Life's a right old galimaufry of emotions and occurrences. Tomorrow, we have to attend the funeral of the Mum of an old friend, who passed away on Christmas Eve. Margaret, was another Mum who, allowed a bunch of teenage ingrates, invade the back room of her home and cover floor and table with either roleplaying stuff or sometimes wargames, as well as some legendary 40K games which covered the back lawn. Moreover, when I was going through a really bad stage of my life, having been estranged from my peer group by my newly found 'friends' in the realms of the Goth subculture, and at a time when my girlfriend of the time was fucking her way through around a dozen people whilst driving a wedge between me and several remaining 'old' friends, Margaret was always there to give me a place to find some peace and listen to my woes or just let me doze in an armchair in her living room. She also made sure that I was eating properly and she could cook an amazing stew, which she d

 I know I said I had a fixed plan for the Napoleonic set up, but I can never resist a bargain. Hence, when this little lot came along at bare metal price, I snapped them up.  South Wales Borderers at a nice 36 figure plus officer strength.  I'll replace the flags and obviously sort out the basing, but all in all they look rather splendid.     TTFN

 I set myself three 'bucket list' goals for the year, having decided that we are not going to shows and having ended 2023 with a surfeit in the gaming fund, and coming to the conclusion that actually  I pretty much have all I want, more than I need and to be honest being in a really happy place with how gaming/life in general is going.  So, the three aims were: 1. Finish the fantasy collection entirely. 2. Fulfill a dream I had since I was about 14 and buy a sheepskin flying jacket. 3. Buy a hi-fi which could do everything, instead of relying on MP3s for all my music.   Well, yesterday, I sent the very last of the fantasy project to the painter in the form of 8KG of plastic and classic metal models. The fun we had playing the battle of Green's Bottom over Christmas is still being discussed, and one friend has been inspired to rebase what is probably the largest Elf army ever, and it's nearly all vintage Jez Goodwin models to boot. Gaming should be fun, and the pleasure

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 When I get my teeth into something, it's usually a good sign for my gaming output. For over 40 years now, I have actively resisted the call of Napoleonic wargaming (and let me be frank here - or Colin, if you prefer) due to the stuffy snobbery of those playing it and an almost cultish hanging-on to the words of the late David Chandler (I always suspected there were those who kept little fetisho-masturbory shrines in their gaming rooms). I mean look, even Digby Smith dropped the 'Otto Von Pivka' schtick. By the way, he passed away only 10 days ago. I confess that I did enjoy reading his articles in Miniature Wargames etc, because they gave you something to get your teeth into for your monthly pennies, unlike today's magazines which make Hustler look like an academic journal. But, as usual, I digress. I will confess, that despite my opening comments, I have always had a sordid little lust when it came (no pun intended) to Peninsular War armies. The lovely, shiny, bright

 Blimey! It's been 10 days since my last post. Well, I've been busy, so suck it up cupcake... But seriously, it's been an interesting time. My return to work after a month's break (such as it was, given my illness) was as always, an uphill struggle readjusting to the 8 hours at my desk and all the pain which comes with that. I punished myself with a week of Napoleonics, WSS and modern skirmish stuff. Then there's the matter of needing to do essential work on the house, which has been billed at an eye-watering £20,000.  The knock on effect was that we seriously discussed divesting ourselves of the Satanic Panic and Wargames Elite miniatures ranges, but friends in the industry talked us out of that - thankfully. It's all in hand, but we now have 4 months of upheaval to deal with at the wrong end of the year. Ho hum... Additionally, the game room is now closed and I spent yesterday filling 12 litre storage boxes with figures. At the 20 box point, I decided that the

   RECON has long been an established show on the wargames circuit, with the venue, Pudsey Civic Hall being one of the nicest little venues for such a show, with friendly and helpful staff.  Leeds City Council are considering the sale of this venue and others amid a series of city-wide cost cuts, and they are going hard at it in the press. This classic wargames show venue may not have a future beyond 2024 if Pudsey Civic Hall is sold due to finding another suitable facility and at reasonable cost. The sale will impact the wider community as well. Please show your support to keep this council-run facility open by taking part in the following survey.    All it will cost you is a few minutes of your time.      https://surveys.leeds.gov.uk/s/z2iqxv   The closing date is 19 January. Thank you for your help.

  Over Christmas I had the distinct pleasure of hosting a reasonably big game here at Fackham Hall, with lots of classic old school models and a few more modern figures with a classic feel. I think we only fielded about 20% of my own fantasy collection, but it was a big game.    Richard Smith, brought his amazing collection of Satanic Panic O/S inspired figures up for the day. He has so many that we could only fit a fraction of the collection on the table, but they looked superb, mixed in with others.    The game was played with six players using the play test version of S.P.U.R.S, which game a great game, with much colourful language as units clashed for 6 hours and the dice gods looked upon me unfavourably - as usual.