M-i-L recovered from her fall, which is good. 😃 Not so helpful is the fact that a lot of our stuff, including models in various stages of completion, is still in Jakarta....😟
So, several half finished planes & modelling projects have yet to be completed.
A return to the UK has been good in several ways.
I've been able to visit the war-games club in Oxford and have enjoyed a number of games as both winner and loser. This year's Christmas game was based in Java, 1811, in honour of my return to Blighty from Indonesia - featuring Xmas hats and dice rolls modified by Xmas crackers. The game also had sealed orders, with one Dutch player following his, sallying forth from the fort with 1/4 of the troops and defecting to the Brits!
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| Looking North. The Franco-Dutch defend Fort Cornelius against the EIC |
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| A suitably festive look, as the EIC break in to the fort. Mark, 2nd left, made us pull crackers to determine several special events, such as blowing up captured bastions, etc. A lot of fun! |
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| 2mm BBB ECW. Bruce has been working on rules & figures. I recreated history and lost for the Scots against the Sassenach Cromwell. |
I went to Warfare, Reading, in November, as I discovered that I only had 1 ton of unpainted troops in the UK, so might need a few more....
I've been wargaming regularly with my friend (& worthy opponent) Mark, BBB Sikh wars, Indian Mutiny/1st war of Liberation (delete as appropriate) & French versus Spanish, 1811.
Mark's daughter Sarah is a keen WW1 planes fan, so wisely used her University holidays to help me playtest some suitable "fast & furious" rules.
I've been painting my Baccus 1809 Austrians, which has been a really enjoyable process. More of this in a later post.
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| The new workbench. I used the previous day's Oxford Mail wisely. |
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| 6 mm Baccus Austrians. Note the use of coffee stirring sticks as troop holding bases and the highly effective re-cycling of coffee cup lids as palettes. |
