Take that hill!

 

I find myself bogged down in a basing fiasco so I have been looking for some diversionary activity. I came across this recently, a professional version of Phil Sabin's Take That Hill! This is available from UK Fight Club as a PnP game here. I haven't got past admiring it yet but hope to give it a whirl shortly.

Now that is what I call basing!

I got a couple of Vospers off the front cover of WI this month. They will go very nicely with some E Boats that I have saved up. However, I came across this starange little video on Twitter which demonstrates a significant step forward in basing small boats!

The picture is a still from the video, I recomend taking a look via the following link:

 https://twitter.com/n26edd3Pt24U3Hk/status/1679096947137978369?s=20

Phew, that was close!

 

A bit of recent light reading but all three books contain a phew that was close moment.

1983 by Taylor Downing covers the period leading up to the nearly fatal 1983 Able Archer exercise. Having lived through the period it was interesting to be reminded of the key events. 1983 was a close one, driven by mutual suspicion, lack of understanding and bad intelligence. Hold that thought.

Putin's Wars by the well kown Mark Galeotti takes us from Chechnya through Georgia to the current war in Ukraine. Very helpful to see the long running ideological thread through Russian foreign policy in their "near abroad". Good also on the Russian military modernisation programme. Everyone thought it was great until it went into action last year. 

The book goes up to June 2022. Western intelligence was great, Russian intelligence was poor. The Russian military has been hollowed out by corruption. The Ukrainians have done great things. A pity that the west expected Ukraine to collapse in three days, even with their intelligence assets. A major failure on the part of the Russia and Ukraine "experts".  

It is possible that our "phew that was close moment" has not yet been decided. Let's see what happens with that nuclear power station!

The last one is White Sun War by Mick Ryan. A future war story of a failed Chinese attempt to take Taiwan. An interesting, almost science fiction, forward look. Featuring autonomous unmanned ground vehicles which play a big role. Also interesting to see possible future Space Force capabilities. In the book the west wins by a nose after a significant "phew that was close moment".

All good and recommended. Sometimes I reflect on Francis Fukuyama's book about the end of history. I think we need to have a really good look round and understand that history continues and, as usual, in a very dangerous way. 

Hexes, we got hexes!

 

This is a great photo from oldSarges Wargame and Model blog. Old Sarge has done a great job creating a 3D hex grid for a 1/285 scale game of Squad leader. This is for a Pegasus bridge scenario. There are loads more pics on his blog and I recommend you take a look.

Not to be outdone (it goes without saying that Old Sarge has massively out done me!), I have got some hexes as well!

Just as an example, these are 80mm side to side. They are 2mm deep so I'm painting using undiluted acrylics which unfortunately leaves brush marks. Not a problem from three feet away but just irritating.

This will be my 3D battlescape for 2, 6 and 10mm OHW battles. Looking forward to getting this finished. Really, how long does it take to paint this stuff? The answer is far too long. I shall persevere. 

Before it goes!

 

I wandered into Tescos the other day and saw that they had moved their book stand. I checked it out and this paperback caught my eye. 

I have The White Army by Deniken and also Mr Figes' A People's Tragedy. Alas, Mr Figes must await a rainy day before I attempt it as it is a bit hefty. However, i suspect this one by Antony Beevor will be an easier read. The other thing is that, instead of £10.99 this one was £4.50 with the club card. Worth having a look as the offer ends on 18 June!

Путін іди додому

 

There you are Mr Mojo!

"Ho there Mr Mojo, where have you been?"

"Sorry boss, things were going **** up with Brexit so I shot over to Crete to paddle board with some Russians."

"Well, now you are back we can crack on, have you had any ideas?"

"Well, loads but....well we had a few beers and stuff so I'm a bit murky on where I got to."

"Good thing I'm doing your job for you then!"

First up, more progress on Stout Hearts as per picture. Nearly final map. Looking to finish this very soon. Play testing next week. The photo does show this is a floppy map, bits of A4 stuck together, but it does look nice in real life.

Inspiration

I have been very happily inspired by a number of developments in other guys wargaming lives:

Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame is getting a lot of interesting applications. This one (of many) from Mark Cordone is brilliant, from the home made map tiles and 2D buildings to the 1/72 micro armies is simply superb (here).

Useful review

I like reviews, especially ones which are useful. A simple like it or not is not helpful. However, there is a great review of my Hue game here.

The reviewer didn't like it all that much but appreciated the experience. The important thing for me is that he thought that it was a good simulation of urban warfare. That is, lots of static shooting and endless assaults. Possibly not a not a fun game for the manoeuvre enthusiast but I take that as a compliment

On the horizon

Against the Odds Magazine have a belated Annual coming out. This time, La Vendée - 1793. I find this endlessly fascinating so it is on my list (see the blurb here).

An apology

Unfortunately, some Google nutter has decided to screw up everyone's Drive links. I know this has affected some of you looking to download some of my files. Please keep trying, I'm working to make all of them available again very soon. Thank you for your interest.