Month: February 2017

All is chaos and confusion

My wargaming has been somewhat disjointed in nature recently, for reasons of domestic bliss.

It was decided to have the woodwork around most of the house repainted as several bits were looking tired and discoloured.  In order to paint the dining room, we had to move all the shelves and cabinets, necessitating the removal of records, tapes, CDs, ornaments and other paraphernalia.  Having done this, the long-outstanding plan to replace the furniture was resurrected, and while the furniture was being removed we may as well have a new carpet!

Thus for some weeks there has not been a spare flat space in the house, except for my desk in the office I share with the memsahib, who has decided to work from home this week.

I do have a card table in the man-cave in the garden which is currently set up for me to learn the mechanics of the “Black Powder” rules before the Donald Featherstone tribute weekend in March.  However, venturing into the garden not only reminds me how much work is needed to be done there, but also commits me to unending games of ball with the dog.

And so, what have I been up to?

I did manage to play through a couple of battles from the Operation Sealion PBEM campaign which thankfully has reached a lull while I wait for the orders from the Germans for their landings on the second high tide.  For these I used my Memoir ’44 boards and home-made unit tokens unitil the last indoor table was removed from use.  I also revamped the unit database for the British side to make it more player-friendly.  When I can get back into the office I have to do the same for the Germans.

SInce then I have been working through my outstanding game list and preparing the paperwork for several other battles in different periods that have been pending for a while.  Amongst these are a Spanish Civil War engagement using one of Charles S Grant’s scenarios, a 1939 Germany v Poland battle, also from Grant’s book, and the next battle of 1792 for my “Est-il-hereux” rules (which must wait for the card table to be cleared).

No doubt all of the above will require more models to be painted when I have a table and access to the toy cupboard again.

Until then I will content myself with theoretical gaming and preparation.

And moving stuff around the house as directed by the boss!

 

A useful wargaming item.

I recently discovered on Amzon a most useful wargaming accessory.

These are blank, playing card sized, plasticised cards. You can use any felt-tip pen to write on the cards and it takes immediately without smearing.

I am using the cards to record rules for games in development. When the game is finalised the cards can be sorted and transferred to a document.

You can see here red cards for combat, green for movement and black for general game rules.

My original purchase was intended to use the cards for unit records in a game.

I think they come in packs of 200. I bought 1000 for £13.98.