Chris K has been working on and off with the playtest group hoping to publish the updated "Hordes of the Things", to be called DBF. I'm not that bothered with it, to be honest, but Chris is interested so it is only fair to give him support. This week, however, there was a carrot dangling in the shape of some of my old figures I gave to Chris many moons ago. When I was in my teens  I invested in Middle Earth armies initially based round converted Airfix and then transitioning to Minifigs ME range. I bought an early set of table top rules called "Wizards and Warfare", which I now find I ha ..read more

Like all of my rule sets I have aimed at a couple of things whilst writing "Tricorn and Bonnet". These are: To be period specific, rewarding historical tactics, and To provide mechanisms that (I hope) are unique. This combination can sometimes lead to an issue or two, for example where people don't agree on what the historical tactics actually were and where what's going on during the game isn't immediately familiar. With there points in mind, here are my tips and advice for playing the game. Prepare for surprises The game is designed with a number of surprises built in. The main one is t ..read more

For this Tuesday's game I decided to revisit NQM in the SCW. The rules have settings for different levels of organisation. The last game was played at Corps level. For this game I went down to Divisional. That means each base is a company and, for the SCW, four bases equal one battalion. Due to some confusion on my part - which goes to show what you can miss when you are umpired actively and just enjoy the experience rather than learn the rules - I got the strength points wrong.  This game was based upon the Nationalist counter attack using a very large Navarrese Brigade under General Bau ..read more

  Yes. Tricorn and Bonnet has been released into the wild at the bargain price of £9.99. It's available on both  Amazon and Wargame Vault. More information on how it works and so on can be found on the page tabs above. Or by browsing the pack pages of this blog!. Go on. Treat yourself ..read more

Richard S, who wargames in the Great Lakes area, has been playing "For Whom the Dice Rolls" in 6mm. He doesn't blog, but he did an FB post which he said I can share here. He and his friends played the "Three Bridges" scenario, which is in the FWTDR resources pack. Our group really enjoyed our first game of, "For Whom The Dice Rolls" 6mm, division level "Los Tres Puentes" scenario today, May 18th. Danny and Michael commanded the Nationalist brigades, while Ted and Chuck rushed 3 Republican mobile columns forward to halt the mixed Legionnaire brigade drive towards Madrid. Winning the initiative ..read more

 As Chris and I were both busy over the weekend, this week's fun and games was provided by DBA as the path of least resistance. There were just the four of us. I played Phil twice, and Chris did the same with Steve. My first game was Arab Invaders (Phil) v Maurikan Byzantines (Me). Well, I say that but actually the figures were a bit earlier, being my Belisarians. Here's my army after clear up as I forgot to take pictures. I ended up losing 4 - 0. I didn't play very well, rolled rubbish PIPs, rubbish combat dice and didn't really have much of a plan. Phil was good for the win. For our s ..read more

This game was set up for our regular Quarterly Shedquarters meet up. The game was supposed to be Ottomans v Austrians, but I had some supply problems (which I may write about later) so the kit I wanted wasn't ready. I therefore needed a substitute.  Chris K and I talked about using NQM to run a big SCW game over the summer. I have wondered about running an operational SCW game using Chris' system for a long time, almost as long as I've had the figures. As we've played a lot of NQM recently and as Chris has moved the rules onto squares then hexes I've felt that the game has become more wit ..read more

I can't make Partizan this year, so Chris K is flying the flag for the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society, assisted by Steve and Vincent. Chris is taking a quick fire game featuring 5th Northants Regiment in WW2. This one is about the attempt to clear the Argento Gap, in the Po Valley in Italy during 1945. This week we were therefore Chez Kemp, playtesting his set up. The participants play the Brits against Chris running the Germans. There's a lake to the left which is too shallow for using amphibious vehicles, and marsh on the right which is too boggy for anything. Argento is centre left ..read more

Wow! Doesn't time fly? It's May again and we're back at Centre:MK for another Campaign show. This year the spine of the team was me & Tim from SHQ and NBS committee member Alex who did both days. We were joined by Chris A, Richard L and Grant across the weekend too. Photo by Alex Howes We were outside John  Lewis as usual, which is handy for toilets and the key retail outlets for us over the weekend: Greggs, Costa and Pret a Manger. The showpiece game for the weekend was the 28mm Edgcote stuff I've been working on. I wrote a bespoke set of rules for the show, called "Edgcot ..read more

We played AK47 Republic (classic edition) back in January after a break of a few years. As we were likely to have an even number show for this week's gaming evening Phil had suggested more of the same so the newbies could fix the rules in their heads. Well Tim at least. Steve didn't play last time. With Chris away sunning himself somewhere I was supplying three armies. I went for the Zambolan People's Front (Dictatorship), the Swamibian Defence Force (Colonials) and the Army of Dog (Religious Movement). I set up a type one and type five terrain. I should probably have looked back at the last r ..read more