Thanks To All My Readers And To Plastic Warrior!

 The Internet really changed things for us hobbyists. like many of you, I can remember BI Times (Before the Internet). Whilst, in some ways, society was better off without it, it has certainly enhanced our hobby.

  Firstly, although I have hundreds of books on uniforms, I can also quickly look up an item on the Internet. I still love my Ospreys and Blandfords, but there are times when an Internet search of Google images is quicker and more exact.

   The other thing is it brings people together, faster. How many people do you know in your town who, for example, collect Timpo toy soldiers or who like to wargame with 54mm imagi-nations? Yet, go on the Internet and find Facebook groups, blogs and so on devoted to just those things.

   Of course, before that we had collecting and wargaming clubs, wargame and modelling magazines and books. Plastic Warrior magazine was one of my greatest inspirations. Now we can have conversations with hobbyists on the other side of the world. I suppose the younger hobbyists take it for granted but it still amazes me.

   Speaking of Plastic Warrior I'll give those fellows a special thanks. I have been subscribing for nearly thirty-five years. Recently I asked them to include a note about my blog. For some reason, I can't work out, my blog does not appear in searches, except in Google images. You can click on those and they will take you to my blog. or you can paste the link to your search bar, or, better yet, follow it so you will know when I post. I generally post every week and sometimes three or four times a week. I average one wargame a month, but sometimes two or three.

   Anyhow, what I have just cottoned on to, is that since PW put my notice in their letters the views of my blog increased markedly, by over a thousand extra or over a third more, 2573 last month to now 3,724. I like to share my hobby so this pleases me. I don't make money out of it; once I had ads set up, which earnt me a small amount, but I have since been unable to include that - another stuff-up on my part, probably). It is probably for the best as ads can be annoying. 

   I especially like it when people add comments and I like to hear about your own projects. We learn from each other.

   WHAT'S COMING UP?

WARGAME

Mat and I, in a few days, will be having a rematch of Chaos versus Undead. I'm going to leave the armies and set up the same just to see if the undead can do better. We will be switching sides. I am thinking of giving the necromancer, Yrral, The Lore of Light from the Warhammer magic lists. I was reading up on the spells and there are some interesting ones there. 

I think I'll put most of my Undead units into columns. Although we will use our rule that targeting a column is equivalent to targeting a large target, we did not have a lot of ranged weapons. The rank bonuses (up to 4 extra after the first two ranks) make a difference in combat. (If Mat has magic which uses templates and linear damage, that still might be a mistake!) Conversely, my spirit unit I am hoping to use to target strong units that don't have ranks or flags. The target unit, such as trolls, although normally powerful, would be unable to inflict any damage on the spirts. I thought of targeting characters except I already said that characters have magic weapons, which means they could chop up those ghosts.

I am going to make sure my skeleton archer units are well set up to deliver combined volleys and supported by the necromancer, with skeleton giant spider and giant ready to step in at the last minute to deal with attackers. I am going to keep two skeleton columns with vampire heroes close together to support each other. The Vampire lord will be with the skeleton cavalry, ready to reinforce the foot vampire led units.

Of course, if Mat reads this he will know, and possibly counter my plans!

IT'S IN THE POST

I'm waiting for some deliveries. First up, i ordered some of those old fashioned ring binder paper reinforcement rings. The local office supplier had only thin plastic ones. They rings are going to go on my Ben Ten spaceship as port holes to represent a retro spaceship like in Flash Gordon. My local supplier of hobby brushes, Spotlight, is going to stop getting them. Although handy, it was annoying how many of the brish tips were ruined by people handling them. So I am ordering a heap of the micro brushes from the Internet. I go through them fairly quickly. I usually have to replace the fine tipped ones every two or three weeks.

The other thing I have ordered is Blue Stuff and a suitable putty. I had never heard of it until recently and that from one of my readers - 'Anonymous'. So thanks for the tip! I am going to attempt to make some molds. If it works I'll be making useful spare parts and maybe complete, copies of rare figures. Before this I have only used pewter in rubber molds and never made my own molds. I mentioned, in an old post, that a boyhood friend and I once made a mold from plasticene and used melted plastic. The copy of Lone Star Africa Corps looked great on one side but was completely flat on the other because it was not a two part mold.