Recruits XXII is in the record books.

So home on Sunday (after a 6 hour drive!) and a flight out on Monday for business means I haven't had time to provide a proper update. I'll get to it in a few days. In the meantime you can check out EssJam's and The Baron's blogs for a look at two of the three games we put on. EssJam played in the Friday night game and The Baron ran his Fistful of Lead rules on Saturday afternoon. I actually played in The Baron's game and was chided for "hiding" in the woods (I was playing Rangers!) rather than charging out into the open and perhaps wresting victory from the wily French woodsmen. Perhaps : )


See ya!

And now for something completely different. Romans.

Despite the fact that this blog has been dominated by the F&IW, my primary historical interests lie in the Classical and Hellenistic periods, particularly around the rise of the Roman Republic.

I started gaming this period in DBA and DBM with a 15mm Carthaginian army, then started painting 28mm fantasy for Hordes of the Things. And ever since I have been collecting "naked lead" in both scales thinking I might someday make a commitment to one scale. . . a commitment, of course, dependent upon Roman miniatures I could "love." 

The Xyston Romans convinced me I could commit to 15mm, so I started collecting Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Indians, more Carthaginians and Romans. . . but couldn't quite let 28mm alone, being a fan of the Foundry Greeks and Macedonians, their later Achaemenid Persian sculpts and their wonderful Caesarian Romans. And of course, collected all of them, too.

I found myself wishing the Foundry Caesarian Romans were earlier Republican Romans, then realized I could make them so by adding feathered plumes (from Crusader Romans) and greaves from the Foundry Centurian models to create Princepes and Triarii. Hastati and Velites would require a bit more sculpting prowess, but were manageable, too.

So this Labor Day weekend I painted to a serviceable wargame standard a 15mm Xyston Princeps and a 28mm kit-bashed Foundry Princeps to put them side-by-side for comparison. I thought it might make my commitment to one or the other easier. . .

What do you think?

F&IW Scenario for Recruits XXII

 I don't have time for a big new project now so have decided to run a simple frontier raid scenario for the upcoming Recruits in September. Scale map of the terrain to be fought over is shown; simple description is:

It's 1757 on the frontier between the North American colonies of Great Britain and Nouvelle France. Will you join with the French and their Indian Allies as they terrorize the British settlements on the edge of the wilderness, or will you join the Colonial Militia to defend the Colonies, with the support of the Regulars provided by good King George? This game will be played in "Glorious 54mm Scale" and at least one session will feature the brand new Horse & Musket variant of "Fistful of Lead,” guest-hosted by the author himself.

We'll play with This Very Ground with the caveat that if The Baron can free himself from his ongoing domestic duties for a game we may get a look at the new Horse & Musket variant for his "Fistful of Lead" western gunfight rules.

Hope to see ya at Recruits in September!

Quick Little F&IW Repaint Project. . . Completed.

And here's the evidence.

The 44th now has its Colonel and Standards.

See ya!

Quick Little F&IW Repaint Project

I am repainting my Jenkins officers and standards for the 44th. The officer on the far right with the King's Colors is stock and won't change. The officer on the left with the Regimental Standard belongs originally to the 47th, so will get the most paint: gaiters will be brown, trousers and waistcoat will be linen, and of course the Regimental facings will be yellow. The standard came from the 28th - I changed the Regimental number previously. The drummer will just get brown gaiters, and the officer in front - originally from the Jenkins "Death of Wolfe" set - will get new yellow facings.

Why? I had the original officer and color set but found as it was an early Jenkins release it wasn't up to his later quality standards. So I sold it to follow this path, instead. The blog title does warn of "obsession," after all.

Hope to have the repaints done next weekend.

Now what should I do for Recruits in September? 

See ya!

Happy Birthday, America!

It ain't perfect, but there's no place we'd rather live. Jack's ready for the fireworks!

Despite the recent focus on work, I did finish a book: The War of the World by Niall Ferguson. It took a while; it is over 600 pages long before the footnotes start!

Amazon describes the book thus:
Astonishing in its scope and erudition, this is the magnum opus that Niall Ferguson's numerous acclaimed works have been leading up to. In it, he grapples with perhaps the most challenging questions of modern history: Why was the twentieth century history's bloodiest by far? Why did unprecedented material progress go hand in hand with total war and genocide? His quest for new answers takes him from the walls of Nanjing to the bloody beaches of Normandy, from the economics of ethnic cleansing to the politics of imperial decline and fall. The result, as brilliantly written as it is vital, is a great historian's masterwork.

Also from Amazon, a review, from Publisher's Weekly:

Why, if life was improving so rapidly for so many people at the dawn of the 20th century, were the next hundred years full of brutal conflict? Ferguson (Colossus) has a relatively simple answer: ethnic unrest is prone to break out during periods of economic volatility—booms as well as busts. When they take place in or near areas of imperial decline or transition, the unrest is more likely to escalate into full-scale conflict. This compelling theory is applicable to the Armenian genocide in Turkey, the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda or the "ethnic cleansing" perpetrated against Bosnians, but the overwhelming majority of Ferguson's analysis is devoted to the two world wars and the fate of the Jews in Germany and eastern Europe. His richly informed analysis overturns many basic assumptions. For example, he argues that England's appeasement of Hitler in 1938 didn't lead to WWII, but was a misinformed response to a war that had started as early as 1935. But with Ferguson's claims about "the descent of the West" and the smaller wars in the latter half of the century tucked away into a comparatively brief epilogue, his thoughtful study falls short of its epic promise. (Sept. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The first chapter was a slog, but once the author's premise was established and the historical narrative began the slogging turned to pleasure. Well, "pleasure" may be a stretch since the subject matter is so unrelentingly grim. Some perspectives I found intriguing:

• The "War of the World" lasted from the turn of the 20th Century until the signing of the Korean Armistice in 1953, and what followed in its wake, the Cold War, could also be called the "Third World's War."

• World War 2 could have been averted had Britain and/or France attacked Germany preemptively in 1938 instead of embracing the policy of appeasement.

• Josef Stalin's Soviet Union was the single clear "winner" of World War 2.

There's a lot more; I learned a lot about the situations in Europe before World War 1 and in Asia before World War 2. 

See ya!

Sensuous Steel

It's been two months since my last post. Work has literally taken over my life. So having found myself in Nashville with a couple of hours to kill after closing down a trade show, I treated myself to the Sensuous Steel exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

20 vehicles from the era of Art Deco, Moderne, Streamline - and Crimson Skies - are on display, housed in a beautifully restored Art Deco style building. I found it an awesome experience. Go see it if you can. Here's a little taste of what you will see.

See ya!