Books, Buildings & Bases

A bit of a pot pourri post, covering a mix of things that has been going in the background, so without further ado.

Books

Having got a bit more storage in the games room, whilst shifting piles of books that had lain the floor, I realised I was starting to run out of new titles to read. Whilst I still have a few left, I knew I wanted to add to the mix so that I had a bit more variety of reading material to hand.

I know Max Hastings is not to everyones taste, but I read this book whilst on holiday and found it a great primer for a more detailed book by Stephen Fisher, that I will read at a later date. As with all of Hastings books, I found it an easy read, but one full of useful snippets for the wargamer, many of them revolving around C&C, which I personally really enjoy in my games. 

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as I'd not read anything by Al Murray before, but boy did this turn out to be a brilliant read. By concentrating on one 24 hour period in Arnhem, he really brings to life the sheer chaos that ensued during the battle and frankly how poor the allied planning was. As with Hasting's book above, full of really useful detail and information that I will certainly refer back to for when I finally get around to gaming this seminal campaign and action.

Whilst browsing for new reading material and ideas for games, I came across this book which looks to be a really good read. It is certainly a conflict that I, and suspect most other gamers, know very little about. Having another outlet for my Japanese forces is a bonus and I ordered some buildings from Pendraken that will, to my eyes at least, pass muster for use in China, but also Burma too. I'm certainly looking forward to reading this in due course.

Another War I only have passing knowledge of, but I thought it would be great to get more au fait with it, given my interest in the 18thC and the SYW in particular. I've just started reading it and am enjoying it so far. Some reviews found the language to be a bit stilted and academic, but not the case for me.

Buildings

I've gone a scale down for all of my games for more years than I can remember, with my first port of call being Battlescale and the Leven Miniatures range that Steve, brought on board a year or so ago. I have a mix of both, so tend to try and match with my existing buildings as much as possible.

An Italian church (Leven Miniatures) that is really nice and certainly impressive size wise compared to the other buildings I have, Primarily I wanted it to be the dominating point on the planned Italian hill town i would like to make and it certainly fits the bill as far as this is concerned.

Frischermont Chateau (Leven Miniatures) will form quite a few functions within my games, namely as a chateau for WWII, as a monastery for any period and finally as an impressive walled farm, inpired by those imposing ones I've seen in Austria. I'm not sure how i'm going to base this, but might leave it as seen, soe that I can play with the payout depending upon the period being played and what I want it to represent.

Whilst I have a windmill already, I wanted one that look more in keeping with my Italian buildings and terrain. This one is by Battlescale.

Bases

With the cooler weather and after my recent Belgium 1940 game, I was spurred on to paint some bases that have lain in the queue far too long, sadly a common theme with me!

British 2 pdr ATGs and a Bofors AA gun.

A German Flakvierling and an 88.

A German Pak 38 and Pak 40.

Italian 65mm infantry Guns.

It was nice not only to spend time painting, but also to finally get some of these much needed items finished and ready for the games table. Still more to do, but I'm not far off finishing the core British and German WWII Infantry forces, so that will be my focus hopefully in the coming weeks and months ahead.

Fingers crossed I can get the table set up for the final Greco-Italian War 1940 campaign game in the next few days, but no rush to do this as I know I wont get chance to play the game probalby until the weekend.

As always, thanks for reading and any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.