A couple of noticeable events caught my eye.
Back in the 1990’s my wargaming interest was limited to occasionally buying a magazine plus perusing (not buying) 15mm figures in a real model soldier shop. That was it plus I read military history books – a lot.
Then I went to the York wargames show – I can’t remember whether it was the de grey rooms or the merchant adventurers hall where I started to reconnect with the wider hobby but I do remember one show in the merchant adventurers hall where gripping beast were displaying their wares. I remember them being big on dark ages and I reckon they still strongly represented that ancient/medieval bias which is maybe why they picked up front rank miniatures to balance the offering? Yet it was the howling and hilarity I heard from people crowded round small gaming tables that I remember most. They were playing DBA – what appeared at the time to be a brutal, fast and undignified game. Crucially people were having fun. Eventually I bought the book, figures and had fun too.
I am sure many people had equally as much fun with gripping beast over the years while I took the 15mm route instead of the 28mm route.
Its always sad to see a company decide the end of the road is nigh although it is quite possible someone else will run with the gripping beast business into the future.
The same can’t be said for TGJones who are the high street remnants of WHSmith, once a household name in mainstream retail before the internet, mobiles and white vans became de rigeur.
Actually two city based smaller sub post offices will be promoted instead, however, there is no replacement for TGJones and their magazine hub which is definitely an overdue sign of the times. In fact it’s a wonder stores like these have managed to survive the enduring online sunami for so long.
As I mentioned in my last fragment I had deliberately bought magazines on the hoof allowing me to select any or none from miniature wargames, wargames, soldiers and strategy or wargames illustrated.
So this was probably my last visit – miniature wargames won out on this occasion simply for variety of content!
Although my book buying has petered out in terms of charity shops or secondhand online wants, the occasional new publication catches my eye – in this case it’s later Romans with Osprey kindly issuing their eastern complimentary edition of 4/5th century provincial units book. I already have the western units book. Raffaele D’Amato brings new material to a popular story. I already had the late Roman infantry and cavalry books by Osprey not to mention the early Byzantine book too. Yet the books are additive in my view based on the western version. A quick flick through suggests I will not be disappointed by the eastern edition.
It remains to be seen if this translates into more painted figures….
In my last post about the film de Gaulle (which I very much enjoyed) I omitted mentioning Rick Atkinson’s book – An Army at Dawn, being his take on the US Army’s first western theatre operations especially amphibious landings. I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson – he gives sufficient colour to the preparations for operation torch – and I went onto enjoy the second part of the story in the Italian peninsula. Again, I can’t emphasise enough how much I have benefited from reading around this (operation torch) often neglected part of the world war two history.
