A family life full of distractions continues. But there have been glimmers of hope with a hobby paint brush being clutched in hand on several occasions. Sadly not enough glimmerings that any completed work can be shown to The dear readership. At least not yet.
Archivist at work
However there have been some hobbyish endeavours that are up for public viewing. The efforts to save old archival material from the original website & blog to the new website …
http://vonpeterhimself.com/index.html
… continue. The articles sucked back from the past as if via some twisted time machine are …
- An account of the great and most exciting events at Partizan MMIX and Calpe Towers
- The Tank Museum
- The Eagle of the 45e Régiment de Ligne
- In which The Son & heir spends a week on a Hobby Camp at Warhammer World … and wants to do it again!
- Napoleonic Memoire: Battle of Waterloo 200th anniversary refight
The last on the list is a little different in that it was originally posted on this here blog and not the soon to be deprecated original blog & website. I decided to replicate it on the website anyway where it is a little more discoverable. The same may happen to other reports.
Above: Napoleon model 2015 aka Steve Sands from the Waterloo 200th anniversary refight
Whilst recreating the old articles von Peter himself had to delve into his photo library to get at the original imagery. And whilst doing so many a photographic memory was uncovered. Originally used in January 2010 and from the “lets add hilarious cartoon style captions to the image” period comes the following image. If memory serves this was from an early trial Black Powder game using Austrians vs. Greg’s Russians. The Austrian’s proved a little deaf to the orders issued by von Peter himself. The accent is terrible and the humour debatable but it seemed amusing at the time.
An ancient gamer
No this is not a reference to the age of von Peter himself – how rude! – but rather that von Peter himself recently played a wargame set in the ancient period at the home of Terrys Garage Gaming. Sort of two ancient periods really as the game saw a Carthaginian army pitted against a slightly later in history Early Imperial Roman army. The discrepancy was irrelevant as the idea was for a get together, a quick re-acquaintance with the Hail Caesar rules, and to have a damn fine time doing it.
von Peter himself volunteered to be a Roman for the day which was a little unfortunate as the Romans came a distinct second. A personal highlight was blundering on the first turn with the command containing all the legionnaires and seeing them depart off the back of the table … and not managing to make it back on to the table for a further two turns. So much for the obviously mythical Roman Army organisation and efficiency. A fine example to set the auxilliary troops who did well initially but in the end were well and truly beaten. Even a heroic charge by the Auxillary Prussian* cavalry withered in the end for limited gains. A final melee that included stomping elephants rounded out the game in a thoroughly you loose sort of way.
* at least von Peter himself likes to think of them that way. There’s a fair chance the cavalrymen were Germanic you understand. 😎
Many were the errors made – both in rules terms and tactical decisions – but the lunch was great and the chatter informative and entertaining. In particular the conversation on slender plastic pikes and spears, their expected longevity and potential alternatives was of interest. Thanks to fellow Roman Garage Gaming Terry for organising and hosting and Craig and Alan for the beating they provided.
Above: earlyish in the game. The two units of auxillia have shown up the rather disappointing legionaries by disposing of some Spanish infantry. They were to give a good account of themselves though they would eventually “get theirs” including a stomping by elephants.
Lead by their brave commander Seydlitzus the Roman Prussian – see above – auxiliary cavalry on the right have bravely charged all ahead of them even though they sadly lack any supports. The unit on the left were to push back their Spanish opponents into the impassable terrain and so broke them but were then flanked and eventually driven from the field. The unit on the right found their odds against the supported infantry a bridge too far and were driven back though they remained in play.
As a scratch game the Army of Carthage were sadly short of troops so they did what any Carthaginian army would do and hired some mercenaries. In this case some Roman cavalry and a Roman general. Were not the Romans forever their own worst enemies?!
Gird thine loins – The Great Wargaming Survey 2019
This years iteration of The Great Wargaming Survey – The Great Wargaming Survey 2019 – is upon us. From the horses mouth …
Dear history fan!,
The sixth edition of the Great Wargaming Survey is here again, running till the end of August.
As always, we’re asking you to take just five minutes of your time to let us know what YOU think about wargaming. We’ll be using the results to try and track trends and changes in the hobby, with the results published online in text, in videos and via podcasts.
Besides our undying gratitude for completing the survey, everyone who completes the survey gets a €6.50 gift certificate for our webshop which can be used to buy a small range of unique models made available by Rubicon Models, Wargames Atlantic and Sarissa Precision, or almost anything else from the Karwansaray Publishers webshop. Moreover, you’ve also got the chance to win a number of interesting prizes, including boxed sets, books from various publishers and of course subscriptions to Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy or our other magazines. So why not take a few minutes now to help us out– it’s fast, fun and might net you some free goodies!
Kind regards
Guy Bowers
Editor, Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy
For the record von Peter himself completed the survey in around seven minutes after which two emails promptly arrived – one containing the 15% discount code and the other the €6.50 gift certificate. Go on. You know you want to do it.
And finally another rediscovered captioned photograph from the archives at absolutely no cost to The dear reader. What an absolute bargain!
Enough.
Until we meet again …
Salute
von Peter himself