Samurai at the British Museum

 I finally managed to make it to the Samurai exhibition which has been on for a while at the British Museum.  I have a bad habit of failing to remember when exhibitions are due to close and end up missing them (The recent Hiroshige exhibition at the BM was a case in point)... the other day I checked the details of this on thinking it had ages to run and discovered it closes at the beginning of May!  So I sneaked off work for the afternoon and popped along, nabbing one of the few remaining tickets. 

It's a great exhibition charting the rise and changing nature of the Samurai, from the early middle ages (in European terms) through the late 19thC decline of the Class and the opening up of Japan to the West.  The end of the exhibition looks at the impact and depiction of Samurai largely from the end of WW2 both in Japan and in other countries.  From a wargamey perspective there's a lot to see with numerous suits of armour, swords and other weapons etc.  I'm always reminded when I see 'proper' Japanese armour that the colourful variants that you often see on the table are less common and a lot of it is black or very dark shades... certainly from a distance it would be hard to make out the fine detail.

To be honest while I always enjoy looking at militaria, it was the art and more mundane objects that I really enjoyed... lots of embroidered or printed scrolls, ceramics, small items like tobacco pouches etc.  These were really interesting and well presented.  The last section on Samurai in more recent art and media was also fascinating.  

So here's a selection of photos from the exhibition.  There are also a few from the Assyrian galleries at the BM.  Although this is a period I know very little about, I'm always drawn to it whenever I visit the museum.  I've just ordered a (hopefully) accessible introduction to this period to try and educate myself 

(Google decided to upload the photos in reverse order and I can't be bothered re-doing it, so these are going from the most modern to the oldest historical periods!)

No idea... but I love it!

The ultimate samurai!

Illustrations from fighting in China

The Perry expedition arrives on Japan

Tobacco pouches

Lovely painting of a cat

Good example of kintsuge which coincidentally my wife had been doing the week before at a ceramics workshop

A rather OTT hand cannon

And the Assyrian photos...

Lovely Assyrian hunting dog

Teutoburg Wald

 This week we had a great game of Commands and Colours using Anthony's lovely 54mm Romans and Germans.  The game is one that suits adapting to different scales.  I like the blocks from the original game but it definitely looks good with figures in different scales.  Small scale bases give it that epic look, while going grand scale has a very old school feel.

This scenario is from the earlier stages of the battle and sees the Romans being attacked while hemmed in by marshland to their rear (spoiler... this is a bad thing and the Romans paid the price for it).  The Germans are deployed on and around a central hill and my first instinct was to hold this and defend the high ground, but more sensible thoughts prevailed and I decided to do what the tribesmen do best and charge straight at the enemy, preventing them throwing pila and pushing the back against the marsh.

No subtlety... CHAAARGE!!!

My first combat was pretty spectacular and set the tone for the game... wiping out a Roman unit and killing one of their leaders!  This was followed up by wiping out both the Roman cavalry units before they could advance (we kept forgetting about the Evade rule which might have spared them but to be fair they could only evade into the marsh which wouldn't have been great.  It wasn't all one-sided though.  The Romans did wipe out several German units but there were always more to replace them.

There's a big hole where the Roman centre used to be!!

Great fun and looking forward t trying the scenario based around the end of the battle at some point.

No Salute for me this year

 It's Salute this weekend which I rarely miss but this year it coincides with World Parkinson's Day and as I work for a Parkinson's charity I'm going to be very busy meeting volunteers and the public at events.  Probably just as well for my bank balance although I don't think there's anything I'd have been likely to buy!

In a plus move however I've actually picked up a paintbrush for the first time in about 9 months.  I'm an irregular painter at the beet of times and over the last year my motivation for painting disappeared (symptomatic of other black clouds I think).  Anyway, I managed to get a bit of a grip and dig out some assembled figures from the Guards of Traitors Toll set (which I bought at last year's Salute!).  Thoroughly enjoyed painting them and have started in some more figures now.

Luckily my gaming mojo didn't disappear too, so here's a couple of photos from a recent Neil Thomas game played with my friend Anthony and his lovely 20mm figures....

Hold the Line

 It's the 250th anniversary of the USA's Declaration of Independence (a semiquincentennial apparently) so it seemed a good moment to dig out a game I've had for years but have never actually played... Hold the Line which was published a few years ago by Worthington Games/PSC

Visually it looks very like Memoir 44 or Commands and Colours.  It comes with lots of plastic figures  in either red or blue.  These are very bendy and have some pretty poor sticker flags to denote units.  To be fair though it gives the game a toy soldier aesthetic which I think quite suits it.  It did occur to me that I could substitute these for some of my 28mm AWI figures.  Unlike M44 etc it doesn't use a card activation system but replaces this with Action Points (APs).  Each side has a base number... in the scenario we played the British had 3 and the bad colonials had 4.  Each turn 1-3 points are added to this and points are used to move, shoot or rally units.  I love the C&C system of cards activating units in a sector but it can be frustrating at times, eg when you only have cards for  the Left sector and want make a breakthrough on the Right.  I thought this might be an interesting way to avoid that problem, which it does, but it adds a new level of frustration at times

The overall board... the British have captured the hills above the town, but there are lots of small, annoying American units around

American Militia defend Concord (or is it Lexington?)

Rules are very simple with a simple die roll to determine casualties (no special dice here) and the AP system is very intuitive.  Scenarios determine how many VPs you'll need to win, either by destroying units or capturing objectives.  The game comes with a scenario book and we decided to start at the beginning... Lexington/Concord.  The scenarios are arranged chronologically  and I'd thought this might be a nice introductory scenario but it's actually a tough game for the British.  They need to push through to the other side of the board and/or capture the 2 towns.  They have some reinforcements which turn up halfway through but in reality they had so few APs that they struggled to get these moving.

One nice touch is the varying size of units so , as the US player, I had lots of units but many of these were only 2 figures strong representing militia, rather than the standard 4 strong.  If hand to hand combat occurs, the charged unit has to test to see if it retreats after the fight, even if it goes on to win which was a little odd but does mean the smaller units are likely to be driven off at the bayonet.  We used an optional rule which is that units also have to test to initiate a charge (and spend the APs even if they fail) which I think feels right for this period and again, especially for militia.

The game was very tough for the British who did manage to get half way across the board, occupy Lexington and kill a number of US units, but were nowhere near completing their objective.  The lack of APs (made worse by some unlucky dice rolls) meant they really struggled to get going.  On the other hand I had points to spare... as a defender it's a lot easier to just keep falling back in front of the attackers and take the odd pot shot (and I had some very lucky dice rolls here!)  The game was interesting and a good alternative to C&C.  I did feel it was lacking something though.  Apart from the variability in the number of APs there is little else in terms of friction and perhaps some 'tactics' cards to allow things like bonus moves, charges, random events etc would make it a more interesting game.  As it was I'd defintely play it again but I'd still default to C&C as my 'go to' system

Gazing into the abyss...

 

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you"

This is possibly the most navel-gazing post I've ever made!!!

I was intrigued by a post on the excellent Prometheus in Aspic blog in which the author quoted a summary of their blog given in response to a question to AI.  As AI increasingly features in our daily lives it was interesting to see how it summarised and interpreted a bloggers regular posts and the 'feel' of the blog.

So of course, thanks to unbridled vanity, I couldn't resist asking Gemini (other AI overlords are available... this is the one I use most, mainly at work), tell me about the blog 'A Wargaming Gallimaufry'...

Apparently the blog is "an active and cozy corner of the "Old School" blogging scene."  I'm defintely old-school and I quite like the cosiness!  And it has "a personal, conversational tone that feels like chatting with a friend at a local gaming club".  It picks up on the mix of posts... game reports, reviews of shows and books (although I haven't done a 'what I'm reading' post for ages so I might get round to that), and increasing reports on boardgames (true... I seem to playing a lot more of these).

The blog "serves as a digital diary of a lifelong hobbyist, documenting the evolution of projects over years rather than weeks" which I think means this is a man who paints incredibly slowly and never gets a project completed!!

It finishes with "Fun Fact: Alastair once got temporarily banned from a major wargaming forum for calling someone "a bit of a dick" during a heated argument—an incident he shared on the blog with a self-deprecating "ho hum."  I've no idea where this features in the blog or why Gemini decided this was a fun fact but I stand by every word... the person in question was indeed a bit of a dick!!

So a not inaccurate take on the blog I think... now I just to ask Gemini to sort the rest of my life out!!

I have been to... Cavalier 2026

 I only made it 1 show last year...Salute, almost a year ago.  I usually get along to Colours and Warfare later in the year but these clashed with work or family things and, to be honest, I wasn't really fussed about going along.  This year I feel a bit more like getting back out in the wider wargamey world but then realised that Salute this year will clash with a big day at work so that's out of the question.

One of the shows I always enjoyed going to is Cavalier in Tonbridge, Kent.  Checking the blog it turns out it's been a shocking 9 years since I was last at the show. It's a fairly modest, quite traditional show and must be one of the earliest in the year.  So on Sunday it was off round a remarkably quiet M25 and, after a bit of negotiating some road closures, into the Angel Centre.

Like I said, Cavalier is a pretty traditional shoe but has its own charm.  Nearly all the games were historical (with a couple of exceptions) and the traders, apart from Warlord Games and a couple of others, seemed to be more smaller companies.

The games were pretty good... a good mix of demo and participation games.  My usual gripe about organisers of games concentrating more on the game than interacting still stands in a couple of cases but most were pretty good at engaging the punters.  I bumped into a couple of people I knew... one from my old Guildford club, and it was nice to catch up with Ray of Don't Throw a 1 fame.  I bought precisely... nothing.  

I spent a while browsing but there wasn't anything that caught my eye and I stuck to my resolve (mentioned in my last post) of not hoovering up yet more rules that I don't need.  ( my name is Alastair and it has been 3 weeks since my last rules purchase....)

So here are a small selection of photies... sometimes I've even made a note of the subject and club, apologies if I didn't.  I also missed a few games

Malplaquet 1709 - Hailsham Wargames Club

The Labyrinths of Mars - Maidstone Wargames Club

Polish Blitzkrieg - Deal Wargames Club

The Mogaisciou 1993 - Milton Hundred Wargames Club

Launch all Fighters - Friday Night Firefight Club

Kent & Sussex D&D and RPG Club

Port Arthur or bust!  Tonbridge Wargames Club

Team Yankee Game - Gravesend Gamers Guild

The Englishman's Castle  -Shepway Wargamers