2013, Onwards and Upwards!

The gallant Premierlieutnant Istvan Nagy.

It's hard to believe it's been so long since my last posting. Since then, I've had a month long practicum teaching French at a local high school, which was quite an experience. That led into the silly season, when besides a rather impressive haul of Christmas and Birthday presents, I also got a dose of shingles which knocked me out for a few weeks. Add in some planning for a wedding which is VERY rapidly approaching, and the year simply flew past. It feels like I had blinked and then it was 2013! 

Sidney Roundwood, the man behind the superb Roundwood's World blog, recently posted a post which was a round up of 2012, which has prompted me (albeit belatedly) to do the same. 

On the whole, 2012 was a rather spectacular year for me. From January to July Laura and I were on our exchange to the University of Leeds. I had the opportunity to take some fascinating classes,  and managed to come through with a couple of 'firsts' (as fr as i can gather the equivalent of a High Distinction). I travelled down to Triples at Sheffield, where I met up with people i'd chatted to via email and forums but had not met in person. I even managed to get in a game of Dux Britanniarum run by Rich Clarke and Sid Roundwood. Besides visiting the excellent Royal Armouries at Leeds, I headed down to the RAF Muesum in the North of London, where wandering around the Spitfires, Hurricane, Messerschmitts and a plethora of other aircraft I felt like a kid again.

While travelling around Europe, I visited museums, castles and historical sites in Budapest, Andalucia, Tuscany, Stockholm, Berlin and Paris.

The consummate professional, Major Driant

I returned home inspired to get gaming and to crack on with some projects. I got back into gaming with the lads at the local gaming club, and my 20mm WW2 British army has now seen a lot of action. I also began digging out my 28mm Napoleonic figures and organising them into a force for Sharp Practice. Alongside this, I was pottering along with the commission work. 

University for the second half of the year seemed to swallow almost all of my time. I particularly struggled with French, as i'd missed a semester of a sequential course while I was in Leeds, so was forced to play catch-up. I ended up scraping through that course with a pass, which thankfully was balanced out by the HDs I got in the other subjects. 

Then prac, christmas, shingles and here we are. 

As I see it, 2012 has been a very successful year for gaming, but an absolute failure for this blog (three posts in 12 months!!) and for painting (it's not even worth mentioning the pitiful number of figures i've completed). However, I managed to get in more gaming than I have previously, met a bunch of people in the UK, visited a plethora of historical sights, museums etc, and even managed to get in a few games of Sharp Practice with the guys at the club. 

So, some New Years resolutions seem to be in order. 

1. More blog posts! I'm hoping to get at least two per month. These will track the process of projects i'm working on, as well as giving some AARs from solo and club games. Who knows, i might even throw in some book reviews and finally get around to posting some updates about the museums and sites i visited in Europe.

2. Paint more figures. I've set myself a few projects for this year, and want to limit myself to these as much as practicable. More on what these projects are next update. 

3. Keep up with the gaming. I've really enjoyed actually getting some gaming in, and am determined to keep on with this. 

So, pretty simple right? Lets see if I can stick to it!

And just because I want to keep this update pretty, and inspired by Alte Fritz (of Der Alte Fritz Blog i've included some pictures of my Sharp Practice troops on a New Years Parade.

Chat Soon!
Ben

The Kaiserliks on parade.  My gradually growing K.u.K Austrian force has now seen some action.

And the forces of l'Empreur. As with the Austrians, i've plans to expand these forces considerably.

The leading cast, Austrian Big Men.

And Les Grandes Hommes, the Emperor's finest. 

The elite companies of the first battalion, 3e Regiment de Ligne. 

Battle for the Farm - Sharp Practice AAR

First off, an apology for the paucity of blog updates in the last few months, but between travelling and then getting back into the swing of uni back in Australia, it's been difficult to find the time. What time i have had has been devoted to terrain making (trees, terrain boards, buildings, fields and more trees seen in the below pictures) and painting and basing up the remainder of my French and Austrian Napoleonic figures.

So, to get the ball rolling again, here is a quick after action report for a solo game I recently played of the Toofatlardies set Sharp Practice. I've now got enough figures painted up for a decent game, and so have been playing through the rules a few times before introducing them at the local club. Even solo, the rules are great fun and play through quickly as well. The ability to generate random personalities for the Big Men who control the action infuses the game with elements of role play, which adds a lot to the fun and flavour.

Triples 2012

First off, thanks for the feedback on the museums blog, the post on the Swedish army museum will be coming up in the next few days.

But first, a brief intermission. This Saturday just gone, I caught the early coach from Leeds down to the Sheffield, the city of steel, for the Triples war-games show, hosted by the Sheffield Wargames Club. This is the first games show i've managed to get to, and I must say it was a great day out. After a quick and easy trip on the Sheffield Supertram, I wandered down to the English Institute of Sport. The entry to the exhibition hall was flanked by two groups of reenactors, some Napoleonic fusiliers of the 21e Regiment de Ligne, and a couple of Great War Tommies from the 18th battalion, Durham Light Infantry. I had a chat to both groups, and they were all really friendly and knowledgeable guys. I grabbed my ticket and squeezed past the daleks which were making the rounds, and ventured into the hall. The exhibition space was great, well lit and, to me at least, huge (Rich from Toofatlardies later told me that Salute is around 8 times as large. My antipodean mind boggles.)

Still Kickin' - and Museums!

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything on this blog, what little time I've had between travelling, uni and day to day life has been spent updating my trade bog, benlauraeurope.blogspot.com. Well, as of last friday, the university semester has wrapped up here at Leeds, and I've just got a couple exams and then its time to wave bye bye to blighty.

The whole exchange has been a mix of amazing and challenging. The subjects I'd chosen turned out to be for the most part fascinating. The course studying European Great Power politics and diplomacy from 1871 to August 1914 with Prof. Holger Afflerbach was really interesting, and it was great to delve into the Bismarckian era and the years leading up to the Great War. I think the title of the module, 'Doomed to Failure?' sums up the approach of the course. Additionally to filling in some gaps in my understanding of European History, I was able to focus upon my proposed area of specialisation - namely the French Third Republic. I completed a paper on the Boulanger Crisis, which is a fascinating period of French history - Prof. Afflerbach went so far as to refer to General Boulanger as the Hitler who never was. It is interesting to imagine how European history would look if there had been a Weimar republic official as willing and able to suppress the Nazi party in the 1930s as French Minister of the Interior Emile Combes was the Boulangists.

Happy New Year, and some more Brit Armour

Happy new year everyone, and thanks for all your support over the years. I'm really astonished that i've got so many followers and page views, so thanks, and i wish you all the best for 2012.

First off, I'm now officially half way through my degree. Finished off my last monster 12000 word paper on the French in Algeria from 1840-1870 the week before christmas, and thanks to my professor Philip Dwyer for being very understanding and flexible with due dates. Still waiting on results though, as he is off in Paris until March trying to finish the second volume to his Napoleon bio (please forgive this bit of a plug: anyone who hasn't read Napoleon: The Path to Power 1769-99, I highly recommend it - and not just because Philip is marking my paper :). It's nice to have a recent, thoroughly researched and unbiased bio on such a polarising character).

Normandy British - Armour and Support

Well, as promised here is an update on my 20mm Normandy British. I've been building this up for the last year, using the Guild forum's project build to track my progress. I must say I'm very surprised to say that i have a fully gameable British force, which has been seeing a fair bit of action at the local gaming club. We've been playing with some homebrew fastplay rules, but I'm looking forward to picking up a copy of Rich Clark's latest, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, version 3 while over in the UK.

My force will be based around an infantry platoon - perhaps eventually expanding to a company - from the 6th King's Own Scots Border Regiment, part of the 15th Scottish Division which held off the 9th and 10th SS Panzer divisions in its combat debut during Operation Epsom and then went on to fight in Bluecoat and through to the end of the war in Europe.

Busy, busy, busy, busy. And finally some Late Romans.

I believe my apologies are in order, as yet again it's been a while between posts. Things have been very busy indeed!

First off - i've applied a new format to the blog! Let me know if there are any problems with legibility etc, but I feel it looks a lot better. The background image is one I took back in 2008 looking west along Nan White sector of Juno Beach from St Aubin-sur-Mer, the site of Wiederstandnest 28.

Five full time subjects this semester, including the self-directed study, was very nearly almost too much to take on. I've now completed four of the subjects, and am 2000ish words into my 8000 word mini-thesis on the French colonisation of North Africa for my self directed study.