Moving House

My wife and I have been trying to move house for almost all of this year, but the whole process in England is a nightmare.  As I write, we're still not certain our purchase will ever happen.

One of the by-products is that we have spent, and continue to spend, considerable amounts of time looking at our possessions and thinking “do we need this?” and “how are we going to move that?”.

Now add in the factor that this is a very troubling set of questions for a wargamer, and you should be able to imagine how stressful the entire process is.

Northern League - 2019 Review

It’s that time again. Time to review the state of the Northern League; the wargames competition scene in the North of England. I'm sad to say that this year I did not participate in any of the rounds. Perhaps next year. Who knows?

Compared to 2018, the key features are the continued growth of Art de la Guerre (ADLG) and the complete absence of Field of Glory (FOG). Most importantly the average number of players has risen for the second year in succession and is now at its highest since 2015.

For those of you who'd like even more data there's always the national picture provided by Tim Porter.

Northern League - 2018 Review

It’s that time again. Time to review the state of the Northern League; the wargames competition scene in the North of England. I suppose it is something of a landmark that the data below covers thirteen years of the League.

2018 saw the second year of the increasingly popular Art De La Guerre (ADLG) competition. It also saw the return of the Field of Glory Ancients & Medieval (FOG AM) competition; albeit in a truncated three round format.

ADLG: 2018 Survey Results (Part 3)

This is the third, and final, part of of my look at the results from my recent online survey into ADLG.  The previous posts in the series dealt with:

1. Basic information like age, favourite periods, etc.
2. Views about the rule book and the use of the rules in games.

This post aims to tidy up a few odds and ends.  All the previous data was presented as simple averages and distributions.  I made no attempt to link the answers to the various questions with one another.  In this post I'd like to show you a couple of interesting correlations and discuss what they might mean.

ADLG: 2018 Survey Results (Part 2)

To recap: this survey was run to uncover the reasons behind the current growth in popularity of ADLG in the UK.  After one week the survey had gathered 135 responses of which 81 were from the UK.

Part 1 looked at the basic information like age, favourite periods, etc and provided some interesting trends. This post will look at players ratings of the game overall, the rule book and the use of the rules in games amongst other things.

If you don't want to read the post in full here are the headlines:

• Respondents rated ADLG very highly indeed (4.3/5.0).
• On average people gave three reasons for playing ADLG.
• The top three were all related to financial & practical aspects.
• Being able to play in competitions came fourth.
• 57.6% rated ADLG as of average complexity/simplicity.
• The rule book is easy to read but more difficult to refer to during a game.
• The Lists, Set up, & Movement sections were the easiest to use.
• The Index, Melee & Shooting sections were rated the hardest to use.
• On average people used three sources to get help with ADLG.
• The official FAQ was the most used source of help.

Now without further ado here's Part 2 in all its gory detail ...

ADLG: 2018 Survey Results (Part 1)

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who took the survey both in the UK and elsewhere. My thanks also go to Henry Hyde & Tim Porter for their help in publicizing the survey. 

Our combined efforts have made the 2018 Art de la Guerre (ADLG) survey a great success with 135 responses of which 81 were from the UK. To record the results I plan to split them into two, and possibly three, parts:

1. Basic information like age, favourite periods, etc.
2. People's views on the rule book and the use of the rules in games.
3. Comparison with the DBMM survey of 2009.

The appearance of the third part really depends on how much time I have to devote to the survey.

If you don't want to read the post in full here are the headlines:

• 96.3% of UK ADLG players are over 35 with 44.4% over 55.
• The South East of England is a "hot bed" of ADLG players.
• Scotland & North East England are also well represented.
• The Classical & Late Medieval periods are the most popular.
• 15 mm is the most popular scale (66.7%) with 6% playing 25 mm too.
• Players have played three (2.91) other rules in addition to ADLG.
• DBA, DBM, FOG AM v1 & FOG R were the most played other rules.
• ADLG has succeeded in attracting very disparate groups of players.

Now without further ado here's Part 1 in all its gory detail ...

Translyvanian Hussars

When I was exploring the options for Transylvanian Hussars I bought a few samples of renaissance pistol armed light cavalry from both Irregular Miniatures and Legio Heroica. I still haven't painted the latter but I did do most of the former and this week I finally got a result I am happy with:



First time round I wasn't happy with the red: it was too orange and looked washed out with weak shadows. Re-touching using a new recipe for the red worked a treat. For those "paint nerds" I used Palka Signal Red (32) with a highlight of Plaka mixed with a small touch of Vallejo Model Colour Sunset Red (802) just to tone it down.

Northern League - 2017 Review

Doesn’t time fly? Once again it is time to review the state of the Northern League; the wargames competition scene in the North of England.

2017 was a year of change. The League saw its very first Art De La Guerre (ADLG) competition and no Field of Glory (FOG) competitions at all.  The absence of FOG R was deliberate but that of FOG AM was due to lack of support.

One further change was that ADLG introduced a different format for the day: three 2.25 hour games with small 200 point armies. The DBMM format was unchanged from the standard: two 3.50 hour games with 450 point armies.

A Wargame At Last

Yesterday I finally managed to get a game in!  Graham & I traveled to MAWS' new venue in Eccles, Greater Manchester.  It was the first outing for my new Early TYW German Protestant army complete with a newly painted Transylvanian ally.  The army list I used is below:



Off the table things didn't really go according to plan.

TYW Saxon Infantry

Update: 10:33, Mon 10 April,2023
The flags featured in this post have been unavailable since I closed vexillia in April 2021.  They are too good to disappear altogether so I decided to re-release them as a set via Wargame Vault.

Each set contains 24 flags in five different sizes, from 18 to 35 mm tall, all in one A4 pdf (for the UK & Europe). Just print the pages that fit your miniatures be they 15, 20, 25 or 28 mm.

Original post
These are early Thirty Years War (TYW) Protestant infantry.  My plan is to morph my TYW Danes by painting fresh command stands with different flags.  Until recently I was hand painting the flags but these are the first to use some of the recently updated Electoral Saxon Infantry flags originally released through vexillia.com.

For practical wargaming reasons I'm using the yellow and black striped flags as a surrogate "national" flag. This is to "tie" the units together on the tabletop and to allow me to put two flags with each unit.

Transylvanian Ally Finished

Here they are at last! Thirteen elements to make up a small allied contingent for my latest 15 mm Thirty Years War (TYW) army. The original plan back in August 2016 was to morph my Danish TYW army into a Early TYW German Protestant army with the option of a Transylvanian ally. Amazingly that's what has happened:



The allied commander who can be either Gábor Bethlen (reigned 1613 to 1629) or his "less active" successor George I Rákóczi. The flag details are here and there's more here plus a free sample offer. Figures are Donnington EC03 on TYH08 flanking a Legio Heroica general.

Playing Pieces

There are times when you think you are at the forefront of your hobby. There are times when you think nothing ever changes. There are also times when you think things have changed but you eventually realise they haven't. I've just had one of the latter moments.

When I returned to regular wargaming in the later 80s I quickly made the transition from DBA to DBM. I then followed the masses to DBMM and on to Field of Glory Ancients & Medieval (FOG AM). I also played DBR switching to Field of Glory Renaissance (FOG R) when FOG AM palled.

I stopped playing DBA when the twelve element format started to get repetitive. I moved on for a more complex game. I certainly got that with DBMM: perhaps too complex!

When I switched to FOG AM in 2010 I was looking for a "cleaner" set of rules with more structure and fewer conditional clauses. Until recently I thought I was playing a game far, far removed from DBA. I was wrong. Let me show you why.

Northern League - 2016 Review

Doesn’t time fly? Is it time to review the state of the Northern League, the competition scene in the North of England, once again? It appears so. This year the review is a touch late as the data's only just been released.

In 2016 the trend of steadily declining numbers continued. In last year's review I expressed the hope that the missing FOG AM players would return and the League would spring back to life. Sadly FOG AM continued its decline:

Transylvanian TYW Flag - Free Samples

At the end of September I posted an article about the above. I was very pleased to get a reasonably "historical" flag for my Transylvanian ally general so quickly.

At the end of October I placed an order with Donnington to bulk out the samples I'd bought to a fully fledged allied contingent. The parcel arrived two days ago and the first thing I did was clean up the figure to bear the Transylvanian flag. This meant I had to decide what to do about the flag.

My first plan was to paint the design by hand using a black and white printed version as a guide. I don't own a colour printer. My second plan was to get some flags printed at the local copy shop. This afternoon it was time for plan two. After a phone call, an email and a quick walk round the corner to the copy shop, I had more Transylvanian flags than I knew what to do with. All for a quid!

So Macho?

No not the Sinitta 1985 song but something completely different. 

There’s been a flurry of forum posts about Field of Glory Renaissance (FOG R) this week and some good seems to have come from it. One of the posts asked if the format of competitions could be changed to improve overall attendance.

Smaller Armies

I put in my two pennyworth.  I supported the army classification system used in the Northern League.  I also supported the idea of more games at 650 points on a 5’ by 3’ table.  The benefits of 650 point games are:

• Games are quicker,
• The lower unit count means there are fewer draws,
• Armies are easier, and cheaper, to raise,
• Armies contain a bigger proportion of compulsory troops.

I wasn’t the only one supporting 650 point games.  Tim Porter even suggested refocusing the rules on 650-700 points rather than 800-900.

Field of Glory Renaissance: V1.1?

What a momentous week in the weird world of Field of Glory.  Nik Gaukroger has announced that he is to lead an official, Slitherine endorsed, update project.  In a post on the Slitherine forum he said:

“It is not going to be a v2, it is going to be an update to v1 - so think of it as v1.x. You can decide on what the "x" is when the scope becomes clear.

It is not going to be a new rules book. This, logically, means that a PDF download is the most likely distribution method. No new army list books either before anyone asks.

… the aim is to keep the number of changes within reason - update not wholesale revision is the aim.

… I anticipate a small number of army list revisions may be included but the number … will be kept low

… I do not anticipate any new [army] lists”

He’s already enlisted the help of well known players Kevin Johnson and Stephen Stead to help.  As of this morning there was no indication whether the update would be a free download similar to the errata or not. It appears the dog’s breakfast that is “destroyed artillery” is already on the list of things to look at.

What interests me is how this came about.  There’s been a nearly constant stream of “what should we change posts” dating back two or three years so why now? 

Transylvanian Renaissance Hussars

Another simple post.  I bought these as samples at Britcon as I am think of building a Transsylvanian ally for an Early German Protestant army of the TYW.



They are 15 mm figures from Donnington and I really enjoyed painting them.  The codes are EC04 & 06 on TYH06.  I’ll be using them as “Bow, Sword” Light Horse.

I particularly liked how the faces turned out on these figures:

Ottoman Akinji

A simple post today.

The weather is good and the lighting is even better so I took some photos of one of my latest mini-projects.  As always click the image for the “warts and all” version.



These are 15 mm Roundway figures: RKOT12 & 13 to be precise. They should see service in both ADLG medieval & FOG Renaissance armies.

Transylvanian TYW Flag

Regular readers may have spotted that I’m contemplating painting a Transylvanian ally for use with an Early German Protestant army for the Thirty Years War (TYW).

I’m so keen on this mini-project I’ve already painted all the samples I bought at Britcon and I’ve moved on to considering my next purchase(s).  Amongst these will be the figures for a general and his entourage.  Obviously, aside from a white horse, he needs a suitable standard so I began looking for a suitable image.  I only wanted an idea as I usually paint my flags by hand.

As it turned out Wikipedia was all I needed.  An article on the Translylvanian coat of arms provided a concise history of the arms during the period and some useful pictures.  Sadly, all the pictures were before 1597 or after 1665; nothing during theTYW.  There was however a brief description of the arms in between.

Help Wanted & Current Projects

As regular readers will already have guessed, I am on something of a wargaming sabbatical.  I haven’t played a game since 06 March and my plan to play in July’s Stoke Challenge didn’t come to pass as the Field of Glory Renaissance (FOGR) competition was cancelled due to a lack of players.

The time since March hasn’t been wasted.  I have steadily increased my painting output and have even decided on my next mini-project: I’d like to create a 17th century Transylvanian allied contingent in 15 mm for the early part of the the Thirty Years War.

I’ve been doing a bit of research online and I’ve got  a very rough idea of what the various lancers and light horse will look like but I’m struggling to find suitable figures.  This is where you come in: any suggestions for figures and links to online resources would be really helpful.  What do you have?

Why a TYW Transylvanian ally?  Well it’s a result of circuitous (wargamers?) logic.