Aaaaargh!

Its the year end again.....

A quiet time on the blog during February but only because I have been hard at work elsewhere. The year end is a time of special torture for me, and many others. I hope to resurface sometime in late April.

Developments

When I have had a few minutes I have been hard at work on my special project. This is a Firestorm type game on the battle for Ramadi in Iraq over this last Christmas. Pretty much a real time bit of design work. I'm really happy with the way it is shaping up but, as I'm taking a really novel approach, I'm having to do a lot of thinking (don't laugh!).

I was slightly disappointed to find that my local print shop no longer opens on a Saturday so I was unable to print out a play test map in A3. It now looks like this......

I have promised myself that I will plough on with this until it is finished. It will be a worthwhile job and it has meant that I have learnt much about what is going on in the world. That can't be a bad thing.

I am picking up disturbances in the force which indicate a reviving interest in WW1. This therefore means that I am feeling a need to push on with:

• Tannenberg
• A simple strategic game of the first month of WW1
• The whole of the western front in August and September on a 13 by 9 hex grid

One of the motivating factors being Ring of Steel by Alexander Watson, WW1 from the Central Powers' perspective, which is currently occupying my train journeys.

News

We have some very nice news....

• Tricorne: Compass Games now have Tricorne up for pre-order. This is the latest Richard Borg CnC game which this time looks at the AWI. It has 12 scenarios which can no doubt be expanded. It uses blocks rather than miniatures, although I'm not bothered about this. The only thing that does bother me is the e on the end of what I would spell tricorn. Hey ho.

• Billy Bones Studio: This guy makes paper soldiers. He had some great sets for the ECW including Scots troops and scenery, see the example above. His website is now being reconstructed and, I understand, his sets of paper soldiers will be made available free as he is moving on to other paper soldier projects. Good news as I and others had been concerned that he had just shut up shop.

• Battle for Arnhem: One of my favourite subjects. This is a very small pnp game by Jim Bourke which is available free on BGG. Check it out, its nice!

• Zvezda I-16: I have been wanting one of these for ages. Now here it is. I wonder what I could this for.....