With the passing of another member of Sheffield Wargames Society, in the form of David 'Rabid' Ranson, the long time treasurer of that club, I am once again being made aware of the lights in my night sky blinking out, with the knock on effect that I get depressed and begin considering my own mortality and the stupidity of that old chestnut that, 'You can't die whilst you have unpainted figures." Well, I wish someone had told Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong that because he's dead and had thousands of unpainted figures...  I also generally get to looking at my life and thinking that sure-fire 'trigger', 'Have I wasted the majority of my life playing with toy solders and games of let's pretend?'  The answer is that in the big picture, I probably have, but there again, games have been how I have made my living for around 30 of my ears on this planet, and along the way I've worked for and with some of the founders of the hobby who figurati...

 Andy Copestake has, as usual written an interesting piece over at his own blog, which got me thinking about rules, periods and the like...    I have in my almost half century, gone through the usual cycle of rules, often trying to find that perfect set - it doesn't exist - for my favourite period.     When it came to pike and shot, I stuck with Gush, until I got to the stage where my armies were too large for the mechanics to be comfortably used, and we were cutting down on tests for this and that, and in the end - sometime in the 90s I began writing and using my own rules, which, as of 2026 have become a no figure removal, basing agnostic set with straightforward mechanics which - I think - capture feel and flavour,    They don't use fancy cards or special dice, because guess what? I am not seeking to make a living from them and screw over gullible ex- Games Workshop acolytes and they don't need them.   Now, whilst I will stand second to no...

 Today we dragged ourselves to Fiasco in Leeds and it was shite. That's what you'd expect me to say,  but noooooo This morning I rose at 03:30   with Sheffield and Leeds still well truly in the teeth of Storm Whatever-It-Is-They-Want-Us-To Be-Worried-About-This-Time, stretched out on the sofa with my first cup of fruit tea, and listened as the wind and rain did their worst, to Radio 4 Extra, before showering and selecting a sartorial mix of Joe Browns clothing in soft fabrics, and war Autumnal colours, set off beautifully by a striking orange shemagh (also courtesy of Joe) and finished the whole ensemble with a pair of brilliant red Clark's Wallabees. All very understated for me, but nonetheless I was filling inwardly and indeed externally chipper, which a dash of Aramis behind the ears enhanced very nicely thank you. The Memsahib, who has not been well this week, was, after 12 hours in bed similarly upbeat of mood and up to the considerable challenge of the motorway in w...