It's All Greek To Me

As the current heat remains largely unabated here in large parts of the UK, pretty much all gaming related activity has come to a halt. Free time has been spent trying to keep my plants alive, to the point that watering them has become rather onerous to say the least. It is a rare thing to wish for cloud and rain here in the UK! I have also been having fun with my woodturning, but you can have too much of a good thing, and so I needed a break from this. As painting is off the table at present, I decided to try and get a game or two in.

Initially my plan was to do a sort of continuation of an AVBCW campaign that I've dabbled in on and off over the years, but for that to happen, some painting needs to be done first. But more on that later. Instead I plumped for the Greco-Italian War 1940, which I've been wanting to do for sometime, but never quite got around to it. In the past I've done the odd one off game, but the chance to do a mini-campaign never quite materialised, until now.

Naturally I needed to re-fresh my memory on the opening stages of the conflict, so picked up these two excellent books from my small library.

The Osprey gives a very good overview of the campaign, along with some useful maps, as one would expect, but it is the 'Hollow Legions' one that really gives lots of useful info for the wargamer. Having mulled over whether to go with the Littorale group along the coast and the possibility of some amphibious landings of some sort, in the end I went with the 23rd Infantry Division (Ferrara) and the 131st Armoured Division (Centauro) and their advance towards the Kalpaki crossroads. This gives me three scenarios, which is just about right for this sort of mini-campaign. This will be very much inspired by rather than a strictly historical one as, if I used the latter approach, it would be a rather dull affair I feel. Famous last words of course!

The table is set up ready for the game, but more on that in another post.

Wars of the Roses

I have managed to carry on playing some simple trial games with my wooden blocks to get more au fait with the 'Test of Resolve' rules. I've learnt a lot, which is good, which will help me as and when I get around to painting some figures at some point in the future. I did treat myself to two of the scenario books and one on standards and liveries etc, as I know sod all about the latter. Again this will be a very useful reference when I do get around to the painting of the units.

Painting

I did manage to get some base colours on a unit for my AVBCW forces in between heatwaves, but since then it really hasn't been the right temperature to try and paint at all. Also with the windows constantly open, everywhere is covered in a fine layer of dust, rather reminiscent of the Harmattan when I live in Nigeria!

What Next?

The plan is to kick off the Greco-Italian campaign later today, so hopefully an AAR will be up in the next day or so. The Waterloo game is still on for the first week in August, so I'm rather looking forward to that and meeting up with some old friends. Colours wargames show is only about 6 weeks away, which is rather scary as to me that sort of marks the end of Summer and the move away from gardening and back towards wargaming and painting. No details yet on what games are on this year, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Well with Blogger still playing silly buggers, who knows if and when this post might appear. So if it does, any comments are greatly appreciated as always!

TTFN.