Insomnia is fun isn't it? No? Bugger... :D Well, here I am planning more gaming japery, and also saying goodbye to historical mass battles. I'll be doing a lot of large skirmishes from the Middle Ages through to the 1980s, and of course the terrain available is both high quality and very varied, so it will look as awesome as you'd expect from here at the Dark Tower. I am looking for more narrative style gaming, on a large scale in terms of scope and play area, but what I'm not looking for is simply pushing around rather generic feeling blocks of figures I've become somewhat jaded with in the last 8 months or so. Cards on the table: at Christmas I played one of the most unsatisfying and indeed boring games in 43 years.  Spending six hours in a defended position, just shooting at an advancing enemy was, well, boring. I could have simply used MDF unit footprints instead of figures (splendi dthough they were). Perhaps that would have been a better way, with all the pl...

 Well, the last 8KGs of castings I need for my fantasy project arrived yesterday, so I'll be sending them to the painter this weekend and writing the painting instructions. YAY! I have to say that I'n still really passionate about it and I am now planning on what to add now that all the rank and file stuff is in hand. I bought some of the Schleich toy dragons at the weekend, which will get a bit of brushwork and a base job before being added into the collection. Toys? you say... Well hell, yes, and why not?  Like it or not, no matter which way you want to try and shape it, you play with little plastic or lead dollies and hiding behind the facade of them being 'proper' miniatures is just a sign of your insecurity. Tell it like it is and embrace the fact that like me, you never really grew up. Admittedly, I won't use the beaked one at the back, but I know a ten year old who has a load of 54mm fantasy figures, who would like this. I've been collecting notes and int...

 Well, as is the way these past 43 years, I was once again bound by dark magic to make a tit of myself in public for the hobby I love, on the Yarkshire Gamer podcast. To be fair I had fun, but that's not the point, is it? https://kenrtai.podbean.com/e/episode-45-mark-hides-real-life/ In other news, the fantasy project is roaring down the track and has taken hold of me in a way which even I find a little unsettling.  I have always been equally a fantasy and historical gamer as well as an itinerant role player, but something is in the air I fear. Speaking to the Grognards with whom I have gamed down the years, they have literally out of nowhere got the itch for some 'proper' fantasy gaming. Not for them this points-based modern pap, but rather BIG armies, comprised of multiple races, battling it out on good looking terrain. This has happened before, we all get an individual itch, which on being mentioned to the rest of the mob, appears to be some kind of collective madness. ...

 Well, the first of the Good Vs Evil project have finally hit the table. This is the Orc melee infantry, some 31 regiments, deployed in columns, and representing about 19% of what I hope to have on the table this year. All of the models are 28mm metal, Nick Lund sculpts. Next up, will be 200+ Essex Miniatures Goblins, forming another tribe for the forces of Evil. TTFN

 As you may have noticed, I've been working on a set of fast and dirty fantasy rules to handles truly large battles, which are manufacturer and setting agnostic. After all, I own a miniature company, so the temptation and possibility of having lots of figures is always there, lurking like a wet fart in white linen trousers. So, I began tinkering with mechanisms which used a single value to describe a unit, and thus was born the Satanic Panic Universal Rule System© (S.P.U.R.S©)  It's simple and elegant at the same time, and allows massive battles to be fought, generals to see roughly but not precisely what the opposing forces are like., in the same way a 'real world' general could read the battlefield. The rules are basing agnostic, with there being two general types of troops, identified by the number of figures counted as one 'base'. Troops which are trained, drilled or just natural fighters use a 'base' of 4 figures, whilst tribal, levies or just gener...

 Well, another weekend shot past me, almost unnoticed, but I did manage to further my gaming and also touch base with fellow gamers to discuss plans and stratagems, which is always good. We talked over the French Indian Wars idea and it fell flat, so I crossed it from my bucket list (I did achieve it after all) and moved it on, within hours of listing it. As my previous plans with one friend have dissolved, multiple new and brighter paths have opened before me and I have to say that the positive vibes and more certain outlook are very encouraging.  I have never been a gamer who has focussed on either historical or fantasy exclusively, neither have I been a fanboy for a particular manufacturer, so I have enjoyed the hobby in the widest way possible.  This means that I've enjoyed building armies which use the maximum variety of models and have not become so serious and staid due to wishing to be seen as a 'serious' wargamer, that I have disappeared up my own arse. There is ...

 Well, despite the Memsahib not being at all well, we had to make the effort to go the three miles to the Joy Of 6 show, on Sunday. The Memsahib was not well enough to walk around the show, so was taken straight to the cafe area where she held court, being friends with many gamers across the country and even in her reduced state, managing some of her glow. I delivered a few thousand models to several clients and collected a load more for painting, before heading to the cafe myself to have a really fun chat with friends.  I wasn't in shopping mode, but I was drawn back to some 80s Cold War microarmour gaming. So, that is something I plan to undertake myself, rather than contracting out. I managed to get hold of the Bruce Rea-Taylor lists and digests yesterday thanks to the generous James Hamilton, who agreed to sell his set to me, so it's full speed ahead to the planning stage. I finally cleared some space which has been filled with a friend's figures since what has become k...