Greasy Fingers

In 2014 I wrote about wargamers who think their matt varnished figures acquire a shine because the varnish has worn off during play.  In the article “The Unvarnished Truth” I was at pains to point out that this was far more likely to be due to the deposition of sebum adding a nice glossy layer to the figures.

Earlier this week I came across an article from the British Library discussing their policy on using gloves to handle their more precious items.  It provided the following which may be of interest:

“A widely referenced paper, in the conservation field, and several forensic references, refer to fingerprint deposits consisting of 'over 98% water'. Recent analytical and theoretical studies of latent fingerprints, demonstrate that this figure is substantially in error. The deposit from a single human finger touch, whilst varying widely between individuals, is likely to contain less than 20% water and on average be about four micrograms of a mixture of amino acids, salts, primarily sodium and potassium chloride, fatty acids, squalene and many other trace compounds.”

Rules War :: Compilation Released

This booklet collects a series of my blog posts together with an extract of an article I wrote for Miniature Wargames.  They share a theme: the popularity of rules for 15 mm wargames in the ancient, medieval & renaissance periods amongst competition wargamers.

Articles Page Update

The majority of my published articles now have epub versions to download alongside the pdf versions. 

The epub files should be useful to those of you who have a dedicated ereader or an ereader app on your phone or tablet.  They can also be easily read online in a browser if you have the right extension installed.

Miniature Wargames Review Article Now Available

I've added a link to my latest Miniature Wargames review to the articles page. It's a review of the latest book from Pen & Sword about the Mongols:

"When I was told I was going to receive a review copy of this book I must confess I was really pleased.  The Mongols have always fascinated me and I have spent many happy hours building Mongol armies.   I was curious to see what, if anything, new would be revealed in this volume from Chris Peers.

When the book arrived I was immediately struck by how well organised it was.  The inclusion of a full time line, a genealogy for Genghis Khan’s family, and a who’s who’s in thirteenth century Mongolia ensured I would be using the book for reference in the future.

All books on the Mongols suffer from a lack of contemporary sources and the author generally does a good job in explaining how this paucity limits what can be said with certainty"

Review of Genghis Khan And The Mongol War Machine by Chris Peers, Miniature Wargames, 389, 60-61. (original article)

Comments always welcome.

Miniature Wargames Review Article Now Available

I've added a link to my latest Miniature Wargames review to the articles page. It's a review of the latest book in the Osprey Warrior series about the medieval Mamluk 'Askari:

"I was pleased to receive a copy of this book to review. I am in the middle of building a 15 mm Islamic Persian army and have found the arms and armour of the region in the late medieval period both entrancing and confusing in equal measure so a new book was most welcome.

This slim volume is the latest from both Osprey and David Nicolle in the standard Warrior format. The book contains nine short sections including all those you would expect from the format such as introduction; recruitment; and appearance and equipment etc. The text is well supported by a handy, and much needed, glossary and an index."

Review of Mamluk 'Askari 1250-1517 by David Nicolle, Miniature Wargames, 387, 62.

Comments always welcome.

The Blog Survey Results

To begin I'd like to thank every reader who took the time to complete the survey I ran to mark my 300th post. Without you this article would not have been possible.

When I checked, I was surprised to see that I've been running this blog for seven years. As far as the Internet is concerned this is a long time. It's more than enough time for disruptive changes in technology and resultant changes in reader habits. Most notably the time has seen the rise of Twitter and the rise and fall of RSS feeds as ways of staying in touch. So in addition to general feedback I asked a few questions about the techniques people use to follow the blog.

Miniature Wargames Article Now Available

As usual I've added a link to my latest Miniature Wargames article to the articles page. It's all about wargames business models:

"In January this year Guy Bowers, editor of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy, posted an article online about disappearing wargames companies.

He mentioned the part-time nature of many wargames business and provided three examples of businesses, and their ranges, that were no longer available. He closed by advising people to buy while the ranges are available because the company may not survive in the long term.

This set me thinking: why does our hobby suffer in this way with ranges, and small and medium sized manufacturing companies, disappearing on a regular basis?"

The Business Vanishes, Miniature Wargames, 376, 63-66.

As always comments are welcome.

Miniature Wargames Article Now Available

As usual I've added a link to my latest Miniature Wargames article to the articles page. It's all about competition wargaming:

"Competition wargamers! There's quite a few of these about judging by the number of local, national and international tournaments organised each year.

Now some people love competing others loathe it, but competition wargaming remains an established and vibrant part of our hobby.

What I would like to do in this article is look at one small part of the UK competition scene and draw out some long term trends which I hope will be of general interest but before that I would like to say a little about how and why I started to enter competitions."

Competing Views, Miniature Wargames, 374, 43-46

Plus, as the ultimate vanity project, I am considering producing a collection of my published articles in ebook format. Please leave a comment if you'd be interested. To that end I've been playing with Sigil and have converted this article to an ebook for you to download.

Latest Miniature Wargames Article

My latest article has been printed in this month's Miniature Wargames (Issue 376). Here's a taster:

"In January this year Guy Bowers, editor of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy, posted an article online about disappearing wargames companies.

He mentioned the part-time nature of many wargames business and provided three examples of businesses, and their ranges, that were no longer available. He closed by advising people to buy while the ranges are available because the company may not survive in the long term.

This set me thinking: why does our hobby suffer in this way with ranges, and small and medium sized manufacturing companies, disappearing on a regular basis?"

To read the rest of the article you will either have to buy the magazine or wait until I put the article online in a couple of months. In the meantime you can read some of my other articles online.

Latest Miniature Wargames Article

My latest article has been printed in this month's Miniature Wargames (Issue 374). It's about the local competition scene in the North of England. Here's a taster:

"Competition wargamers! There's quite a few of these about judging by the number of local, national and international tournaments organised each year.

Now some people love competing others loathe it, but competition wargaming remains an established and vibrant part of our hobby.

What I would like to do in this article is look at one small part of the UK competition scene and draw out some long term trends which I hope will be of general interest but before that I would like to say a little about how and why I started to enter competitions."

To read the rest of the article you will either have to buy the magazine or wait until I put the article online in a couple of months. In the meantime you can read some of my other articles online.

Miniature Wargames Articles Now Available

I've just added links to the full text of the following articles:

• Why Are Wargames Rules So Complex?, Miniature Wargames, 368, 38-39.
• The Unvarnished Truth, Miniature Wargames, 369, 57-60.

Comments welcome.

Adventures In Cilician Armenia

A few years ago I wrote an article for Slingshot and thought I'd repost it here as a pdf file download with some minor changes to improve the grammar.

The article describes how I went about building a new allied contingent to get more out of my 15mm DBM Mongol Conquest army. This was meant to be a simple addition to an existing set of figures rather than sorting out a new army. As you might expect things did not work out that way.