I know I normally do a birthday blog post, forgiving my enemies and all that jazz. Not this year because some of my 'enemies' have really made an impression on my shit list, which takes some doing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to strike back, but I can't see the point in forgiveness this week. My annual month's holiday lasted a whole 36 hours this year... A new record! Someone very close to me nearly checked out, and as a result is still in hospital, leaving me to celebrate my birthday alone,  with a bowl of spaghetti, but thankful that at the end of it all, said person will be returned to me, upright, and somewhat fragile, but not laid out in a pine box. So, all things considered, it's a fair trade off. I have just been informed that said individual dreamed last night that they were wargaming with me, and were giving me a thrashing. So, it seems that she must still be delirious... So, I went back to work last week to earn some 'grace' at a...

In 1984, I first really got an interest in wargaming the Renaissance. Some older friends in the 5 clubs I gamed with every week, were ECW re-enactors, By The Sword Divided had been on TV for a while, and I had fallen under the Mephistophelean, the Machiavellian, grasp of Lloyd Powell, whom I looked up to as one of several role models, who collectively shaped me into the misanthropic and opinionated ne'er-do-well I am today. But more importantly, Lloyd really got me interested in the Italian Wars and Wars Of Religion, and even today, over 4 decades later, when I need to check something about that wide period, I will still pick up the phone and call him at his repose in the Tower Of Doom overlooking the Rivelin Valley, from where he plans the reintroduction of the Feudal system and the arming of certain government agents with the longbow and shoot to kill instructions. But, I digress, as always... I love the colour and pageantry of the period and I have developed a acute aesthetic se...