Terrain Renewal, Manna from the Internet and New Venue

May was a quiet month on the blog, but we had plenty happening in our little gaming fellowship, both on and off the wargames' table.

A fine re-fight of the Battle of Reichenberg (21st April 1757) was organised by Mark and played out between he, Julian and me.

A classical b&w photo seems apt for the fairytale, picture-postcard Bavarian terrain that Mark put together!

Here it is in living colour. I'll do a report of the game in a later post.

Terrain Renewal

Keen observers will note that, while the terrain looked marvellous, the terrain boards were looking a bit tired. It is all too stark when one removes the figures and terrain pieces.

We therefore set aside a day in late May to rejuvenate them.

Paint, PVA glue and vacuum cleaner to the fore.

The renewed boards were a pleasure to see.

Even better when laid out all together!

Manna from the Internet

Meanwhile, I had one of those wonderful serendipitous moments.

I happened to be looking at a post on Ion's Archduke Piccolo blog and saw a comment from a fellow asking if Ion would like any of his 1/72nd plastic figures that he was wanting to dispose of. As one who is always keen on second-hand figures, I tracked John from Massachusetts (as I found out he was) via the link to his Wargame Hermit blog and asked if I might get some of his figures.

A couple of emails later, John said that he'd send me a box filled with a 'job lot', for the agreed recompense—cost of postage plus a bit—which was most reasonable in the extreme.

A week or so later, this box full of goodies arrived.

Mark and I spent several joyous hours one Friday going through the contents, a mix of Napoleonic, 18th century, American Civil War, colonial wars, World War I and II, modern and assorted bric-à-brac.

I took nearly 900 mainly Napoleonic and American Civil War figures.

Mark had several hundred 18th Century, including a heap of these 'comic toy soldiers'--something that we'd only ever seen advertised in comics as kids. I remember thinking how great it would be to buy an army for US$2-odd. Ah, the days when you could not easily purchase anything from anywhere in the world...

I was able to send the World War II, modern and 15 mm plastic American Civil War to our friends at the Serpentine group in Albany.

A super 'haul'. Thanks so much again John, this time publicly!

New Venue

Back in 2016, we had a shed installed that was half carport with the second half to be set up as my wargames room. Between one thing and another, it has taken until now but it is finally set up and I'm over the moon.

I now have somewhere to store books, figures and all the other bric-à-brac that can come with our hobby. Not to mention a table to use for wargames!

I have named it the "Ralph Fisher Memorial Room" in honour/memory of the person responsible for getting me into this hobby/obsession.

I moved the old fridge (and chest freezer) into the carport so we'll have plenty of those essential wargaming refreshments easily to hand.

We held the inaugural games in the room over a recent long-weekend (2nd–4th June), playing the battles of Raszyn and Teugen-Hausen, both of which occurred on 19th April 1809, as consecutive games on the Saturday and Sunday.

With the 'opening' of the Ralph Fisher Memorial Room (aka ANF Annexe 2) we have three venues to choose from for our wargames, so there should not be much that is beyond our collective wargames megalomania! hehe :)