my leftKavallori impact spear line

Charged blunted with some 'wedges' repulsed

Byzantine foot in trouble

Byzantine Knights in diffs as well

Maurice Seven Years War

A Seven Years War bash today at Stephens with my Russians against the Prussians using the most excellent Maurice rules.
A really enjoyable game it was too (these are another very fun set of rules by Mr Mustafa).
We used the army builder points system and random terrain set-up with two 100 point armies.
Terrain was Plains and eight pieces in total. Stephen had Great Captain card (very appropriate for Frederick of course) Lethal Volleys and Cadence Step.
I had Rally To The Colours and Steady The Lads for my Ivans. Prussians were attackers and set up second (a big advantage).
They massed on my somewhat week left flank and with Cadence they were able to rush forward in column and deploy into line right in my face.
Russians were able to shore up flank by marching two Infantry units that had deployed in column as a reserve but of course being Maurice this meant they were doing little elsewhere having to dance continually it seemed to Prussian tune (composed by Frederick).
The ability of a Great Captain to allow the CinC a 'free' 8" move each round proved very effective indeed whereas the poor Russian CinC had to burn cards to move or else staying one place.
Pressure on Russian left eventually told as Prussians outgunned them.
We also tried using Notables for the first time today.
I had Cameron Von Muller (a Scots exile enobled in Germany) who I placed with my Elite Horse Grenadiers but since my Cavalry wing was not involved he got no chance to shine.
Prussians had a chap whose name I neglected to note who also attached to a Cavalry unit which charged a single battery of Artillery and was repulsed (my base 2 plus a 6 rolled vs a base 6 but only 1 rolled !!) and to add insult to injury he then failed his Hazard roll and was then killed !!
This was my only success however......................
A really fun game indeed with a set of rules I enjoy a lot as a nice balance of that chaos factor I like with very slick and playable systems. Everything is integrated very well and just simply works.

Russians deployed

Russian center and right wing Cavalry

The weaker left wing

Prussians massed on their right

Prussians getting numbers to count

Prussians deploy from columns

Russian center tries to re-deploy (note two units in column scurrying to left)

The Russians left has disappeared !

Out of focus (due to my tears !) shot of Russian dead pile

No Gold Medal for me but plenty for Team GB !!!! Huzzah !!!!