Snowdonia - LLedr Valley

Bit of a wash out few days in Snowdonia due to M6 and rain, but a really nice walk yesterday above the Lledr valley from Dolwyddelan pass the Lledr Gorge then up to Ty Mawr and then over Foel Felen with wonderful views of Moel Siabod and then back down to Dolwyddelan.

Dux Britanniarum

Paul laid on a game of Dux Britanniarum at Dragoons Den tonight. Me vs Jim, Jim won but pretty pyrrhic. Not a bad set of rules and the house mechanics like shock are very similar to Chain of Command. The Fate cards work well, and are a lot simpler than the runs approach of Saga. Bit frustrated that my cavalry even with a special charge card weren't more devastating - and there's always the issue with bucket-of-dice games that in a single game you can get some real extremes - although this certainly helped my British Levy hold off the Saxon Warriors for a time. Certainly OK for an evenings gaming, and it would be interesting to play the campaign system.

British Levy face off against Saxon Warriors - they should have

taken the chance to finish them off rather than regroup

Bavarian and Wurtemburg 6mm WIP

Quick work-in-progress shot of my current 6mm painting batch - a Division of Bavarians, and a brigade each of Wurtemburgers, Bavarian Cavalry and Wurtemburg  Cavalry. Also three Bns of light infantry too. About 2/3 through the painting process, should sort the bases weekend after next. Nice colourful uniforms with the skyblue jackets for the Bavarians, and both countries having a nice mix of lapel colours including red, yellow, pink and sky blue. The cavalry look good too. Nice way to bolster French numbers without having dark blue on everything.

Furious Folly

Excellent night out at 10pm on Saturday to see "Furious Folly" an outdoor art piece/performance/pyrotechnics display about WW1, and particularly deserters and conscientious objectors. After a walk through Sutton Park and listen to snippets of letters and quotes about 1000 of us we ended up no-mans-land/prison-camp whilst 4 performers spoke and played bugle/drums above us from four guard like towers, and in the space beyond fireworks, gun-shot simulators, drifting smoke (aka gas) and very loud bangs put us in a suitably reflective mood. There were even rockets zipping back and forth on wires down the edge of the area triggering deep resonant klangs, and at the end modern "drone" propelling (literally) themselves along wires about our heads carrying red warning lights and loudspeakers broadcasting quotes from Bush and Blair.

A slow start, but in the end  a great and memorable event.

Still a chance to catch it in Stockton-On-Tees, 4/5 August.

Kingmaker

I've been meaning to buy a copy of Kingmaker on eBay for a couple of years but the price always seems to be too much (£35+). I remember playing this once, maybe twice back in the late 70s/80s and thought it was a nice game with a good period feel, and also gave a good sense of how English geography (particularly the rivers) affected military strategy. Last week I finally managed to pick up a copy for just over £30. The box is a bit battered, and there was no guarantee of every piece being there (although the count looked about right) - but I want to play this rather than keep it as a collectors item. It's also the later Gibson version rather than the original Ariel version, which also keeps the price down - even though it comes with more rule options and at least has the look of the original unlike the US Avalon Hill version. The board is a thing of beauty and very similar to the one I've cribbed for my ECW/Medieval campaigning.

Playtest to follow in the next few months.