Published again!

For those who hadn't noticed, permission to blow my own trumpet a little and note that the Irregular column in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy issue 90 (available online or from any reputable magazine supplier) is by your humble servant. (On the subject of wargames clubs and herding cats - with a tip of the hat to James Morris for turning up with questions at just the right time to be sent a draft for comment!)

The Great Wargaming Survey

The guys from WSS Magazine (yes, I have finally remembered to renew my digital sub!) have put up a wargaming survey.

For 10-15 mins of your time, you get a digital coupon worth 10% off anything from their webshop (like, say, extending your sub to WSS Magazine!) as well as entry into a prize draw for a 1000 point Bolt Action army (other WW2 rulesets are available). Gotta be worth it :D

WIP - Wargames Factory WSS Artillery

Finally got cracking on my Imagi-nations cavalry and artillery for the May Bank Holiday (with the added motivation of a game with Grahame at the club on Monday).

I got started with the artillery: they're actually pretty nice, as are a lot of Wargames Factory's more recent sculpts.

Om each of the two identical gun sprues you get 4 crewmen, with a choice of half a dozen heads, plus one mounted officer, and a selection of arms of various sorts. In addition, the gun carriage comes with a choice of 8pdr or 12pdr barrels.

Assembly is pretty straightforward - standard 'multi pose' plastic 28mms, although Wargames Factory have switched to a non-keyed head/neck joint compared to their earlier figures, and they've, rather annoyingly in my book. made the figures simply glue on to their supplied bases by their feet. (Compare the WSS infantry, which have their feet stuck to the usual small manhole cover.) This is even the case for the mounted officer, which has a pose which means its horse will only have two points of contact with the base: not convinced by this.

They'd have gone together better if I'd remembered my discovery from the Parthian marathon, namely that the usual Revell/Humbrol 'yellow tube' liquid poly is NOT the best glue for WF plastics, but in fact the EMA Plastic Weld applied with a brush.

I've also started to discover that the 'yellow' liquid poly gives me a headache after about 10 mins, so unfortunately, these half dozen figures is as far as I got today.

Painting videos from WSS

I seem to have missed these when they first came out, but they are extremely inspirational and useful, even if, like me, you can't paint for toffee.

Christy Beall from WSS Magazine has been doing a series of painting tutorials using the Foundry three-colour system, as beloved by folks who are good enough not to need Army Painter :D There are some really nice ones in there - I've just watched the War of the Roses archer one, and (were they not about fourth in the queue behind stuff with Real Deadlines) I'd be painting some of my stash this evening!

The YouTube channel link is here, and just for your entertainment, here's the WotR one:

Wargames Factory WSS Artillery - final images

Remember a while back I knocked together some artillery for my imagi-nation? Wargames Factory WSS infantry, with arms, equipment and guns from a (slightly out of period) set of Victrix Napoleonic British Artillery.

I did kinda promise a picture of the finished result, so here we go:

Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy issue 58

Another magazine review, not least because I sort of promised the folks on Man At War's forum, but also because I happen to rather like the magazine.

So - Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. Rescued from the ashes of its previous English-as-a-foreign-language incarnation by the good folks at Karwansaray (try saying that after a few), who are the publishers of Ancient Warfare and Mediaeval Warfare magazines as well. They've kept going with the same title and issue numbering sequence, at least in part, I understand, to keep their distribution deals with folks like WH Smiths going. Not that I mind, since good old Smiths is where I bought it, right next to Wargames Illustrated and under the last copy of this month's Miniature Wargames, for £4.20.

Right at the start that makes it pricier than an electronic subscription to Battlegames, but having said that, I do find myself on the horns of a dilemma in that I love the convenience of reading magazines on the iPad, but I do also enjoy physical paper magazines. Still - production quality is top notch: unusually the cover is satin-finish rather than out and out glossy. Minor gripe in that the colophon on the contents page (the list of things you don't really care much about like ad rates and publisher contact details) is grey on black and almost unreadably small, but the rest of the magazine has a beautifully clean layout. The graphic designer in me (he keeps trying to get out!) wonders if the page margins are a bit wide on the article pages, but otherwise - lovely look, easy on the eye to read.

Content-wise, plenty of ads, from most of the usual suspects. Each issue has a theme, to which maybe 40% of the articles stick - this time out it's Napoleonics, with a focus on the Austrian campaigns. Several good articles, with almost universally well-composed and taken photos: the one that interested me, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the comparative reviews of various rulesets, including Napoleon At War and Warhammer Historical's Waterloo set. Good set of reviews, in which all the sets came out well. None of his complaints about Napoleon At War actually seriously affect the playability of the rules: I don't really think it's fair to criticise them for the fact that the tournament rules restrict you to 6 turn games. We're all intelligent people, and I can't remember the last time I actually stuck to (for example) WAB turn limits just because The Book Said So. Equally, while Man At War have specifically designed the rules to suit their figure sets (like Battlefront, they have a vested interest in selling them!), it's not rocket science to figure out the core concepts behind the rules (infantry move == effective musket range == infantry line frontage) and scale all measurements for standard 28mm figure basing to within pretty close tolerances. That aside though, I found it a useful comparative review.

Outside of the themed articles, we have a mix of reviews, painting guides and other articles. The ones that grabbed me were an excellent set of skirmish rules for the hospital fight at Rorke's Drift (must not buy the Warlord box set, must not....), and a set of tweaks to the Warhammer Gladiator rules, which I most definitely will be making use of. In general, I find myself wishing I had figures for a number of their little one-off scenarios, as they'd make great participation games for a club night.

There were also a couple of opinion pieces, one from Rick Priestly on IGOUGO systems, which seems to have provoked some debate, if not outrage, on the TFL list, and one from the Lardies' own Rich Clarke on what he calls 'snack pot' gaming (the next size up from skirmish). On top of that there's an interview with the Lardies about I Ain't Been Shot Mum 3.

And that rather sums up where WS&S gets it right - it's not afraid to stray away from the mainstream rule sets (oh, come on, you know the ones I mean!), and it's not afraid to get stuck into meta-discussions about the hobby. My kind of magazine, very much like Battlegames. I think my long-term plan will be to subscribe to these two, and pick up WI and MW when the contents pique my interest.