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Today I collected & refurbished a 15 drawer Bisley cabinet. I have four already. They house my 15 mm wargames figures.
The 10 & 15 drawer cabinets are ideal for everything except certain pike models and elephants hence the six-drawer cabinet on the left. They are very space efficient.
They currently hold a collection that has taken decades to acquire and I still have three empty drawers and one just started. I am not going to need another for years. Which is precisely why I bought another!
Whilst checking my Bluesky feed I noticed someone posting links to, and images from, their blog. Not new posts, but posts from years ago. It struck me this was good use of a blog archive. However, I didn't want to do this manually: even daily posts would soon pall.
In January I removed over one hundred low‑value posts, improved the underlying HTML code, and brought the layout of all the remaining posts up to my current standard. Today there are 464 posts on this blog, which is more than enough for a lengthy series of recycled posts. I just needed a suitable script I could automate.
Thanks to the perplexity.ai, I now have working python scripts, for both bluesky and the fediverse, that produce posts like this:
Read on if you are running Linux (Xubuntu 24.04) and you'd like to try them (at your own risk of course).
I've replaced my decades old piece of hardboard with a new A2 cutting mat because, no matter what I did, I couldn't stop the hardboard sliding on the glass top of my desk.
I hoped the mat would be non-slip, but it isn't. I ended up using two strips of double-sided sticky tape underneath the mat; so problem solved!
The mat was £10.00 from The Works (UK), but be prepared to ask if they have any in stock. They are too big to be displayed with their regular items. Mine was tucked away at the back of the shop in a dusty corner. Even the staff weren't really sure if they had any. They are available online.
The genesis of this batch of figures began with a slip of the keyboard. I spotted 52 Essex early medieval riders (no horses) on eBay. At just over £10.00 delivered I couldn't resist.
There were 12 Crusade era figures amongst the job lot of Byzantine figures. Specifically, a couple of Syrians (CRU39a) and ten Georgians (CRU28). Perfect for four units of heavy cavalry for my allied Ilkhanid Mongol army. I've painted these figures twice before: in 2000 and in 2011.
In 2024 I took a Late Macedonian army to the King in the North competition. I had originally planned to use borrowed figures, but was lucky enough to finish painting everything I needed in time for the October event. I wanted to begin with a fairly plain, almost “vanilla”, Hellenistic army that I could adapt afterwards into other, more exotic forces.
As it turned out, the Late Macedonian army was perhaps a little too plain. It’s very solid, but it lacks a certain something in competitions. There aren’t quite enough units with real striking power, and I found myself relying too heavily on a small number of pike units to both hold the line and breakthrough.
After several competitions, I began browsing through the Art de la Guerre (ADLG) army lists to see what other options I might have. I briefly considered a Seleucid army, but eventually settled on a Pyrrhic army. That choice meant I needed to paint a few extra units: elephants, some hoplites, and of course some different cavalry.
These new cavalry units caused me the most "trouble".
After many years posting at least once a month, it's been six weeks since my last post. That's a long gap for me. It was brought about by quite a few factors. Some, like the Christmas & New Year holidays, were expected, but others were not (DIY for example).
Back in mid-November, I mentioned I was taking a break from ADLG for at least a year. The plan was to start fresh in 2026. That gave me about six weeks to wrap up all the ADLG posts I’d been planning (plus one that wasn’t). I managed to get the final post done just after Christmas. Since then, I’ve been keeping busy, but mostly behind the scenes.
With the weather grey and overcast, painting was out of the question - one of the drawbacks of relying solely on natural light. Looking for a way to fill the dark days, I turned to a bit of archiving. That small task soon led to some weeding, which in turn became a full-blown project lasting several weeks.
What follows is an account of that venture - a post about blogging and technology. You have been warned!
This carries on from the previous post with a much more detailed analysis of the data from the BHGS and ADLG rankings.
It is a more structured analysis using database techniques to correct the data (where possible) and tackle the quirks of the two data sets.
It aims to quantify the number of regular players, those attending infrequently, those who stop playing and also how many players haven't played since Covid.
This is the last of my planned posts on ADLG. It's a postscript to my November post in which I announced that I was taking a break from ADLG for at least a year and follows on from my post about the BHGS ADLG rankings.
Now that I've stopped playing ADLG I thought I'd write a "manifesto" of things that I would like to see changed in any future version. Please note I have no idea if a new version is planned and don't want to start any rumours.
ADLG has reached the stage where it can be considered a mature set of tournament rules, but the pool of UK tournament players hasn't changed markedly since 2018.1 So, I would like to see changes focused on reducing the barrier(s) to adoption and tournament play.
From a strictly UK perspective, text clarity and improved online support would help both casual players and the large number of occasional tournament players.2
I don't think the small group of frequent tournament players are clamouring for change. They are more than likely confident in their understanding of ADLG's finer points (or they should be).3
However, a new version might combat groupthink where (regional or national) groups develop different interpretations of "how things are played".4, 5
It’s that time again: time to review the state of the Northern League (the wargames competition scene in the North of England). I managed to participate in three rounds including a top ten finish in one round. This will be my last year for a while as I'm taking a break from ADLG competitions.
In a moment of madness I bought 52, 15 mm Essex riders from eBay. Just the riders, no horses. Thankfully, I had a few spare horses and was able to buy enough extra horses from various sources, all the while kidding myself that it wasn't really a new project.
Of the 52, I identified 12 as early medieval Syrian and Georgian heavy cavalry which I'll use as allied knights for my early 14th century Ilkhanid Mongol army. I have enough already, but a few more won't hurt. They were a bargain after all.
I plan to paint the dozen in batches of two or three, and the first two are underway. It was at this point that I realised I'd soon have to decide what flags to use.
It's been nine years since I started playing Art de la Guerre (ADLG) and I have decided to take a break for the next year or so. I believe this is known as "stepping back" in current newspeak.
I spent quite a bit of money during my trip to "The Other Partizan". My purchases were mostly bargains so my shopping bag was very heavy by the end of the day: I bought lots and lots of 15 mm goodies.
One of my favourites was a £1 bag containing two Essex elephants (from MEPA24). The bag also contained two mahouts, one howdah and two crew. Having painted one fully crewed elephant, I'm wondering what I can do with the second elephant and mahout: suggestions please in the comments.
Here's the latest addition to my Arab Conquest army. I showed some "work in progress" photos a while ago. They were finished shortly thereafter, but I have only just based and photographed them.
In August I wrote a lengthy piece about the BHGS rankings and how strange they are if you're not a frequent competition player.
This was my fourth trip to this competition. I'd even designed my own event t-shirt which I wore with pride on both days. As usual the event attracted some very high ranking UK players
This photo shows Paul Dawson and Rob Taylor in their final round, top table clash. Rob wore his 2024 crown throughout the event but you can see that Paul was pushing hard to take his crown (literally).
This is new: a show report! The last time I went to a "major" show was in 2008 when I helped Mirliton run their trade stand at Salute. So the offer of a lift to this show was more than welcome; as was the £2.00 entry fee for wrinklies (pensioners) like me.
In the end I saw very little of the games on display. If you want lots of pictures of the wonderful games on offer then Google is your friend. I spent most of my time shopping, and bumping into old friends. I also met a celebrity and spotted an influencer.
In February this year, I raised an issue on the Art de la Guerre Forum about furious charge, armour and missile support. A long, somewhat fraught, and very confused thread ensued.
To get an authoritative answer, I decided to contact the author, Hervé Caille. He answered the main questions and the thread became dormant. But for me there were still open questions worth clarifying. After a few more emails to Hervé all the issues have now been resolved.
Looking back at the thread some people had the right idea but some clearly didn't. So what I'd like to do here is explain why people were confused and document the resolution (not least for my own future reference).
This was my third Northern League event in 2025. It was still dark when I got up! Winter is coming. It was also quite cold. After breakfast things had brightened up for my 50 mile trip north on the M6 to Manchester. Thankfully, my journey was trouble free, and I arrived so early that Geoff Pearson hadn't even started putting the tables out.
I learnt here's nothing like a bit of light work to heighten the enjoyment of a pre-event cup of tea. Having said that, I had plenty of time to recover from my labours. The start was delayed; a few people were delayed and then had problems finding a parking space.
Jonathan Freitag runs a long standing blog, the Palouse Wargaming Journal, which has just celebrated its 13th anniversary1. In his latest post2 he mused on the effect blogging has on battle reports building on a post from 20193 which looked at how visitors read battle reports.
I know Jonathan as we are both active on the Society of Ancients forum and from Jonathan's statistical work on the Great Wargaming Survey.
After I'd commented on his anniversary post4, Jonathan replied that he would enjoy seeing my views on the topic of battle reports. A challenge I couldn't resist; even if it does lead to a blogger writing about blogging!
