Achtung Schweinehund - Harry Pearson

I am a child of the 70s and Early 80s. I was born in Wales but immigrated to Australia in 1978 but even though I left the UK, we still had a lot of culture similar to the UK. As such the following book was a trip down memory lane for me.

Harry Pearson is a wargamer through and through, in fact by most people's standards he would probably be classed as a fanatic if his descriptions of his collections of armies are anything to go by and some of his friends are even worse! (Or better depending on your own degree of wargaming affliction)

His descriptions of his childhood growing up with commando comics, action man and toy soldiers was very similar to my own and he views on the hobby of wargaming seem to me almost as if he had written my own biography.

If you are of a slightly later vintage than I then you may miss some of the references, otherwise this is a cracking read and should be on the bookshelf of every wargamer.

Little wars part 3

Here are the last few pictures of Little Wars.

Over the past couple of years I have become a bit nostalgic with my wargaming and I have become a fan of the so called "Old School Wargaming" trend. Reliving the golden age of wargaming when battalions were big 30+ and bounce sticks and canister templates abounded on the games table. Yes the rules sets of a Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone etc. were the thing. It is what I started playing with ( or rulesets of a similar vintage). So the following pictures were a real treat for me. It is true that 54mm toy soldiers is more typical of a game that would have been played by HG Wells rather than Grant who used 25-30mm figures but I think it still captures that "Old School" look and feel.

I am so tempted to do a 54mm army but my problem is that the periods that I am interested in doing in 54mm ( Napoleonic and Seven Years War)I am already working on in 28mm. The other issue is the figures are mainly soft plastic. When I started my wargaming I had a bad experience with Esci British Napoleonics and I swore I would never go back to soft plastic. The larger figures may be better for paint chipping but I am not really game to try. Maybe I will do just a couple of figures down the track just for fun.

These last set of pictures cover another favourite period of mine Pirates Arrrrrr!

This terrific display was run by fellow NWA club members (Spot the blue shirts!) Mark "Fly" Goldyn et al.

I love the number of scratchbuilt ships for this game.

Bye for now.

Little Wars 2014 part two

Back again :) trying to keep the momentum going for my blog.

Okay Little Wars is the big wargaming event for the year and deserves another post with lots of pictures of the different games on show. We had a great range of games on show from steampunk goodness with In Her Majesties Name and Dystopian wars, pulp Back of Beyond games, WWWII with Secrets of the Third Reich, X-Wing , Warhammer Fantasy plus plenty of historical games with Napoleonics, French and Indian Wars, World War II and Vietnam and Modern Africa.

So why am I still talking you ask? Bring on the pictures!

Dystopian Wars

In Her Majesties Name

I do like the cobblestone play mats.

The battle of Ulsan - Russo-Japanese war naval

 

Vietnam - Flames of War

Warhammer fantasy

Back of Beyond Pulp gaming

Secrets of the Third Reich

There was so much going on with this table. Plenty of action organised by fellow NWA'ers James Wright and Brendan Day.

I mean who doesn't love a spider tank?

More to come tomorrow!

Cheers

Neil