In a departure from the steady stream of 18mm SYW/WAS and 25mm Biblical figures emerging from the painting desk, today sees something different.  Something very different from a project not seen in a very long time. What is the project?  My interpretation of the 19th Century period known as the Great Game where Britian and Russia vied for control and influence in Central Asia, mainly in Afghanistan.  Now, my recollection is that the armies have only been out on the table for exactly one game.  With a little luck, perhaps, mustering the latest Russians will prompt thoughts ..read more

In years past, Wargames, Soldiers, & Strategy's Great Wargaming Survey asked a question on spending.  The question asked survey respondents to quantify their expected spending given a range of expenditures.  Since I wondered about the accuracy of these responses (my sense of accuracy in my own spending is suspect), the 2023 survey replaced this question with two questions.  The first spending question asked if respondents tracked their hobby spending.  The second question rephrased last year's spending question and changed the question from absolute to relative te ..read more

Fornovocate - to refight the Battle of Fornovo multiple times to see if the historical result was the most likely and to gain a better understanding of the battle. As a refresher for how Game #1 played out, please visit Battle of Fornovo.  Yes, we find ourselves back at the Battle of Fornovo. This time three of Postie's Rejects (Ray - Don't Throw a 1, Lee - BigLee's Miniature Adventures, and Surjit) command the Italians while Chris (Horse and Musket Gaming) takes sole command of the French King's Army. Once the battle lines are drawn, the battlefield and the commands look like ..read more

More Biblicals. Out from the painting workbench today are 28 Babylonian spearmen distributed across two, fourteen figure stands.  Figures are Wargames Foundry.  These fellas muster out to augment my growing army of Babylonians.  More bowmen are working their way through the painting queue but have yet to see a lick of paint. What are ahead of the bowmen in queue?  Well, while Biblicals continue to feature prominently, I see 18mm Hanoverian cavalry, 18mm FRW infantry, and 25mm Crimean War Russian infantry.  All are awaiting their turn in the photo booth. The Battle ..read more

After four games of the 1497 Battle of Sanguetta, I cleared the table and laid out a second, Great Italian Wars battle.  This time, the battle selected is the 1495 Battle of Fornovo.  Again, RM Verginella's recent scenario book was used as a guide and inspiration but I found the scenario needed some adjustments to fall in line with my understanding of the battle and the units present. Anyway, I had five players present for the first playing of the scenario with Chris, Tony, and Mark taking Italian commands while the Two Daves split the French command between them.  The initia ..read more

After cleaning up the last (well, almost last) of the SYW/WAS cavalry in the painting queue in the last post and a quick addition of a command stand for the Italian Ward project, painting focus returns to Biblicals and pre-Biblicals. The first pairing in this Biblical tranche is two, nine-figure units of Akkadian bowmen for the 28mm Sumerian project.  Figures are from Newline Designs.  Up to now, all of the figures for this project have contained themselves to Sumerians, proper.  In the most recent two Newline Designs' orders I tossed in a few handfuls of Akkadian and Gutian ..read more

In a seeming rarity, the past week saw no armies battling it out on the table.  Instead, I spent some time at the painting desk as well as assemblying and tuning a new bike.  Also occupying my time was designing and developing a follow-up scenario to the Battle of Sanguetta game.  Next on the table, we look at the 1495 Battle of Fornovo.  First run-out of the game is slated for Tuesday.  I actually managed to get several units into the Painting Logbook before month end.  Many of those units in this month-end push centered on adding to the Biblical collections bu ..read more

Having spent considerable time exploring machine learning and developing business applications using such techniques during my career, the broadening application of artificial intelligence to search engines and expert systems is fascinating.  General-use applications such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot have taken the techniques of natural large language processing (nllp) models and offered them to the masses. Intrigued by recent AI experiments by two wargaming bloggers, An AI Take on my Blog Limitations of Artificial Intelligence   I buckled up and posed the following quest ..read more

On the 21st, Mark (Mud Blood and Steel) reconvened for a rematch of our earlier Sanguetta battle (see Battle of Sanguetta).  In that earlier fight, Mark led the Papal Army to victory in a close battle.  In this match-up, we would swap sides with Mark taking command of the Orsini Army under Vitelli. Let's see how the rematch unfolded. Before we arrived at the table, Mark and I both drew up battle plans for the opening battle deployments.  Vitelli (Mark) positioned his army across the hill with his pike blocks anchoring the ends of the line.  Borgia (Jon) positioned the P ..read more

With four out of the last five posts containing battle reports on the Italian Wars battle of Sanguetta, readers may be feeling battle fatigue. I may be too. Still, one more fight of this battle is on deck for later today as Mark and I face off in a rematch. We will swap sides and see if I can pull off a victory as I take command of the Papal Army. Given the recent flurry of games and battle reports, work at the painting desk has slowed. While March came in like a lion, motivation has slackened and painting has slowed as gaming has moved to the fore. Anyway, back to the workbench. Off the ..read more