HOBBY UPDATE... LIFE!

It's been a bit of an odd month! Since my last post, I've been reminded that you can never take life for granted and you never really know what fate has in store for you. To say I've been a bit distracted would be an understatement and I have felt like the hobbying side of life had ground to a halt. However, I set up a practise game of Blood and Crowns by Firelock Games today and, suddenly it dawned on me that, even though I've been drifting in and out of things for a while, that I had actually done quite a lot of hobby based stuff! Just not necessarily the stuff I'd been planning to do a month ago!

I added to my 1487 Yorkists with a six figure unit of Irish Galloglaigh, using figures from Perry Miniatures (and, I think, one from Footsore that sneaked in somehow!). The Perry figures are lovely but very hard work to prep ready for painting. Their first outing was a bit of a disaster, when they heroically sacrificed themselves to prevent Mi Lord Clifford and his grisly bunch of henchmen from descending upon the Yorkist retinue archers... all six of them ended up on the window sill for the cost of only one Lancastrian! A morning rolling ten sided dice has inspired the launch of two new units; some armoured cavalry for Lord Clifford and some mercenary crossbowmen for the Earl of Lincoln.

At the beginning of my month long reverie, I was due to go to Britcon at Nottingham but had to cancel at the last minute. My intended chauffeur for the day, my nephew Richard sent me a photo of a game using the gladiatorial combat rules, Jugular! We used to play the absolutely brilliant TTG rules, "Rudis... The Wooden Sword" back in the 1980s and Richard had obviously been inspired to pick up where we left off forty years ago! As a youngster who understands the unfathomable mysteries of something called "3D Printing", he has been doing whatever it is you have to do to make something which, very cleverly, resembles a Gladiatorial Arena, and so, of course, the postman bafflingly turned up one day with a parcel which, according to the label, was from those deftly talented people at Gripping Beast!

In that strangely mercurial way, that only wargamers understand, having never once in the last forty years even considered painting gladiators, without any warning whatsoever, there was the first 35mm gladiator painted, based and ready for action!

Then... there were two!

Then three...

Then a Murmillo, my favourite of all the gladiator types.

I've been tinkering with sets of rules which we could use in our gladiatorial renaissance and quickly decided that "Jugular!" probably wasn't one that I would personally choose to use; just not keen on the four gladiator a side in the arena at the same time! "Sons of Mars" came and went, quickly followed by "Arena of Blood" which, surprisingly, I actually quite like and have had a couple of dry runs at, using the dining room table as my sandy arena. Admittedly, I have taken the rules as written and added "House Rules" for movement (there aren't any at all in the rules!), letting Retiarius attempt to use his net to trip his opponent, giving gladiators the option to dodge and give their opponent a good old fashioned shove in order to gain a bit of manoeuvre room! But, apart from that, they give an enjoyable and sometimes tense and jittery combat that can leave you hanging on tenterhooks as you roll your combat dice. "Rudis", however, remains unchallenged as the ultimate gladiator combat game but, with the tactical decisions you have to make, it can not work as a solo play experience.

My final "Unexpected Journey" for this Summer arrived in the form of son Daniel, who visited us recently to announce that he wanted a change from playing the Good Guys in Middle Earth and was going to start painting Easterlings! Naturally, we couldn't really play games where his Easterlings would come up against my Uruks, so the only obvious answer to this predicament was for me to embark on a new Lord of the Rings army which could provide some opposition to the Easterlings! 

For a person in his 60s, who needs to wear a 5x magnifying headset to see any detail whatsoever on 28mm wargame figures, Dwarves were probably not the best choice from a painting point of view, but, so far, they have proved to be an enjoyable and rewarding little project to get involved in. Still a long way to go, and, with twelve whole months before my next scheduled visit to SpecSavers, I can only hope that my eye sight holds out long enough to get my planned three warbands completed without making Dan hang about, impatiently waiting for some opposition for his Easterling horde. My Early Saxons for Dux Britanniarum have, not only had to take a back seat, but have been firmly consigned to the boot for the time being, but I am hoping that they make a comeback to the painting table during the long dark Winter nights which, alarmingly, are already looming large and will soon be upon us.