Another year in the hobby and another Partizan Show to be enjoyed as I was joined last weekend by Steve M and Mr Steve on our 'Boys-Beano' to Newark for a weekend of fun, banter and great wargames. This year was a little different from previous occasions in that we were not planning to travel up to play a game on the Saturday and so took things a little more leisurely which definitely suits the vintage of the boys involved, arriving up at Newark on the Saturday afternoon, in time to take in the Newark Air Museum, located on the former Royal Air Force Bomber Command station at ..read more

Perhaps one of the perennial interests for naval wargamers, and I guess for historical wargamers in general, are those David and Goliath encounters that seem to defy all the maths and odds ratios so beloved of those articles in 'The General' magazine from the 80's that would pore over the odds for Avalon Hill games to come up with the best strategy to win; with these historical actions seeming to prove the old adage, 'it's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but rather the size of the fight in the dog' with their 'against the odds' outcomes. Introducing His Most Catholic ..read more

In this second post covering Carolyn's and my visit to the British Museum in April 2024 to see their latest exhibition, Legion Life in the Roman Army, I pick up from Part One, which you can start with, if you missed it in the link below. JJ's Wargames - The British Museum - Legion Life in the Roman Army, Part One As explained in Part One of this post, the museum has themed the exhibition as a presentation through the eyes and experiences of a typical first century Roman soldier, Claudius Terentianus, and I have used the same mechanism to describe the exhibits, sprinkled ..read more

Battle of Camperdown 1797 - Ronny Moortgat https://www.artnet.com/artists/ronny-moortgat/ Another key stage in the Camperdown Collection Build has been reached this week by the finishing off of the last four ships that composed Admiral Duncan's Windward Division and thus completing all the ships of the line in the British fleet that fought the battle, now just leaving the remaining small ships of both sides to be built. The Project Planner at this, the completion of both fleets battle lines, with these last four ships in the Windward Division of the British battle line. In ..read more

A few days ago Carolyn and I caught the train up to London to stay with friends and travel into the city to visit the British Museum and their most recent exhibition illustrating Legion Life in the Roman Army.  The British Museum is still one of the greatest collections of ancient historical artefacts in the world and so when they decide to exhibit the best of their own collection together with that of others, it often presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to see up close items that you usually only get to see reproduced in books, and as this is a very large exhibition I will prese ..read more

  The last post in this series concluded Carolyn and my stay in Queensland before our boarding a flight from Cairns to our next destination, Darwin the capital city of the Northern Territory, the most smallest, with a population of about 140,000 people, the most wettest, with a tropical climate consisting of a wet and dry season and the most northern of Australia's capitals making it a key link to Indonesia and East Timor. JJ's on Tour - Palm Cove, Cape Tribulation, the Daintree Rainforest, Atherton Tablelands and Tolga Bat Hospital The just over two and half hour flight took u ..read more

An important stage in my Camperdown Project Build started last October 2023 was reached this week and the plan to bring the battle to the table in glorious 1:700 scale moved a little closer. The first part of this little project is now finished with the completion of the last two models in the Batavian Battle Line and thus all sixteen are ready for battle with work now progressing to the British Windward Division and the three British 74-gun third rates, Venerable, Triumph and Bedford. My models representing the 68-gun Gelijkheid and 56-gun Beschermer. Once the two fleets are f ..read more

  It was back in late January 2023 that Carolyn and I found ourselves on north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia, in the final leg of our four month odyssey across the Pacific, that had started in Vancouver, Canada in October the previous year and come via Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, North and South Island, to arrive in Melbourne for New Year 2023 and our subsequent travels illustrated on the map below.  Our route so far on our travels through Australia, starting down in Melbourne just before New Year 2023. Map courtesy of https://www.freeworldmaps.net/australia ..read more

Lots of activity in JJ's Shipyard this last couple of weeks as I worked to complete the Batavian battle line and the last five ships needed before moving on to the next stage of the Camperdown collection. JJ's Wargames - All at Sea, Battle of Camperdown, Project Build, Part Six If you missed the last group of additions, I've linked them above where you can also find the links to the other models completed so far since October 2023. The latest additions to my Batavian battle line, from left to right, Hercules 64-guns, Admiraal Tjerk Hiddes De Vries 68-guns and the razee ..read more

It was back in April last year that I presented a project that I had been working on and something that had been an idea long in the gestation period, principally waiting for a collection of models in the right scale to better present the level of actions I had in mind to write up as a collection of historical scenarios from William James' naval history, built around using Kiss Me, Hardy (KMH) and To Covet Glory (TCG). JJ's Wargames - All at Sea, Scenario Design Thoughts for Alexander at Bay The work at that time had progressed to and just beyond, Scenario 52, The Capture of the A ..read more