Blog Views. What is Next? ACOTS and My Strange Ramblings.
With over 7000 views for this month it looks like this month is going to be the most viewed one since the blog began. Thankyou to all who have taken an interest.
I am about to go on a short camping trip for two days, to enjoy some warm weather by the river. When I return I'll be posting more pictures of my recent medieval conversions, painted,
ACOTS is nearly here and I'll be hosting it for the fourth time since we began all those years ago. I was just in my mid twenties then and found out about the founding of the group completely by a fluke. The woman I shared a house with had a friend who had a friend who was involved in the setting up of the group. That was Paul Clarke who somewhat later started his own business called Shenandoah Miniatures, specialising in metal ACW figures which Paul had sculpted. He used to wargame with Britains plastic ACW which he repainted, converted and fired projectiles at from his cannons! Sometimes a replacement resin head went flying! His cavalry had the inside of their legs trimmed so they could go flying off their horses! His zouaves were converted from Britains Detail WW2 Americans.
Anyway ACOTS was founded by Bob Bolton, Paul Clarke, Brenton Hoffman, Alan Copsey and myself and grew by leaps and bounds. We never went in for much formality but were united by our yearly Easter event and our love of 54mm, especially plastic, figures. And, of course, we had hundreds of wargames with the same. These collectors have been my longest ever, associated friends and we have suffered each others foibles for about thirty years. It is through the influence of said friends that my passion for toy soldiers received legitimacy. Many ideas for assembling armies, wargaming and converting have come from my fellow collectors and Steve Wardle's medieval creations have greatly increased my interest in all things medieval.
This years event will include the Friday swap meet, Saturday ACW wargame and Sunday medieval game. A full report and pictures will follow.
The medieval game Mat and I have been playing is going through some dramatic twists and turns as Mat's Bogavanians take my capital in he North and I am fairly confident I'll take his capital in the South. My king is leading an army against his king who is lacking the numbers in his castle. I am also going to create some neighbouring countries by random dice generation - number of hexes, what terrain etcetera is in each hex and so on. The first new country will be Fez, followed by Asgardia, the Hill Man's semi-autonomous land, and Necrolia, which is itself divided into vampire/undead, ork and Chaos lands.
I am loving the narrative creation. Fezia or fez already exists in my Funny Little Wars land which is Victorian/Edwardian so this will also be creating the medieval basis for it. Actually, I am going to take liberties and combine ancient and medieval types - ancient Persia combined with Ottoman Turks. In the world of Bogavania and Beerstein I might even introduce the odd Ancient Roman regiment!
Frank Perry, who wrote the First and Second Books of Wargaming and a couple of novels based on his games created, with his friend, a world called Caspia which I read about in an early issue of Plastic Warrior. They had lands of various cultural and technological levels that gave them an excuse to pit red Indians against British guardsmen and even tanks and helicopters against ancient Egyptians with sometimes not so predictable results. I have, some years ago had weird wargames where that sort of thing happened, although I spared the unfortunate ancient types the shock of facing tanks! The basis was either alien interference or time travel.
In any case, although I research my uniforms and weapons I like also to create my own and this is where I am thankful for Mr Perry for his inspiration.
I am about to go on a short camping trip for two days, to enjoy some warm weather by the river. When I return I'll be posting more pictures of my recent medieval conversions, painted,
ACOTS is nearly here and I'll be hosting it for the fourth time since we began all those years ago. I was just in my mid twenties then and found out about the founding of the group completely by a fluke. The woman I shared a house with had a friend who had a friend who was involved in the setting up of the group. That was Paul Clarke who somewhat later started his own business called Shenandoah Miniatures, specialising in metal ACW figures which Paul had sculpted. He used to wargame with Britains plastic ACW which he repainted, converted and fired projectiles at from his cannons! Sometimes a replacement resin head went flying! His cavalry had the inside of their legs trimmed so they could go flying off their horses! His zouaves were converted from Britains Detail WW2 Americans.
Anyway ACOTS was founded by Bob Bolton, Paul Clarke, Brenton Hoffman, Alan Copsey and myself and grew by leaps and bounds. We never went in for much formality but were united by our yearly Easter event and our love of 54mm, especially plastic, figures. And, of course, we had hundreds of wargames with the same. These collectors have been my longest ever, associated friends and we have suffered each others foibles for about thirty years. It is through the influence of said friends that my passion for toy soldiers received legitimacy. Many ideas for assembling armies, wargaming and converting have come from my fellow collectors and Steve Wardle's medieval creations have greatly increased my interest in all things medieval.
This years event will include the Friday swap meet, Saturday ACW wargame and Sunday medieval game. A full report and pictures will follow.
The medieval game Mat and I have been playing is going through some dramatic twists and turns as Mat's Bogavanians take my capital in he North and I am fairly confident I'll take his capital in the South. My king is leading an army against his king who is lacking the numbers in his castle. I am also going to create some neighbouring countries by random dice generation - number of hexes, what terrain etcetera is in each hex and so on. The first new country will be Fez, followed by Asgardia, the Hill Man's semi-autonomous land, and Necrolia, which is itself divided into vampire/undead, ork and Chaos lands.
I am loving the narrative creation. Fezia or fez already exists in my Funny Little Wars land which is Victorian/Edwardian so this will also be creating the medieval basis for it. Actually, I am going to take liberties and combine ancient and medieval types - ancient Persia combined with Ottoman Turks. In the world of Bogavania and Beerstein I might even introduce the odd Ancient Roman regiment!
Frank Perry, who wrote the First and Second Books of Wargaming and a couple of novels based on his games created, with his friend, a world called Caspia which I read about in an early issue of Plastic Warrior. They had lands of various cultural and technological levels that gave them an excuse to pit red Indians against British guardsmen and even tanks and helicopters against ancient Egyptians with sometimes not so predictable results. I have, some years ago had weird wargames where that sort of thing happened, although I spared the unfortunate ancient types the shock of facing tanks! The basis was either alien interference or time travel.
In any case, although I research my uniforms and weapons I like also to create my own and this is where I am thankful for Mr Perry for his inspiration.
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