Along the coast from Bangor City is Conwy. Apart from its famous estuary and castle the town boasts a compact old centre of shops including a bookshop.https://www.hintonsofconwy.co.uk/
Apart from the bookshop, good variety of eateries and some nice food shops, the town centre retains some fine buildings.
Slightly off track Bangor in Snowdonia or rather Eryri National Park as it is now called is not an obvious destination when you have the mountains, seashore and a host of attractive towns and villages – usually accompanied by a castle – to pick from.
On this occasion this High Street trip included an island hop and a pier!
Bangor does have a church – a cathedral in fact, a pier and as it happens a very useful military and transport history bookshop. https://www.facebook.com/people/Pete-The-Hat-Militaria-Antiques-and-Collectables/100063839724031/?sk=photos
The 6th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Caernarvonshire & Angelesey) were originally a volunteer rifle corps raised in 1859 at a time of concern about Britain being invaded. The more I visit the UK coast the more this issue of possible invasion around 1860 pops up.
The Tomb of Owain the Great is also to be found in the Cathedral
I chanced upon a militaria shop in a very tidy 1970’s shopping mall, a stones throw from the Cathedral. It was full to the brim and also had a decent range of secondhand books. The owner gave me a good price for the items I bought and was very welcoming.
Some High Street visits take you unexpected places!
GEMBA or “go see” should be the rule for the High Street.
Yes its Chester and another great find in a real model shop.
Rarely do you find metal figures on the high street. I got lucky!
I am kicking off a series of posts about some successful high street purchases.
As a wargamer, my gaming inclination is always drawn to playing cards. These were a nice set I snapped up in Bangor. But thats another High Street story.
Narrative
Colonel Ansaldi was fretting – having gained so much from the raid on Austrian storehouses he was worried that none of his scouts had been able to stay in touch with the Imperial troops known to be in the area. What he would give for a decent squadron of guides…….
Meanwhile not far away Colonel Albrecht considered the recent reports, nearby Austrian Hussars were watering their mounts. They had ridden hard to report finding the raiders. Now we shall obtain some satisfaction from those Sardinians thought the Colonel……..
Colonel Ansaldi cursed as the nearby hill was clearly occupied by troops – and they were not friendly – Austrians! To arms, to arms, went up the shout.
The Sardinian force consisted of 3 infantry units and 1 skirmisher unit. The Skirmisher unit headed for the Austrians on the hill
Already a brisk firefight had broken out between the two sides.
There was no time time to lose and anyway there was only one direction the Sardinians could take and that was straight past those Austrians on the hill.
Despite orders there was hesitancy on the part of the Sardinians who still traded fire with the lone Austrian unit. Now other forces appeared – infantry and cavalry!
Panic breaks out in the Sardinian ranks. I used the solo rules chance table which offered confusion, ammunition shortages, demoralisation, initiative, rallying and enemy panic.
The Sardinians continue to push on with their escape.
The Austrians continue to press with a further charge by the Austrian cavalry despite them being demoralised.
The Sardinian firing slackens off – Colonel Ansaldi sends a runner to find out what is going on. (chance intervenes)
But finally the Austrian cavalry also retreat as things are just too hot. Meanwhile the Austrian fire is good and effective and they continue to press the Sardinians.
Now on the point of victory the Austrians seem confused. Yet with a final effort they corner the Sardinians.
Colonel Albrecht curses his cavalry – they are blown and clearly fit for nothing as some of the Sardinians are still making good their escape. He calls for some scouts.
Later Colonel Ansaldi manages to regroup his shattered forces and with poor pursuit from the Austrians is able to restart his march back to Sardinian lines by a new route. Later many more of his dispersed men come in.
The solo rules regarding random confusion, demoralisation, panic and ammunition shortage added that “unknown/unexpected” element to the game that a real opponent usually brings. The interventions were not gigantic but did chip away at each forces potential.
Early on the Sardinians were stalled, then gained initiative before the Austrians finally gained lots of initiative to enable them to hem in the Sardinians even with a hesitation at the end.
Next up the Sardinians, having continued their march, encounter more Austrian forces intent on preventing their escape.
Ok so it was just two days – well it was that hot for two days. My optimum operating temperature is 22.333333333 degrees centigrade – either side by a degree and I am too cold or too hot, so 40 degrees was simply too much for this soul. Even the light was dazzling – queue troglodyte behaviour.
Neil Thomas’s one hour wargames ruleset is probably the ultimate “pick up” game for historical miniatures gaming, six units a side on a game area of 3×3 feet or 90cm square.
So I reached for the book and then remembered it not only has 30 scenarios and 9 period rulesets but also campaign and solo gaming suggestions.
I opted for Horse and Musket plus a best of 5 battles campaign – Blue versus Red. I was playing solo as well.
I randomly chose the 5 scenarios getting 6,9,13,24 and 25. Now Neil Thomas suggests for narrative purposes ordering the games. And you could include some consequences game to game but I did not go for that extra step.
Looking at the scenario types I opted for the following and the narrative fell into place. Local Blue forces go on a raid while Red forces try to find and destroy the raiders. The finale sees their activities ended as they are both ordered to support their main army forces…….
That was easy. For this set of battles the Blue forces were Sardinianish
while the Red were Austrianish.
The figures were mid nineteenth century with smoothbore artillery and inaccurate musketry still to the fore. The cavalry still strutted about with the confident self importance of being the premier arm.
I used the scenario scenery layouts as per the book with a few slight adjustments for my table and the items to hand.
I will cover the various specific rules as each scenario occurs.
I used the random deployment from the “solo wargaming” chapter. The campaign is basically straight out of that chapter, and it generated my scenario list, except I took a chance and drew from all 30 available scenarios each time rather than segment the list as suggested by Neil Thomas.
I also used the chance rule as per the chapter on campaigns.
In the next post I will cover Scenario 25 – Infiltration.
I picked up some interesting secondhand books at https://shop.keoghsbooks.com/
Keoghs opened their new shop in Skipton in 2022. It’s nicely laid out with a welcoming approach.
They have high quality selected stock.
My picks were three books, one on early steam warships another on early steam railways and the third about a head to head between Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
I made it to the Other Partizan, so thats three trips to Newark in 2022 (hammerhead, partizan and the other partizan). I missed Fiasco in Leeds last week owing to calendar congestion – real life intervened. Fiasco has been one of my most regular show trips.
Hopefully I will make it to Recon at Pudsey in December.
I find all these shows different and maybe most people give Recon only a nod. It is a really great show – ok so the foot fall will be a lot less – but remember quantity does not always equate to quality.
Recon not only has good carparking on site, its also just 5 minutes from the national rail network – strikes permitting. It has all the facilities you need under one roof with more eateries nearby in town. The show itself is well laid out and has a variety of traders and gamers and a well run bring and buy.
I found another gamer had reported their visit to Fiasco, The Balkan Wargamer. I follow them as they often write interesting book reviews with a good mix of posts about figures and gaming. Well balanced and thought out.
Mixed views and yes the current location is not naturally lit. Mind you I was sunshine dazzled at Partizan.
You win some you lose some!
I plan to return next year.
As a kind of subsitute for missing Fiasco I indulged the High Street buying two wargame magazines in one go! Talk about pushing the boat out – you don’t get change from a tenner anymore.
I reckon magazine prices track a different cost inflation curve to wargames figures anyway and probably always have.
Three national magazines were sold at the WHSmith store – where I bought mine. I took Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (WSS) plus Wargames Illustrated (WI). Miniature Wargames (MW) was the third option.
I tend to buy WSS and occasionally buy certain themed WI. I rarely buy MW now, I enjoyed Battlegames so did follow it into MW. Even when most of that DNA was gone I found their Table Top Gaming angles of interest. Ultimately MW does not offer me more than either WSS or WI. So thats that I guess.
You win some you lose some!
Like the Times Illustrated* WI is the king of the image. And I do think if you value the printed word alongside relevant images then WSS is the best of the bunch. Of course they are all up against the behemoth of “online” so have to push large amounts of advertising. Anyone who can reflect on Wargames history knows that magazines were always loaded with adverts – it was and is a frail business model and buyers want that info anyway – even today when all that info is available free, in tons of gigabits. That data mountain is a problem and just maybe one reason why magazines still offer value as a “data consolidator”.
What did I get for my money?
WSS offered up a Dark Age Britain and Arthur theme and profiled the second edition of Dan Mersey’s Lion Rampant. Plus you get a lot of regular features including quite a few opinion pieces.
I thought it might restart some interest in previous adventures (Dux Brittaniarum, Shieldwalls) – I am not sure though.
WI majored on Twisted History which is apparently the new name for fictious historical wargaming or imaginations wargaming even. To cover every genre and time period, perhaps Twisted History might catch on as it has no baggage or rather has not already been claimed.
I quite like the idea of a generic term for taking history and twisting it. – except that is what historians do any way, don’t they? ok many are trying to untwist twisted history. Crikey I am confused now.
One reference point is Richard III (recently even the subject of a film without a single battle scene). Despite the discovery of his body and the dismissal of many myths created by the Tudors (history goes to the victors of course) you can still consume lots of now baseless Tudor tradition.
Ever Twisting Twisted History………maybe it will catch on.
And into the bargain of not attending a show I did some kit bashing and figure mods. These tell you that 19th century gaming is still on my mind.
*The Post title image is from a Times Illustrated large format publication about the British Royal Family. WI is simply continuing a great tradition of image!
Here is another .
The Wargaming Erratic 